Now Hiring: Global Crisis Monitor
Responsibilities: Absorb every emergency on Earth as it unfolds. Track wars, elections, disasters, court rulings, and online outrage across multiple platforms. Synthesize all of it into a coherent picture of impending collapse. Feel each item fully. Take no action.
Hours: All of them. Including 6 a.m. in bed, red lights, bathroom breaks, and 2 a.m. when you can’t sleep.
Compensation: None.
Ideal candidate: Highly intelligent. Pattern-seeking. Morally serious. Deeply empathic. Able to hold enormous complexity without putting it down.
You never applied for this job. And yet, if you’re a high-capacity, neurocomplex adult, there’s a good chance you’ve been working it for years.
Your first shift starts before you’re awake
It’s 6:40 a.m. Your feet haven’t touched the floor, and you’ve already read about a war, a court ruling, a climate report, and something awful a stranger said online. Your jaw is tight. Your heart is going a little fast. Your to-do list hasn’t started, and your nervous system is already tired.
You tell yourself what you always tell yourself: I need to stay informed. I’ll just check quickly.
I know this shift from the inside. I’ve lost whole mornings to it, and I’ve watched it quietly eat the energy I meant to give to the work and people I care about most.
This essay is about how you got hired, why you keep clocking in, and how to resign, especially if you’re already running on empty.
How you got the job
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