Category: Advice

What have we learned during self-quarantine so far?

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20. You can have 50 titles in your Amazon watchlist and still have no idea what to watch.

19. Maybe not having enough time wasn’t the reason you never wrote that book.

18. This was a bad time to read The Road.

17. Time, in hindsight, was a bad idea.

16. I liked the sexual tension that came with full-contact deliveries.

15. There are no truly fool-proof YouTube tutorials on cutting your own hair.

14. More things go with cauliflower than you’d think, but not as many as you’ve tried.

13. There is literally nothing stopping me from watching Christmas movies whenever the fuck I want.

12. People really like playing Codenames? Like, they’ll seek it out? And play it over wifi? 

11. No amount of plants can compensate for the small joy of subtly rubbing against strangers on public transit.

10. Maybe you underrated Silver Linings Playbook the first time around.

9. John Oliver is, in fact, my daddy.

8. “Sweet Caroline” is the wrong song to sing in public during a pandemic (“REACHING OUT. TOUCHING ME. TOUCHING YOUUUUUUU”).

7. All it takes to create a national cultural conversation is a little quarantine, a weird sex cult, a hit man, and some tigers.

6. Maybe leave the bread making to the professionals.

5. It’s ten times harder to avoid hanging out with your friend group when everybody knows you have nothing better going on.

4. Allowing unfettered capitalism to create a permanent under-class controlled by the whims of billionaires weirdly isn’t good for public safety and well-being (CC: Uncle Bezos).

3. You shouldn’t eat where you shit, but you can conference call while you shit.

2. If two people make the same amount of money but one has a backyard and the other does not, then they are not equals.

1. It’s easy to become a functional alcoholic if you lower the bar for “functional.”

FAQs for the Self-Quarantiner

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Q: Should I email my neighbors about the excessive noise they might hear as I jump around because of the fitness app I downloaded? 
A: Oh, you lift?

Q: Why did I buy so many beans?? I don’t eat beans!
A: Eat your fucking beans.

Q: Can I have a little doorknob lick? As a treat? 
A: No!!

Q: Why was Amy Adams’ character in Her? She seemed pretty unnecessary?
A: Your guess is as good as ours. 

Q: Am I no longer practicing social distancing if, while working out, I jump so hard that I open up a hole in the floor, causing me to fall approximately 8 feet into the living room below me and onto my neighbor’s portly 7-year-old as he plays Boggle? 
A: This is a meet-cute.

Q: Can I commit a crime and use social distancing as an excuse to not let the police in? 
A: Only if Anthony Fauci said you could.

Q: Can I complain about my neighbors smoking weed?
A: Fuck off dude, stand by your fellow man. 

Q: How stocked up on pickles is too stocked up on pickles?
A: Too much is never enough.

Q: Exactly how disinfected does an orgy need to be for it to be acceptable? 
A: As long as assholes are bleached, you should be good.

Q: When the fuck will I get to watch Fast 9 in theaters?
A: Not soon enough… not soon enough.

Q: Do I have to have my video on while using Zoom?
A: Only if more than 40% of the participants are also sharing video.

Q: What is Pep Boys doing in response to the COVID-19 outbreak? 
A: Furloughs!

Q: Can someone please take some of these beans!!!
A: No, eat up bean boy.

Q: How many people need to get infected before I can get hella racist about it?
A: Go lick a doorknob, asshole.

Q: How long does it take for Amazon to deliver a 14th-century bird doctor mask?
A: Not as long as it will take for the package to sit in your front hallway while you wait for the virus to fall off it and die. 

Q: Will my gimp mask protect me?
A: Not if you’re using it the right way 😉

Q: Okay, I’ll just be direct here: how much is the Social Security burden going to be lightened?
A: On advice of counsel, we have redacted this answer.

Q: Asking for a friend: Can anyone sneeze in Mitch McConnell’s face, just for fun?
A: Oh hell yeah. Especially if you’re showing symptoms.

Q: I stayed inside today, am I a hero? 
A: Yes, you make healthcare workers look like lazy pieces of shit!

The Quarantiner’s Monthly Budget

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someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my family is dying.

  • Rent: $0 (we on strike #StandWithTheCheesecakeFactory)
  • Groceries: literally whatever the cashier tells you, don’t even listen just take what he’ll give you
  • Deodorant: $0
  • Uber: $0 (net savings: $1,700)
  • Hand soap: $1,700
  • Laundry: $0
  • Restaurant delivery: $2,500 (support local businesses!)
  • Tip: 35%
  • Bleach: $3,900
  • Gym membership you forgot to cancel: $50
  • Amazon orders: $1,200
  • Netflix: again, they kind of just get to name a number at this point
  • Hulu: Not even a quarantine is getting us to subscribe
  • Shaving cream and razors: $0
  • Gas: $0
  • Puzzles: $500
  • Puzzle Shipping Rate: $9.99
  • Zoom membership: $14.99 somehow

Conference Call Do’s and Don’ts

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If you’re anything like us, you’re a busy business person who does important business. That probably means you had to trade board rooms for Zoom rooms, thanks to The Ro Ro. However, that’s no need to worry. We’re here to help you with important do’s and don’ts for conference call etiquette:

Do: Keep your camera on at the start of the call to pressure everyone into turning theirs on too, even if — especially if — they don’t want to.

