Carisa H-K, Author at Tales from Digital Deliria by Carisa H-K.

Digital Deliria Dawns

Carisa H-K on April 20, 2022

Small bursting bubbles around the neck. A fizzy haze on the skin. Frog is in the hot tub, cozy and complacent.

So began the Digital Deliria, in converted warehouses, offices and homes, where our own bodies produced a caffeine of email responsiveness. Like inconsequential ping pong balls, back and forth across the net: we hang on for that tone of bing as they come in, and swish as they go out.

It’s a physiological video game. A slot machine. A digital Whac-A-Mole, where replies and response flew. Why pick up the phone when 20 volleyed emails are more efficient than listening to the drone of your fellow human?

Where non-ergonomic chairs once swiveled, the nerves now pinch. Forearms and fingers go numb, after 12 hours rolling the mouse. Feeling the ball twitch over the pad, dust collects and grinds the x and y axes. A mechanical break from the digital universe exists only to clear the dust, affording a more precise pointer position on your screen to the world.

Now thrones turn to cradling cocoons where the body can no longer manage itself, and feet once valiant on the floor must now sit on a small riser to keep blood from pooling. Dust can no longer impede the roller ball, as a laser shoots out from under your hand instead. No need to stop.

Until once we find a bee, admired for their busy ADHD throttle. Elevated, even. Moving from the chair, flying across the keyboard, flitting to the whiteboard, sprinting to their cohort next door.

The whiteboard holds a figment of a plan. The email holds an inert communication element. A sticky holds a fleeting note for a person 5 doors down.

Contradicting themselves every 7 seconds, speaking in partial sentences as the mind races ahead, they are 3 chess moves down another question that no one articulated, yet lives partially baked somewhere in the back of the bee’s mind. There are problems to solve! Do we know what they are?

For every inarticulate problem, there’s a speedy solution. Well-contemplated, it is not. So it’s one without ramifications. Just do it! What’s wrong with you for not buzzing like me?

The bee then we discover is a June bug — bouncing against the net at triple speed. Aimless and then found with one thorny leg stuck in the mesh. Joyous in its entrapment in a solution. But, if stuck on it too long, could lead to a feast for the next morning’s bird.

So one may leave the room on this day, anxious, for the lack of pure direction. Struggling to piece together disjointed elements into what once felt like a woven whole.

In the distance, you hear the storm siren test on a sunny day. It lends a misplaced feeling of disturb — because you already emerged from the tornado. So instead, might you expect a missile to hit any moment, given the details you missed in the whirl?

Yet, all still is business as usual. You grate: Were you too slow? Or they too fast and inarticulate? A missile to you may have always been the plan.

So now we devolve into the basest of instincts — attention seeking, in the business of the aperiodic reinforcement of validation, that gets fewer and farther between. But it’s enough to live another day. We distance into an expanding universe, as real relationships dissolve.

Our dark matter fills the voids in between, as our attention shrinks to ever smaller segments. We bite at the thick, yet vacant air for the next morsel.

The bee we become, the rewired, vibrates past the frog’s sticky tongue. But frog pays little attention, remaining absorbed only with its own circumstance. Today the mist feels warmer around its neck, as the bubbles increase in speed and frequency. But it stays.

As always, I hope you enjoyed this and it brightened your day.

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Traveling Empaths

Carisa H-K on March 28, 2022

“Oh no, no,” the Cincinnatian says. “We don’t need a taxi – our client’s office is just four blocks away.”

Peering out of the hotel lobby windows revealed piles of snow, covered in black soot, in the pre-dawn grey. Still, the Cincinnatian’s Texas colleague thought – well, it couldn’t be *that bad* to walk a short distance.

“It’s too early anyway. It would take longer for the taxi to arrive than for us to walk,” the local continued to rationalize.

A logical argument for someone who wanted to be on-time for their client’s forthcoming website meeting, to be sure. But for an empath, it would’ve taken two seconds to realize that her Texan colleague had no winter coat: only an unlined suit jacket and corresponding pant. A summer weight suit.

And, that the suit would serve no match to 25 degrees and a 1 degree wind chill.

An empathetic soul, the Cinci lady was not. So with a bluster of wind through the hotel’s revolving door, they departed for a 6 A.M. snowy trudge.

The toes were the first to go, housed only in dress leather boots and thin socks. As the frigid signal from feet to brain muddied into numbness, the fingers then stiffened next from cold.

Wind to rival “The Hawk” of downtown Chicago at once blew hairs away from crisped ears and simultaneously twisted tendrils around the head.

By the time they got to the client’s offices, a river of snot ran from the colleague’s upper lip to the lower. A cloud of once coiffed but now knotted hair hung in clumps around her head given the intense, bone-biting gusts. And within minutes she had to make her first appearance in front of the client.

In a coughing fit, she excused herself to the restroom in utter frozen embarrassment. Doubting why she spent 45 minutes to prepare her face and hair in front of a toasty hotel room mirror, she found herself in front of a new mirror, transformed. The fright of red numbed nose and a thin layer of blown snow on the shoulders mocked her. She proceeded to comb through her hair with frozen fingers, trying to regain warmth and breath between bronchitis hacks.

Flash forward to a decidedly different time, of SoCal heat and a hazy scent of burning brush hanging in the air. The boss lingers at the client’s conference table. Chatting in endless sidebars about mobile apps, he remained confident in the pliability of LA traffic to allow passage to the airport in time.

