Walking Disaster

If, like me, you’ve found yourself in a TikTok/Reels spiral of people cooking or cleaning, you’ve probably come across this new trend of creators walking you through a day in their lives. Since this is the least realistic content I’ve found so far, I thought I would do my version aka the opposite of anything they show. Cue the weird whisper voiceover: 

Come with me to spend a day in the life of a corporate girly! If you hear or see me mention habit stacking, just know that I hate myself more than you do because that’s not a real thing. That’s just called a morning routine. 

Instead of starting my day at 5 am with a gentle, artificial sunrise alarm clock, I am blasted awake by the screechiest alarm my iPhone can provide. It is not on my clean and decluttered nightstand rather it is in the farthest corner of my room to force me to get out of bed and walk over to turn it off. Still, there’s a 50/50 chance that I will go back to sleep, so my day officially starts anytime between 6 and 6:30. 

I don’t live in a penthouse paid for by my parents or my feet, and I don’t immediately make my white and beige bed. Instead of simply going downstairs to a trendy complex gym, I drive away from my janky home in a jankier neighborhood to either a 24-Hour Fitness sure to give me some form of fungal disease, or my OrangeTheory class, where I can workout next to the neighborhood housewives. 

Now it’s time to shower and start working at 7:30, not 9. Who the fuck starts work at 9 am?! I have never had a full-time job that begins after 8 am. Don’t forget to give a fit check on the office chic outfit of the day! That would be much better than changing back into my pajamas or the same sweats I’ve been wearing for three days. My morning consists of clearing nonsense from my inbox before having a fourth interview for a new job before I start clearing nonsense from my second job’s inbox since your girl is trying to survive living in an occupied country and needs multiple jobs to do so. Then, I go back to getting actual work done for my primary job during a Zoom call for the Quarterly Town Hall where the boss can lie to us for an hour straight about how the company is strong despite industry funding losses and firing 13 people in one day. After that, it’s time to spend 20 minutes on job 2 teaching my GenX coworker about screen sharing in preparation for the afternoon’s webinar he (aka me) is hosting. 

All this is done from my home office, also known as the desk in my living room, and not in some hipster industrial space like what these influencers are “working” from. Do you want me to believe you have a real job when you’re just typing away on your unplugged laptop in some Starbucks alternative that just looks like some dystopian cafeteria? Not one additional monitor or wireless mouse in sight? You don’t have a real job.

Lunchtime for influencers is a vegan, meal-prepped Lunchable eaten exactly at noon. Mine is forgotten about until around 2 pm when I decide to try my latest Pinterest recipe paired with more tortilla chips than I care to admit. 

Time to go back to work after the non-aesthetically pleasing lunch. The influencers are probably still answering the promotion emails they got from Revolve and editing whichever 30-second StitchTok they spent eight hours on yesterday. Meanwhile, my afternoon consists of hosting a webinar for job 2, while simultaneously quoting for job 1. My Celsius has been nearly shotgunned at this point, in contrast to the influencer’s one espresso shot mid-morning. 

Their day ends at exactly 5, with time to go grocery shopping for dinner and get home in time to cook and eat. Their “jobs” salary provides them with enough money so they don’t have to buy in bulk and can grocery shop every day? I, on the other hand, consider myself done any time I have less than four emails in my inbox that need responding to around 3:30 – 4. Time to lay despondent for an hour on my couch or bed too tired to do anything, but far too caffeinated for anything else. I am also too caffeinated to sleep anytime in this century, so it’s time to go to run club to ensure my ability to sleep before midnight. 

Three miles later I’m ready for a light snack and beer before I quickly rinse and sleep at nine (at the latest). I’m not cool enough to eat my just-made dinner accompanied by prebiotic soda on the floor (why is it always on the floor in front of the couch and not on the couch itself?) before doing an everything shower. Those are also only supposed to be once a week, by the way! Their night ends around 10:30 after cleaning their whole apartment and editing content on their iPad before putting it away on the matching bedside table that also matches their Stanley Cup. 

In all seriousness, these pastel pink and beige videos are somehow giving #tradwife and MLM vibes at the same time. Is this the content we have instead of Charlie Kirk or Theo Von? I feel like we can do better than minimalist content sponsored by WeWork and Olaplex.