Don’t: Wear pants. Why would you wear pants, prude?

Do: Stroke the nearest dog, cat or roommate within reach to look intimidating while you speak.

Don’t: Accept invites for “virtual happy hours” from work.

Do: Go five-drinks deep with your friends on Google Hangouts this Wednesday.

Do: Ask everyone to repeat themselves, no matter how well you can hear them.

Don’t: Speak. This is like every other meeting. The goal is to say as little as possible.

Do: Interrupt others and stammer as if you have something to say then sit silently for minutes until everyone realizes this was a mistake and cancels the call.

Don’t: Ask “how is everyone doing?” It’s bad. We’re all doing bad. This is bad. 

Do: Zone out and ignore the call until somebody asks you a question, and then say, “Sorry, I think the feed cut out” 

Don’t: Set your Zoom background to the ISIS flag. Or do! Whatever, it’s The Purge!

Do: Mute your camera when you have to fart, but show with your facial expression that you are very clearly farting.

Don’t: Freebase blow. It’s difficult to share virtually and you can’t assume all other call participants have access.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Incorporating COVID-19 Into Your Brand’s Marketing

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So you’re a super thoughtful brand deeply invested in your customers’ lives. You know you matter deeply to them. They love you, and you love them right back. Because you’re so important to them, you’ve decided it would be great if you incorporate some relevant messaging about coronavirus into your marketing. Maybe it’s a fun work from home discount. Or maybe it’s a joke about not having masks, but still having the best direct-to-consumer smoothies for dogs around. That’s great! However, navigating this situation can be really tricky. 

To help all of our brand marketing friends out there, here’s a step-by-step guide on how to seamlessly blend COVID-19 references into your marketing:

1. Get out a notebook
2. Grab a pencil
3. Write your ten favorite COVID-19 ideas for your brand
4. Tear the paper out of your notebook
5. Put it in a food processor with kale
6. Make a smoothie 
7. Drink your shitty ideas
8. Answer this question: Should my brand find a fun way to talk about Coronavirus
    a. If your answer is yes, continue forward. 
    b. If your answer is no, move on with your life

So you’re still with us, huh? You must have a really great idea. Here are just a few more steps to get that baby off the ground. 

9. Pick back up your pencil
10. Shove that pencil directly up your ass
11. Spend the next several hours getting said pencil out of your ass
12. Clean the pencil
13. Answer this question: Should my brand find a fun way to talk about coronavirus?
    a. If your answer is yes, continue forward—you craven asshole
    b. If your answer is no, move on with your life. We hope you’ve learned something.

Alright. You’re really fucking going to do this. Well, at this point, we may as well help. Here are just a couple more steps for you to complete to birth your beautiful marketing baby.

14. Pick up your pencil. We promise it doesn’t have to go into your ass this time.
15. Answer this question: Have you watched The Dark Knight?
    a. If your answer is yes, move onto the next step.
    b. If your answer is no, watch The Dark Knight.
16. One last time, answer this question: Should my brand find a fun way to talk about coronavirus?
    a. If your answer is no, you can leave now.
    b. If your answer is yes…are you sure?
        i. If your answer is no, we’ll let you go.
        ii. If your answer is yes, spend the rest of the day trying to recreate the pencil trick with your own head until your answer is no.

How To Spend Spring Break Now That You Can’t Travel

~ leftonreadletter ~ 1 Comment

If you’re like many people, you’ve made the difficult decision this week to cancel your spring break trip to some warm, exotic destination. This is disappointing, to be sure, but also leaves you with an unexpected free week. How are you going to spend it? Here are a few suggestions from your friends at Left On Read:

  1. Masturbate vigorously
  2. Continue masturbating
  3. Unfortunately, there’s nothing else to do besides unyielding self-gratification
  4. Just keep masturbating, kid

Your Job Is (Probably) Meaningless—And That’s Okay

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Theodore Roosevelt once said, “Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” Sadly, you’ve probably got a consolation prize. Yep, your job is probably worthless—but that’s totally fine! 

For years, we’ve grown up under the spectre of companies like Uber, Facebook, and Google championing a new era of work culture. In exchange for nap pods and catered lunches and beer on tap, corporate employees have been told they are supposed to care about their work. More than that, they have been convinced that prioritizing actions that blur the lines between work and home, like bringing your “whole self” to work (I’ve cut off a pinky and put it in my freezer—take that, boss man) and taking your pets to the office, are important facets of workplace culture and their own satisfaction. As people have allowed corporations to consume more and more of their lives, they have encountered some cognitive dissonance in the form of a question: Why would I let something unimportant take up 75% of my waking day? To that, our brains (and start-up Internal comms teams everywhere) have come up with a rationalization: Because your work matters. You are making a difference. 