Why so confident? Because even if the traffic caused delays, Bossman and his favored colleague had their tickets to first class and a security line bypass.

Was Bossman an empath to the one lowly infrequent traveler in their party? – nah. With little consideration to his coach dweller sans TSA jump-the-line privileges, the journey to the airport begins nary an hour and a half before flight time.

Arriving at the airport 30 mins prior to flight time, coach dweller gulps at the security line, which winds roughly a half mile through a corridor.

With barely a backward glance, the blessed colleagues scoot through a side security entrance. Coach lady then has no choice but to size up the first 5 parties in the long security line. Which one looks the most relaxed and amiable to hear her beg and plead to cut in the line?

After imploring to about 15 parties from the front of the line on back, finally she negotiated her way in front of the rest of the poor souls. By the time she made it through security, she went full sprint toward her plane. With 5 minutes until takeoff and 35 gates to go, her bladder now felt like a bouncing ball full of jello with every thudding footfall. Her right boob popped out of its cup: figure control devices stood no match for the momentum of a heavy bag swinging from the opposite shoulder.

Entering the plane then with sweat dripping off the brow and damp pits, she passed by the two colleagues snug and sound in their first class seats, nursing their second Bloody Marys and dipping fingers into ramekins of toasted nuts.

She on the other hand, the girl once frozen in snot and now drenched in perspiration, awaited her final insult: it’s far too late to have a place for her bag in the overhead, of course.

With feet crowded atop the bag stuffed under the seat in front of her, she could only think that time had run out to relieve a now bursting bladder before takeoff. Please hurry and turn that God-awful seat belt light off, she prayed.

Want to “win friends and influence people”?

The moral of this story is to consider – what additional thought can you give to your fellow human being or colleague today? What is their circumstance? What would you feel if you were in their shoes? Based on that, would you behave and plan differently?

Another moral of the story? Knowing the high likelihood of NOT finding an empath in your midst, what can YOU do to be more prepared? That may just be the most irritating lesson of all.

As always, I hope you enjoyed this and it brightened your day.

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Keeping the Creative Director Awake (And Other Business Objectives)

Carisa H-K on February 21, 2022

8:30 a.m. on a Tuesday: Far too early for the Creatives who stayed up until 1 a.m. the night before. Honing their craft did not generally occur between 9-5.

Still without fail, the morning meeting commences around a ping pong table. Under normal circumstances, the blood might pump with a vigorous game. Instead, the ping pong table in this trendy office doubled as an affordable conference room table. Team players in the room awkwardly pulled up chairs, where elbows barely reached the table edge. Those in the middle found their pens and laptops soon tangled in the net.

There were plenty of reasons to “pull away” from the table, literally. From both an attention and a physical perspective… it just didn’t work. Within minutes, proof of this fact emanated from the head of the table, where the Creative Director sat.

Inability to pull up close enough and actually work at the table gave a “pass” to those otherwise expected display leadership. The Creative Director’s eyes grew heavy, as the nearby Project Manager expounded upon dull matters of deadlines, delivery and client expectations. A few moments later, the eyes closed and the head slumped to the side. The head proceeded to bob for the next 8 minutes. In the 9th minute, when the droning finally ceased, thick breaths remained as the only sound in the room. Thankfully the Technology Director broke the awkward sounds of slumber with their own narrative.

Did the Creative Director deserve to be at the head of the table, disrespecting the whole group with his snoozes?

Maybe, maybe not.

To be sure, the meeting material stretched and lingered, dry as the cinnamon challenge. The unlucky team member speaking through the siesta found themselves enriched with a new lesson learned. Unless you’re presenting Creative, Creatives are not interested. Least of all, are they interested in project plans. For heaven’s sake, speak your team’s language!

But was the Creative Director’s behavior acceptable? Seemingly so, since witness of the group and possibly related peer feedback never led to any substantive change. Most mornings the scenario repeated, until “keeping the Creative Director awake” simply became one of many unwritten Business Objectives. It seemed a reasonable goal, fitting of an often unserious place, where the group might’ve just preferred a game of ping pong to start their day. But alas, the websites still needed to be built.

So then, how DO you keep attention?

First, if Creative Directors are made responsible for presenting, there’s a pretty good chance they’d stay awake. Pop in a couple agenda items to present Creative, with bite-size project plan snippets in between, and you may meet your new Business Objective.

Second, in hindsight (with the benefit of empathy gained over many future years of experience), you might just purchase a daily double espresso for the poor fella. After all, he was a single dad with young kids at home. Imagine a vomiting youngster, disturbing his slumber between the irreplaceable golden hours of 1-6 a.m. The Project Manager would’ve been sleepy too.

As always, I hope you enjoyed this and it brightened your day.

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When Sexism Stopped

Carisa H-K on January 17, 2022

Can you escape the unending sense of exclusion, denial? When you’re shut down? Or deemed unworthy of expressing an opinion, let alone that opinion being valued? In short: When did sexism actually stop?

The first answer is yes, you can escape. The degree of “-ic’s”, “-ist’s” and “-ism’s” encountered in life seem to be based on one thing… and it might not be what you expect.

Everyone is Embroiled

No matter where your think others are in the “strata”, you would be wrong.

