Video Call at 2 AM Because Time Zones Are Colonial

sprint planning at 2 a.m. because the us team "can't move." my mother asked why i'm awake. i said global company. she said global exploitation. not wrong. drank chai. shipped the feature. identity is also which hours of your life you sell cheap. video call background was professional. actual background was laundry i will fold at midnight. the performance of competence travels faster than the competence some days. i am not complaining exactly. i am documenting. there is a difference when your identity is always partially translated. the commute home switched languages twice without me noticing until the cashier said something i answered in the wrong register. code-switching is muscle memory with emotional tax. my family group chat blew up about dinner plans i cannot attend because overtime ate the evening. belonging is sometimes asynchronous.

Sprint planning at 2 a.m. because the US team cannot move.

My mother asked why I am awake. I said global company. She said global exploitation. Not wrong.

I drank chai. Shipped the feature.

Identity is also which hours of your life you sell cheap, which meetings you join with camera off so they do not see the dark circles, which version of professionalism requires you to sound alert while your neighborhood sleeps.

I am good at the job. I resent the map that makes my morning their afterthought.

I do not need a moral. I need an honest next step. Sometimes that is rest. Sometimes it is showing up again before you feel ready.

The story continues in the body after the words stop. Shoulders lower, or they do not. Tomorrow arrives with its own list. I am still here, which is not nothing.

I do not need a moral. I need an honest next step. Sometimes that is rest. Sometimes it is showing up again before you feel ready.

Know someone who should read this?