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Tech was only about 10 percent of the workforce, but it had an outsized impact. The city was turning over. People kept coming. The Mission was plastered with flyers addressing newcomers. Nobody cares about your tech job, the flyers read. Be courteous of others when in public and keep the feral care…

Unfortunately for me, I liked my inefficient life. I liked listening to the radio and cooking with excessive utensils; slivering onions, detangling wet herbs. Long showers and stoned museum-wandering. I liked riding public transportation: watching strangers talk to their children; watching stranger…

Sometimes it felt like everyone was speaking a different language—or the same language with radically different rules. There was no common lexicon. Instead, people used a sort of nonlanguage, which was neither beautiful nor especially efficient: a mash-up of business-speak with athletic and wartime…

“This company is going to be worth a gajillion dollars,” the account manager said, taking a bite of potato salad. “We’re ripping up and to the right. We have the best and the brightest. We’re on an immutable path toward success. We’re all just fucking ready to give whatever needs to be given to mak…

‘Are you all right now?’ she asked as we settled. ‘You look shattered.’

‘No I’m fine,’ I said. But I wasn’t.

I was shattered. I couldn’t get the fucking cummerbund off. Jesus, was that cummerbund ever a bad idea. Under the attendant’s mirthful sneer I had skipped and cursed and twisted. In th…