Consider an acquaintance, a Broadway star, who just won the Tony award. You’d think they were at the pinnacle of their career, right? The height of achievement? You would be wrong. They were at the end of their career, as their hit show spread across the country. Other cast members proliferated, playing their role. The role they brought to life could be duplicated and copied, eliminating their relevance. They were left with nothing.

Welcome to a wakeup call. We are all embroiled… all struggling.

Were they victim to an “-ic”? Stripped of their worth by a transphobic or homophobic threat? Possibly. But more likely we find ourselves at a transition point. Once it was one Nation, under God. Now it is one World, under the Elites. And even the Elites have their own kind of mess.

Change You

Our lives are full of slights, not belonging, dismissals, and feeling “less than”. Worse, it’s often about something you can’t control – like your sex.

We find ourselves physically bruised, or attacked verbally. Molested on the school bus, in stores, or in church. Places that should be safe, but are not. It comes from those who see themselves as “above” it all, seeking to belittle you so they can feel strong. We find them both in and out of the workplace.

The hardest lesson is powerful yet revolting – possibly the greatest universal truth on the planet. You can’t control others but you can control you.

Let’s take that a step further: You can’t change yourself, but you can change your position (maybe).

Or maybe not, if you don’t have the interest, diligence, or means to get the skills.

When Dismissal is Good

Dismissal often means you haven’t done enough. Haven’t achieved enough. You haven’t put in enough time, effort, or thought.

Did someone not respond to your request? Then you know it could be you. It opens the door of opportunity, to discover what you could do to change the dynamic.

As for the real ic’s, ist’s, and ism’s: You will know when the situation is not right. Deep, deep in your guts. So, leave the situation. There’s nothing like competition for talent. Organizations that lose your talent will decline.

However, possibly despite better judgment, I never left when I encountered situations such as this. Interestingly, it turned out that the offending parties left the situation before I did. Whether it was a firing, a layoff, or just an all-around relationship dissolution, they disappeared. Call it what you will – luck, blessedness, instant karma. But vistas opened as every dreg fell out and away from my path. Dogged stick-with-it-ness, then, may not be a bad option.

Where Technology Comes In

Working in technology is no different. It’s a place where many women and girls still do not gravitate. Lament runs deep when so few women, if any, apply for my open positions. Further, that only some women of color apply (not a fully diverse landscape of women of color). Why is that?

Still, it’s a blessing that we may find the most diversity in our lives via the workplace. And, we’re blessed to experience working together so well professionally. So why not apply the same “professional” approach to every situation? Could we treat each other like coworkers, at work as well as in life? Because aren’t we all on this planet working at something?

If not our careers, we’re “working” on ourselves, our kids, our survival. We’re helping others. We’re making the world go ‘round. And counterbalancing good with the opposing forces we struggle against. We each have our role in a workforce of humanity.

So, When Did Sexism Stop?

With position. Upon reaching a certain level of experience and title, of output and accomplishment, it stopped. Prior to that, daily life meant the dismissal of contributions and the brain. And that was by people who included references to excrement in their web startup company names and filled their code with the same, no less. Needless to say: it didn’t say much about them.

But too personally, despite logic, some part of you may still believe you’re less. And well, maybe you were saying something less intelligent. Maybe you did need more experience.

But you soon learn that on this planet, the key is resolute tenacity.

Now, Work.

And work. Then work some more.

Years of toil.

Till it feels like your eyes might bleed and your brain might melt.

Till you’re worn down to a nub, and can’t get your being to squeeze out another drop.

On the caffeinated overnights and terrorizing days, you’re there.

In a place where you get nothing: no riches, no spoils.

Yet, a place where you might just catch whiffs of belonging, satisfying your basic human need.

Is it worth it? Will you fight for it? Will you Rolling Stone-it, and not always get what you want, but get what you need? Will you Dolly-it, and pour yourself a cup of ambition? Will you Kanye-it, this week mopping floors, and next week it’s the fries?

It is worth it. Because the ic’s are just ick. The ism’s create schisms. And the ist’s – well, they’re good to Resist.

As the ic’s, ism’s, and ist’s fade, what you have left is you, as it has always been. Look out for number 1. Prove number 2 wrong.

And just maybe, the riches and spoils will come later. If you’re lucky.

As always, I hope you enjoyed this and it brightened your day.

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The Holiday Party and the Layoff

Carisa H-K on December 19, 2021

In the early 2000’s remained a breed of web development agencies who had it all. The modern offices, the top-name clients, and the upwardly striving and oft difficult-to-appease staff. However a little alcohol went a long way, working like balm on the run-roughshod employees. It helped as they reeled from long hours and often brutal travel schedules.

As a reward, the holiday party was expected: a bit of fun, made more or less awkward depending on where you were in the creative-to-technology / cool-to-nerdish spectrum.

Arriving at said event, you find yourself approaching a bombed-out warehouse on the seedier side of town. Once you overcame your fear of the valet attendant single-handedly jockeying a mess of cars, you entered a wonderland.

In a party womb of rich curtains and plush velvet couches, you go into orbit around a beckoning sun: the full service bar. Gazing at modern decorations, fuchsia and blue uplighting, and lavishly catered food stations, you felt you had “arrived”.

Sinking into a parlor-style daybed with your significant other, you twirl the fringe of a nearby metallic string curtain. Across the room, laughter emanates from the photo booth area, as team members don props like feather boas, oversized glasses, and jaunty hats. While on the opposite end, a professional photographer snaps pictures of smiling faces and fit figures in their cocktail-attire best.

