Don’t hire me unless you’re good with someone who works part-time, 100% offsite and independently, while getting paid a living wage in the region where I live. Don’t lie about being OK with honoring that agreement when you’re not, or your bosses are not, either.

I’m skilled, experienced labor. (I’m also well over 30, which is its own issue.) My work will probably make your bosses happy — as in, they get to capitalize on my skill set in a way that’s profitable, gets the job done efficiently or both — but I’m one serious INFP anti-authoritarian nerd. (Can I have some coffee? Thanks.) I wouldn’t even be looking if I could make real money for what I do creatively — which is still on the table, and will remain so as long as I’m still on this earth.

I’m likely more queer than anybody you’ve ever met (as best you know), and I refuse to stop reclaiming a word that people fought and died for. I’m also probably more leftist/anarchist/anti-capitalist/anti-imperialist than anybody you’ve met as well. As best you know.

Where do I see myself in five years? Breathing, hopefully.

I don’t think your sexist jokes are funny, and I’m the one who threw your MAGA cap into the trash, or burned it — but not to the point that you couldn’t make out what it was, then left it at the step of your cubicle.

I’ll make friends with the janitors and cafeteria staff, even if you turn your heads when I do so.

I’ll wear Dead Prez t-shirts on casual day, and probably forget to shower as well.

If you misgender me, I promise to get even. If you hit on me, I promise to get even.

If you push me until I break, I’ll break. Openly. I won’t try to cover it up.

Still with me? There is a way forward that can serve as a “Well, have you considered detente” compromise — which is what I led with at the start. I also know most employers are about worker compliance as much as anything, and my terms are typically counter to that. Even when it’s potentially profitable to come to an agreement — this isn’t about profit, it’s about the threat that workers asserting their ability to think and act independently potentially represents to profit. In other words, it’s a rock-solid labor issue, that gets couched in neoliberal non-solutions such as life-work balance. If life is something that counter-balances work, then what is work itself?

Lastly: I’ll steal all the snacks from the break room, even if you’re looking while I do it.