The truth, in the words of the 21st century’s Teddy Roosevelt, Lizzo: Bitch, you lie. 

Now, you’re probably thinking, “You’re wrong, anonymous writer! I am extremely passionate about B2B solutions for transnational shipping and fulfillment logistics.” That may be true—but it does not make your job any less inconsequential. Whether you’re at a glorified ad company helping create a useless moonshot (shoutout to Google Wallet and Google Hangouts), monetizing extremely personal information for a megalomaniac, or at one of the 7.5 billion companies cutting out the middleman and bringing those savings to customers like you and me, what you do probably means nothing and concerns nobody other than the people you share your office with. In fact, here is a full list of the jobs that matter to people who aren’t you:

  • Doctor
  • Teacher
  • Dentist (not you, Orthodontists)
  • Nursing Home Caretaker
  • Civil Rights Lawyer
  • First Responder
  • Ice Cream Truck Driver

That’s it. That’s everybody. 

This isn’t to say you aren’t important. You are extremely important. You can affect change with your money and your time and your daily disposition. The important thing is that your totally useless, not-at-all-valuable job does not interfere with that. In fact, your real job, as the wonderful, important person you are, is to stay employed at your meaningless job and soak them for all they’re worth. Take as much money as you can spending as little time at the office as you can. Fuck the weekend hackathons. Fuck the optional corportate retreats. Fuck ‘em all. Get as much money as you can on the bare minimum of your time, and then bring your happiness and fortune to the rest of the world. 

Work is an exchange of services (your time) for value (goddamn cash). There is a reason it’s called a work-life balance: Your work and your life are totally distinct things. That’s a great thing too—I heard what your company does is totally useless.

What’s an acceptable level of cheating on a crossword puzzle?

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Acceptable

  • Looking up the name of somebody you have no reason to know
  • Using Google maps to confirm if the Wichita-to-Omaha direction is ENE or NNE
  • You’ve never heard of that word
  • You’ve heard of that word, but honestly it’s a pretty bullshit answer/clue
  • Asking your parent/partner/friend/bus-seat mate
  • [Check Word]
  • You need to keep your NYT Crossword streak alive

Unacceptable

  • Needing to plug in your phone because you’ve used up all your battery looking up questions
  • You’ve already looked up the same clue’s answer for three previous puzzles
  • You’re looking up the name of an actor in a movie you’ve seen
  • You know in your heart of hearts that you do/should know the answer.
  • Asking your ex/professor/ex professor/professor ex
  • [Check Puzzle]
  • You’re competing for leaderboard position on the NYT Mini

How to Talk to Your Parents About ‘ok boomer’

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There’s a new way to dismiss The Olds and folks, the Times is ON IT! With ok boomer going mainstream, you’re more than likely facing some pretty awkward questions from your parents. Questions like “is ok boomer worse than the n-word?” and “just to play devil’s advocate, what if I said the n-word?”

Never fear, LoR is here to help. Just follow these six simple steps, and your parents will understand ok boomer in no time:

  1. Tell them it’s their fault. It’s important that your parents know that Millennials and Zoomers are mad at Boomers specifically because of their actions. It’s not some abstract dislike of all that is old or out of style. It’s a very direct response to the things Boomers did to the planet, economy, and world order at large.
  2. Explain that it’s personally about them. You don’t want your parents leaving this conversation thinking that #NotAllBoomers are subject to ok boomer. In fact, you should tell them that you invented the phrase yourself and that it was specifically about them. How would they ever fact check that? Call up NPR and ask Ari Shapiro to look into it? Good luck with that.
  3. Remind them there’s no comma. Kids these days won’t even separate independent and dependent clauses with proper punctuation!! The anarchists are coming, Boomers.
  4. Say that it’s definitely a slur. They won’t admit it, but the Boomers are actually pretty excited by the opportunity to play the victim here. After you beat them down in Steps 1–3, you get to watch the spark return to their eyes as they realize that with a little repositioning (“ok boomer is actually Neofascist Ageism being pushed by the MSM to undermine class solidarity!”) they can still win this thing.
  5. Buy them some ok boomer merch. If nothing else, Boomers will appreciate watching an antiestablishment sentiment get co-opted by capitalism. Perhaps an ok boomer sweatshirt shipped directly from the free market paradise of Vietnam will help them get on board?
  6. Wait for JK Rowling to tweet ok boomer at Nigel Farage. When it’s over for the rest of us, it’s just getting started in Boomerworld. And thanks to you, your parents will be well-prepared to talk about What Jo Tweeted during Susan’s weekly wine and book club (emphasis on the wine, lol!!).