The cavernous space gets louder as the booze flows, the live music begins, and costumed performers meander around for your entertainment. As the volume grows intolerable, you take respite in an adjacent room. Settling back in, you enjoy a much lower-key piano bar experience complete with sing-along.

This party even has a name and logo — designed by some on-the-bench graphic designer — emblazoned on your departing swag bag: Indulge.

You couldn’t help but leave the event with a glow, thinking: how lucky I am to work here. Indeed: you did Indulge. But then again, you might also constrain, inhibit and stifle shortly after.

Because alas, much like your glow necklaces the morning after the rave, the color and light fades by the next morning. To be more specific, the layoffs followed almost to the day, on January 2, like clockwork. The first to go?: that benched designer who designed the party logo.

Why?, it left us wondering. Why would the company spend their money on such a lavish affair every year, followed by having to layoff workers immediately following the holiday? Couldn’t that money have been used to at least extend a job or two?

And there you have the fallacy of the holidays. From a corporate perspective, the holiday months are simply “no-go” time for layoffs. If you layoff then, you simply look like a Scrooge.

And then, there’s the “money suck” of the holiday party your employees come to “expect”. The expense that in effect turns you into a Scrooge right after the bar is closed. Double whammy.

The result is just another source of sarcasm and distrust for the Gen-X’ers who lived the early digital boom days or other popular careers.

It made an impact. Now that we’re the Directors, VPs and C-Suiters, we make the decisions. Perhaps that is why the “company holiday party” is no more. We learned that we’re satisfied and well-served by considering less ostentatious and more heartfelt holiday celebrations.

As always, I hope you enjoyed this and it brightened your day.

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Christmas Launches (And Other Holiday Stories)

Carisa H-K on November 22, 2021

In the chilled air, a bluish wash of snowy dawn bathed her through the Windows. The color accented her white bathrobe. A sense of quiet anticipation filled the space.

Was this Christmas morning? It may have been, except in this case the bluish glow emanated from a computer. And in the pre-dawn darkness, a tense neck hunched over the device. A topping of bed head poked from the bath robe.

Imagine the holidays of your dreams. Picture home-prepared meals, enjoyed around a hearth with loving family.

But wait. In actuality, what is the feast you are consuming? Perhaps, it… is… pizza.

The ultimate holiday treat, and reality of many! Who knew?

But all of this required website launches. Every holiday, the work ensued:

Share the Deal.

Sell the Pizza.

And so on Thanksgiving, a website was baking in the oven instead of the turkey.

And instead of stuffing the stockings, we got online pizza deals aplenty.

Maybe in actually it WAS giving. A giving of time to the corporate empire, to in-turn pass along the ultimate holiday gift — the freedom to get pizza online if you want, even at the oddest of times.

But here’s where it gets good.

I had a partner in this crime against the holidays.

Donning designer sunglasses, this petite diffuser of team aggressions stood tall. It was she and me where rubber met the road. She: the height of style. Me: the black-wearing nerd component. We: the ultimate managers. Tag teaming every holiday meant focused conversations:

“You take Thanksgiving.”

“I take Christmas.”

It was the only way to maintain sanity. Yet the costs in time and stress mattered little: We had each other’s back.

In work and life, that is an amazing feeling: taking the sting off the pilfering of personal and family time during the holiday season.

So today —

Celebrate those who have your back. Those who are willing to put action behind it, not just words. And as always, Happy Holidays!

As always, I hope you enjoyed this and it brightened your day.

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Interlude: A Future Use Case

Carisa H-K on October 29, 2021

Did it occur to you that Big Tech knows more about you than your family? Friends? Spouse perhaps? More than anyone?

It knows everywhere you go. Everything you do. All your interests, all you aspire to. All your vices, all your gaps. All your accomplishments, and your challenges too.

So why wouldn’t Big Tech be best positioned to please you, appease you, protect you, diffuse you, validate you? Create the supreme sense of belonging for you?

Yet, it is silent as God.

So far.

Consider a Metaverse* Use Case:

Your phone transmits that you are in the bounds of a hospital.

The Platform leaves virtual flowers on your virtual doorstep and words of encouragement.

The Platform then proceeds with similar actions each day your phone continues to detect your presence in the facility. It offers you the small kindness of “visiting” you every day for the duration of your stay.

In the absence of any actual human being visiting and supporting you in the hospital, would you not begin to trust and appreciate The Platform more than fallible, self-absorbed human beings? The ones not present?

On the flip side, would you become more reliant on The Platform for emotional placation? Would this continue to stoke the cycle of the self-absorbed?

In this world, the dimension will finally shift away from imperfect Human-to-Human social, in favor of Human-to-Platform social. The Platform then is the all-knowing and all-seeing.

* P.S. If anyone creates this world, Metaverse or otherwise, send your license fee to Digital Deliria please 🙂

As always, I hope you enjoyed this and it brightened your day.

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Environment Makers

Carisa H-K on September 29, 2021

In the dark, the door clicks, swings and closes with a slight squeak. Padding feet brush the concrete until familiar fingers find the workbench light switch. Returning to her earlier project, she bends over the cool and dusty counter, light illuminating her silhouette. Tinkering with tiny tools, her neck hunches in concentration.

