Efficient

Grace Daly

He sits across the laminated desktop from me, explaining concepts (in e x c r u c i a t i n g detail) my résumé clearly shows I already understand:

Kaizen Industrial Engineering Agile

SCRUM Continuous Improvement

Optimization Lean 6 Sigma Fail Fast

I thank him for the lesson. I smile earnestly.

Then, I continuously improve my jaw so it unhinges like a snake’s and swallow him whole, my colon optimizing him until he is his leanest, most efficient self:

A piece of shit.

Grace Daly (she/her) is an author with an invisible chronic illness. Before her disability prevented her from holding down a “real job”, she was a project manager who would often be told during yearly performance reviews that her work was wonderful but she was too “aggressive”. She lives near Chicago, Illinois and writes even when her pain is flaring up because if capitalism has taught her anything, it’s that she must always be productive. She can be found at GraceDalyAuthor.com, or @GraceDalyAuthor for Twitter and Instagram.