We Now Join Our Program Already in Progress
The trouble I have with writing a blog is that I am too impatient to start at the beginning. I am more of a “we now join our program already in progress” girlie.
And so, here we are.
I’d like to think of myself as a force for good. Chaotic good.
My mind moves in a million directions.
If I were to describe my childhood, chaotic would certainly apply. So I come by it honestly. Undiagnosed ADHD, three elementary schools, three junior highs before finally staying in one place for high school — and you can imagine that fitting in was never going to happen.
I tried. I tried really, really hard to be normal. To be in the cool crowd. I even joined a sorority in university — which, if you know me, is already the funniest sentence I’ve ever written. Chaos in a Greek letter sweater. It did not play particularly well. Understandably.
It wasn’t until my 20s that I finally dipped a toe in the weird pool. By my late 20s I was wading in the shallow end. My 30s, doggy paddling. My 40s, way out in the deep end.
Ugh. This metaphor is making me tired.
The reality of adulthood is corporate you versus real you. And real me would always eventually make her appearance.
I spent over twenty years in technical project management, training, and eLearning — mostly for military contractors and large corporations. I was good at it. I was also, by the end, completely burned out on it. The industry, the work, the version of myself I had to pack into a collared shirt every morning. When the company I worked for got acquired, I wasn’t surprised. When they looked at what they’d bought and realized it wasn’t quite what they’d expected, I wasn’t surprised by that either. AI has been hitting training harder than most areas — training is always the first thing to go when times get uncertain, and times are currently very uncertain — and so when the layoff came, I took it calmly enough that I think I genuinely unsettled some people.
Here’s the thing. I’d been in the game long enough to see it coming. And if I’m being honest, some part of me exhaled.
That’s why Robot Bee Polish exists.
No corporate me here. No collared shirt. Just small-batch, handmade, 21-free nail polish with names like Cheddar Goblin and thermochromic shifts that go from purple to pink à la Daphne from Scooby-Doo. I get to come up with colors and unhinged names and photo shoots that make sense only to me, and somehow also to exactly the right people.
It turns out fitting in was never the point. The point was finding the people who didn’t need me to. And it turns out there are a lot of them — more than I ever expected. My found family is enormous and deeply, wonderfully weird. They see me squirreling and jump straight to “just tell me what to do.” I don’t take that for granted.
And then there’s Eric the Grownup. Eric the Grownup sighs at my shenanigans with the patience of a man who has heard me program “big meaty balls” into Alexa and chosen, every single time, to stay anyway. That’s love. Possibly also a cry for help. We don’t examine it too closely.
I also have Beaker.
Beaker is my Bengal cat and, depending on the day, either my most dedicated employee or my most committed saboteur. He is terrifyingly intelligent — the kind of smart that makes you uncomfortable. He knows how to turn on electronics. He has stolen DVDs directly from the Xbox. He has trained my husband Eric so thoroughly that Eric can distinguish between the meow that means water, the meow that means food, and the meow that means Beaker is about to enter chaotic asshole mode. Eric has said we will never get a cat smarter than him again, which is both probably true and a little sad.
In the lab, Beaker supervises. Occasionally he tests gravity’s effect on nail polish bottles. He has strong opinions about swatch sticks. Mostly, he is supportive.
Mostly.
So. That’s us. Robot Bee Polish, Houston, Texas. Making weird little bottles of color in a loft with a Bengal cat who takes no accountability for anything.
We’re glad you’re here. Pull up a chair. Mind the cat.