Frankensteining the previously defunct elicits a precious (and nearly extinct) jewel. Soon, she lifts the CD-ROM drive from the workbench, gently with two hands, like lifting a baby fresh from the womb. However, this one is soon installed back into another kind of womb: the creamy grey Dell Win ’98 tower case.

Pressing the computer “on” button, she hears the drive whir to life – a successful repair. Next, she holds the drive button until the tray rattles and protrudes. Oh-so-carefully, to avoid scratches or fingerprints, she places the hallowed CD-ROM disk into the tray and pushes the drive shut with a finger eager for the next click.

After several minutes of loading, she begins playing the sacred game:

In the first environment, she finds a large conference room with purple glass table. With each click along hotspots on the floor, she discovers that her mouse can plant grass around the table. She watches it grow, filling the room with green.

In another room, everything is clickable. She clicks tables, chairs, and even a conference room phone. All of the objects flip, rotate, and become inexplicably glued to the ceiling.

Moments later, she wanders Zen-like into a sea of endless wooden work cubes. With a few swipes of the mouse, her avatar spins in a circle. Around her forms a yurt, the spiritual center of the “community”.

Tired from exploration, she finally enters an empty room and sits in mid-air. A cozy massage chair forms around her body, and her avatar drifts to sleep.

Somewhere in another dimension, years earlier yet coinciding with the game play, a “real” environment forms. The green grass is there, as well as the upside-down room. The yurts hold team gatherings, and the one-on-ones are done in massage chairs. The charmed environment spawned digital development, full of people and politics, of layoffs and stepping stones, of long hours and gadabouts.

They recently graduated from the Warehouse Zen Garden and Front Deck, and doubled-down with a quirky office space creative enough to bolster a belief: they were The Premier Digital Agency. (Or if nothing else, proximity to a chic neighborhood meant the power would never again go out.)

Yet, none of them knew of the strings pulled by the distant act of ancient CD-ROM game play. And so, the Digital Deliria Puppet Master continues to play...

This story was inspired by another “sacred” game, one unlike any other created in the CD-ROM era. “Eve” was part socio-gender commentary, part art exhibit, and part meditative garden manifested in the technology world. Game play was a deeply immersive through music-driven meditations: at times baffling, at other times transcendent. It is hard to believe this game “pulled off” all of this in 1996. Long since out-of-print and unplayable as technology marched on, one hopes some version of it will someday find its way onto the web. Perhaps, it may just shape the next digital/physical world. 🙂

As always, I hope you enjoyed this and it brightened your day.

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Primadonna Creative Directors

Carisa H-K on August 30, 2021

You hover like a spirit through the long, shadowy halls. The ice maker is at rest for the night, bin already full for the next day. Once toasty coffee sits stale in the pot. The quick shuffle of feet and voices in the air remain as specters until the masses return the next day.

All is quiet, until you find one light source, where two are found in a cavernous conference room. A tiny tapping of keys and clicking of mouse tickles the air. It’s 10:15pm, and the two are locked in silent battle with the work pile.

While others are away enjoying dinners, family, and perhaps sleep, the Creative Director and Project Manager bear the client burden.

While at work, one of them reflects on these moments of circumstantial commonality. Times when she and he are the last left standing in a land of the delegated, where the responsibility falls squarely. She finds resolve, mutual respect, and focus in the moment. They are the ones who really got the sh*t done.

She muses that some Creative Directors are similar to this late-night wizard, generating their power through sheer will and output. Their kind locks in momentum with their colleagues to achieve a larger goal.

But alas, other Creative Directors are not this way.

Only a few years prior, a different show played on the proverbial screen. Consider first the tale of a powerhouse Creative Director, who carried a similar client burden, but “used” the team through brute and brawn to make things happen. A confident stride into client’s offices, with boyish locks bouncing, put Robert Plant’s best moves to shame. Soon, the client’s swoon proved this wasn’t your “creatives run amok” kind of interface design. This was exceptional.

The spearhead felt all-important, while others drove the production machine cogs under his halo of disdain. And so came one of the greatest lessons: If you have skill, talent, creative genius even — you have the power. And that extends to the ability to belittle others — and get away with it, with no consequences.

Consider next, the snappy world of NYC Creative Directors. Throw New Yorkers and Texans on a call, and the New Yorkers went to town on disrespecting their faraway, unsophisticated “team members”. Whether it was discrimination by region or simply belief that they were God’s Gift to Application Design, you could almost feel their incredulous eyes peering through the phone. Once they deemed you worthy of critique and dismissal from the conversation, you couldn’t help but earn your mettle.

Whether it is masculine to feminine, haves to have nots, race to race, creed to creed, urban to rural, or any other configuration: Primadonnas can be anybody. And Primadonna Creative Directors are some of the best manifestations of those who might never break out of their rut of only valuing and respecting themselves. Yet, they might not even know it! Or care.

The characters in the show of life are career building, and enlightening in terms of learning to deal with challenging people. You come across all walks of life on the job, and the trick is making it work. Sometimes, you go with it and stick it out until the next project. But the fun begins when you face it.

As always, I hope you enjoyed this and it brightened your day.

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Mr. Sharp-Tongue Client

Carisa H-K on July 27, 2021

In the bathroom stall surrounded by funky purple walls, she attempted to suppress the tears welling near the top of her throat. Not unlike the chest-burster in Alien, the prickle was down there… waiting to get out.

She pictured encapsulating the spiny ball in a clear, smooth casing of jelly. Rubbing out the rough edges, she mindfully eliminated the creases in her forehead and allowed a sense of numbness to blanket her mind.

Will the technique work, as it had in past when faced with defeat and looming doom? She was about to find out during her next challenge: keeping emotions contained as she headed in to see The Boss.

She felt confident, moving from the bathroom toward his office, that she had successfully swallowed her tears. I can get through this meeting, she thought. Even though, she had to reveal current events with her client in transparency.

Step by step, she moved through the Zen Garden, gaining an additional sense of calm and collect. She maintained that feeling while ambulating closer to Mr. P’s office, down a modern concrete hallway. She passed by a few relaxed co-workers nursing longnecks in the hall in the middle of the day. Clearly, they did not bear the burden of “representing” their work to the customer, like she did. Setting the pressure of her job aside, she entered and found the Delivery VP sitting stern and tall behind his desk.

She sat in the guest chair across from his desk, looked in his firm eyes, took a breath, and spoke. Instantly, with only a word or two about the client situation out of her mouth, a spine on the cry ball broke through the jelly bubble in her throat.

Oh God, no no no. I can’t cry in my Boss’s office!

Choking out a few more words, another, then another, spine ripped into her upper throat until the fear and upset burst forward through her eyes.

Noooooo!!…..

It all came out in gobs then, in an unstoppable wave: “Why am I crying?… I don’t normally cry… I’m so sorry… The client got upset with me the other day! He berated me and the team with insulting names. He may be right! Maybe I can’t do this job. Does he want me off the account? I know I have a lot to learn, but this is just abusive!” Then, the words dried up as she tried to breathe.

She thought she had seen it all with the client from hell, aka the Faxing Madman, who chose to convey venom via 8-10 faxed pages per day. At that time, she had to deal with an employee emotionally destroyed by the customer. That employee reacted by putting an unforgettable epithet about the client on an FTP site.

But today, I’m the one on the receiving end, she ruefully thought. Mr. Sharp-Tongue’s approach felt more serious: less of a “passive-aggressive faxer”, and more of a “verbal affront master” with berating insults over extended conference calls.

And instead of vitriol, she reacted with a puddle of tears. Sitting there embarrassed, something in the room perceptively shifted to another level.

Mr. P’s eyes softened immediately, and in a moment of realization, she knew he was completely different underneath his stony facade. He hid this nurturing side well, and it thoroughly surprised her.

“Oh I’m so sorry,” he said with a lilting tone. “This isn’t the first time this has happened to someone on the team. He’s just a bully! You can do it! Don’t listen to him.”

The revelation that this happened several times before with other team members shocked her. That maybe it wasn’t her, but him. As Mr. P continued, she learned that a coworker recently resigned because of Mr. Sharp-Tongue. No wonder why, she thought sarcastically.

Then another wave came over Mr. P: this time, anger. He was fed up. He couldn’t afford to lose another team member over this man.

His stony look returned quickly. More assertively than ever before, he stated: “I’ll talk to him. Remember – you’re just marketing toothpaste. You’re not trying to solve world hunger here.”

Then the proverbial sun came out and the jelly ball graciously returned to her throat. She was relieved beyond words to not remain saddled with this burden all on her own.

And with that, she never cried again on the job, given she felt that someone had her back. Perhaps even more importantly, she learned empathy from this experience. Many times in future, when faced with similar challenging situations with employees, she retained Mr. P’s life lesson: put yourself in others’ shoes and provide a supportive force.

And what of Mr. Sharp-Tongue? Well…

She enjoyed a tremendous amount of growth through their relationship, eventually. Berating 15-minute calls turned into 4-hour strategic work conferences, where both contributed powerfully and equally. Their work together broke new ground in leveraging the digital landscape to market consumer products.

Maybe it was a few choice words from The Boss, or maybe it was just her skills improving. Perhaps a little of both. But, the relationship deepened… lasting for years. The final lesson? Consider your “enemies” with empathy too. Even bullies can change and become mentors.

As always, I hope you enjoyed this and it brightened your day.

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Meet Bartles, Meet Jaymes

Carisa H-K on June 29, 2021

The first thing she learned from High School Driver’s Ed class converted to a solid life rule: Consume only 1 alcoholic drink per hour to stay under the legal limit.

So why then, would she subject herself to consuming alcohol on a late Friday afternoon, before leaving the office, potentially delaying her departure? Why would she want to stay even 1 hour more after 45, 50, or 60+ hours already worked that week?

A roar approached down the concrete hallway: Glass clinking glass, a vibrating rumble, excited voices. The front desk admins wheeled white plastic coolers to the gathering points, filled to the brim with ice and long necks. By week, these single-serve adult treats hid under lock and key in a storage closet. But on Friday, they came out with gusto.

Back to her dilemma – to drink or escape – the path remained clear based on the irrefutable facts of alcohol metabolism. To other workers, the alcoholic appeasement kept them pliant to continue working long hours week after week.

But a new life lesson emerged, creating a push-and-pull in her logic. It’s a good thing to not just meet Bartles & Jaymes, but also to meet and socialize with coworkers, right?

Perhaps if she joined the throngs of colleagues, she might find them collecting in specific areas of their warehouse office. Like all premier digital agencies of the early 2000’s, there was no shortage of uniquely designed spaces. The uncommon locales for consulting life included the “Front Deck”, a quirky area constructed inside the building, complete with hammock, beach umbrella and picnic tables. The more staid “Back Deck” stood outside, consisting simply of unstained wood perched behind the building, with more picnic tables and grills. The company clearly knew how to utilize raw, untreated 2x4s, featuring them heavily on the decks and zen garden.

Fearing a social faux pas, she resolved to make an appearance at the corporate Happy Hour. After the utopia, however, she found most coworker interactions slightly disappointing. She found herself surrounded by the young and vibrant, but also the relatively less friendly. The environment remained competitive. She understood, given many others lived through the “dot-com boom and bust” like she did. Since then, a somewhat jaded attitude bubbled just under everyone’s surface.

Swiping a frou frou wine cooler from the massive vat of beers, she wandered through distant memories of warm, keg beer at a friend’s party. Almost instantly, the same putrid, sweet scent swirled and stuck in her nose, wafting from nearby drinkers. Ick, beer was just not for her. Nor really was the silly Bartles & Jaymes in her hand, but why not give the impression of sociability?

After a few brief moments of social interaction, the wine cooler remained lidded, and followed her home. It proceeded to reside in the far corners of her fridge for years in the hopes that a future house guest would enjoy it.

Maybe if more time was given to the Happy Hour, the story ahead might have unfolded differently. As it was, it took years for social acumen to build in this “not particularly social” introvert. Yet, later years revealed a dynamic shift, both in herself and those around her: from competition to a sense of kind acquaintance and deep teamwork.

But she could not imagine nor foresee any such shift, in that fleeting, inconsequential moment.

If only one lesson is gained from this little story, consider this: Follow your socially awkward side. You need not feel obligated to attend that Happy Hour today. You just might find some success in life simply by keeping the alcohol consumption down.

As always, I hope you enjoyed this and it brightened your day.

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Breaking Zen

Carisa H-K on May 26, 2021

In a cavernous space, water creeps silently along the floor. The leading edge of the growing, globular shape glistens in dim light. It finds and dips into every concrete imperfection. It seeps into raw 2×4’s. The fluid expands around pebbles. It is only slightly hampered by rubber bumpers where the berber carpet begins.

Slowly, steadily it moves toward her work area. The managers in the nearby offices already vacated their soaked spaces, exiting into the hall.

She remains rigid in the dark, fixated on her still-electrified monitor, and focused on her heavy workload burden. She takes every minute possible to push one more email and one more file, before the water arrives and renders her useless. This was not the first time where time ran away from her, pinched by unnatural disaster.

Somewhere in the distance, the growl of the on-premise power generator hovers just below consciousness. There was power enough for the computers, but not the lights. Luckily, the sun outside peeked through faraway windows.

Welcome Back My Friends, To The Warehouse

Once again, she found herself in the lowest rent side of town. At a web agency in the warehouse district, standing defiant in a space of their own rough-and-tumble making, filled with budget scraps and growing client demands.

Going back to the warehouse meant power outages and damp, but also something uncommon. Picture a zen garden, complete with gravel floor covering, concrete pagodas, and a bridge made of plywood over a pebble riverbed. A calming scene.

Except when it’s flooded with pee water from the nearby overflowing toilet, and that pee water is slowly approaching your cube.

Still, she was one of the fortunate ones. Following a hot tip from her mentor, she scaled the layoff cliff. It took only a mere few weeks to haul herself back up to this next threshold, after exiting her workplace utopia.

Inch by inch, she monitors the approaching flood in her peripheral vision. At one point she decides it’s time to pick the desktop tower up from the floor. Pulling at every power cord and connector, the heavy lump of tech is raised to a safe perch.

Through it all, she repeats a mantra: I’m lucky to have this job. Lucky. Lucky. At the same time, the situation begged for an answer: Is the “cash-strapped sweatshop in a warehouse” the only viable business model for web work?

Why yes, at least in the early 2000’s after the dot-com boom and bust.

To add insult to injury, with desktops, working from home was not yet an option for the typical tech worker of the era.

Escape impossible, there she stayed: purse up on a shelf, water engulfing her rubber soles. Only then, did the water stop advancing, leaving a soaked carpet to squish upon for the rest of the afternoon. In her peripheral, she catches the sweaty Facilities guy wiping his brow, feet squeaking away down the hall.

What adventures remain back at the warehouse? Stay tuned!

In the mean time, revisit the nostalgic fun of our earliest warehouse memories, and travel even deeper back in time to Merlin (the finicky file server).

As always, I hope you enjoyed this and it brightened your day.

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And Now, For a Brief Intermission

Carisa H-K on April 7, 2021

Sometimes a step back to gaze at the big picture brings oxygen back to the capillaries.

Often, this involves evaluating full circle moments. Bookends. Turning points. Milestones. Halfway points.

In projects, it’s easier to find your midpoint than in life. It’s the proverbial 50% mark in Microsoft Project on your topline summary task. Simply, tally your series of “percent completes” into some view of what’s left to do.

But devoid of a crusty old Project Management tool, this website must use its editorial calendar to determine the midway point. And we can say, dear friend, that our trajectory of stories indeed shows we’ve reached the halfway point of our Journey.

Yes, Carisa H-K had it all planned out from the start. Which is how she lives her life as well.

But actually, what about life? We’re vexed by not knowing our halfway point. And the end point… well, that may be the most important of all. We never know how much time is left. Thus emerged this project, Tales from Digital Deliria: a fulfillment of some proof that “we were here”. It’s a milestone in personal perseverance and drive, despite the odds of a rather dire year. Something your humble writer never thought she could achieve.

That drive will continue into other projects as part of a greater vision. As such, Tales from Digital Deliria will move to a less frequent post cycle, to make time to focus on these longer-term goals.

Remember: half of the journey still remains. A keen eye may have recognized the secret to our sojourn. Tales from Digital Deliria is an online novel, taking shape through multiple, quick-read episodes. To go back in time, hit the first story and click links under “Previous”. Or, start where you wish and use “Next” to experience digital life as it unfolds. You choose the direction!

What remains is all in-plan: all to be revealed in the final act. So enjoy a lemon sorbet intermezzo, cleanse your palette, and think: What do you want to accomplish in the “remaining half” of your life as well?

As always, I hope you enjoyed this and it brightened your day.

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Lifelong Relationships… or Associations?

Carisa H-K on March 31, 2021

Twenty years later, the dot-com boom agency remains as the only workplace utopia she ever experienced. Not just because of cutting-edge web work devoid of deadline & deliverable pressure. Or the fact it was the first proper office building she worked in – a major upgrade from the old warehouse.

But rather, because of the opportunity to really take a moment and get to know people. In this environment, mentorship and learning approached hyperspeed. The conversation wasn’t always driven selfishly by the deadline ahead, but a true appreciation for others’ skills, unique knowledge, and lives.

She considers the fondest memories of so many characters:

The Java guy who loved to socialize: swinging by the desk for no reason, but to say “Hi” and talk shop. He was a published leader and speaker in his field – there’s not many people you meet like that.
The most brilliant copywriter and sometime-documentarian she ever had the privilege of working with.
The designer who always played “Jump Around” on Friday mornings, livening our path to the weekend.
The sharp Project Manager with her own corner office – rendering her almost too good to even approach!
The young client on the cutting edge of eLearning, with an inexplicable love for Barry Manilow.
The developers who bridged both creative and technical – whipping out animated CD-ROMs like wizards.
The smart-as-a-tack client, turned to rigid paper pusher for the federal government under NASA.
The multi-talented Project Manager: PM’ing by day and creating by night. One of the smartest people she could ever look up to, from whom she learned the power of a strong team dynamic. They all thought the world of each other.
The Delivery Principal, one of her most inspirational and encouraging leaders. His true passion for their client, and the all-time dream project they afforded, drew her right along with it.
And, the couple who met and married while at the company. She knew the feeling – her own marriage occurred in the blissful dot-com boom days, before 9/11 changed everything. His other half lead her to her next interview and job, when the dot-com boom came crashing all down.

Such formative days, full of love. For job, for company, for coworkers, for the digital utopia.

20 Years Later, What Remains?

Nostalgia for places and interactions with people that at one point felt like “relationships”, but are now merely “associations”. A far away figment, relegated to a tenuous connection on LinkedIn or Facebook.

These are no longer people she talks to every day. Yet, somehow they remain as tiny, quiet links in her life roadmap. The internet acts merely as a memory tool: holding reminiscences of people one would normally never recall.

With the passage of so much time, humans stand silent in recollect. Like starry little gems twinkling in the night sky of life, fading as the universe continues to expand. Covered forever in cosmic dust, they just get further away from sight.

Is it possible that her childhood act of coding the universe was a premonition of this very moment? Delivering a rendering of a future, impossible to envision at that time?

As always, I hope you enjoyed this and it brightened your day.

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In the Corporate World, a Company Utopia = Bankruptcy

Carisa H-K on March 24, 2021

Well… that didn’t last long.

Her eyes dart around the colossal conference space at her similarly wide-eyed colleagues. She swivels in a Herman Miller, where not long ago she kicked off a team of 30. In that moment, an exciting corporate website redesign project lay ahead.

But instead of an eager team on a new threshold, the room is now filled with 30 people with questions on their faces. Why are we here?

The group remained generally silent in their suspicions.

They pondered the last year and a half, filled with happy hours and post-it notes dotted across glass. Of travel and cutting-edge design. Of huge clients and advancing web functionality, but disproportionately light workloads. Where ample downtime and loose deadlines led to fun, laid-back people playing hacky sack in the modern, swanky environs. A workplace utopia.

That is, if the budgets weren’t so low. Soon, the HR Director enters to deploy the news.

What did they expect?

Bankruptcy, that’s what.

After all, the stock price hovered at $1.30, then began a march down to $0.90 after the company IPO’d far too soon.

The entire room was laid off that day, free to leave their utopia behind. And with that, the tech bubble burst before their eyes.

This day, and many others like it across the industry, became better known as the dot com boom and bust (or, the Y2K tech crash).

With farewells and handshakes, she leaves the room, not all too surprised. As she clears her desk, she entertains silly notions about continuing to work with the clients she had. She did truly care about their fate. Collecting a few too many project files, she quietly makes her way to her car.

In actuality, apart from a few farewell calls to her friendly clients, she would never know how the dissolving company managed their projects to completion. Did Compaq’s new online IT training modules ever make it to their staff? Or, did NASA successfully pull off their innovative marketing program to drive International Space Station payloads? The outcomes remain unknown.

But given a hot job tip from a mentor, her next opportunity would not follow too far behind. Really, it all happened too quick: no break afforded before the next leg of her journey.

As always, I hope you enjoyed this and it brightened your day.

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