Work is a Verb A newsletter by We measure everything. Revenue per employee. Time-to-hire. Net Promoter Score. Quarterly OKRs broken into weekly KPIs broken into daily standups. We've built dashboards for dashboards. But ask most companies about their culture... and you get vibes and platitudes. What gets measured gets managed Even the crunchier numbers like cost of turnover and time-to-hire are generally overlooked. There's just a few more dots to connect between people metrics and revenue....
11 days ago • 3 min read
Work is a Verb A newsletter by The question your performance review won't ask Story one: “My review said I was doing great. I hit every target. I got the raise. And I was bored out of my mind.” Story two: “I thought I was doing great… until my review blindsided me with ‘concerns’ nobody had mentioned once all year.” Very different outcomes, same root problem: most performance reviews only ask if you’re doing what the company needs. Even when you are asked to review yourself it's usually a...
18 days ago • 4 min read
Work is a Verb A newsletter by First AI, Now "Culture": How Companies Rebrand Layoffs to Control Workers Every time a company posts record profits and announces mass layoffs in the same breath, the media spins it the same way: AI is replacing human workers. The robots are here. It's a great story. Click-worthy. Scary enough to drive engagement. It's also not true. Amazon isn't replacing 30,000 people with AI. They're redirecting capital to buy data centers and chips so AWS can compete with...
30 days ago • 4 min read
Work is a Verb Issue #15 A weekly newsletter by Hey Reader, There's a new productivity tax spreading through remote teams: glossy-looking AI output that can't be trusted, verified, or shipped. It clutters Slack, complicates codebases, and multiplies in shared drives. It has a name: work slop. Unlike the obviously low-effort AI spam clogging social media, work slop often looks and feels high-quality at first glance. That's what makes it dangerous. A polished-sounding output missing key context...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Work is a Verb Issue #14 A weekly newsletter by Hey Reader, A Remote Job Board... Hold the Bias It always bothers me when we base modern tech on outdated formats. Resumes and cover letters were built to be printed and job boards are built on a classified ad system that just doesn't make sense anymore. These broken systems survive based on inertia and it's time to give them a big shove. The Current Job Board Hellscape Let's be honest about what job hunting looks like right now. You spend 20...
4 months ago • 3 min read
Work is a Verb A weekly newsletter by Hey Reader, Back-to-school season is upon us At least according to the stack of target circulars crowding my mailbox... And for once, my junk mail got me thinking: this time of year must hit very differently depending on where and how you work.For remote parents, September might actually bring a welcome dose of structure. Drop-offs and pick-ups can be handled without burning PTO. Midday meltdowns don’t require cloak-and-dagger calendar excuses. And the...
4 months ago • 2 min read
Work is a Verb A weekly(ish) newsletter by Hey Reader, A month ago, I vanished from the internet to get married in Ireland. What I discovered during that digital detox was... complicated. Jeff Bezos rented out an entire city and he didn't even have the coolest June wedding in Europe. Can you imagine? Not the wedding or vacation part, that was very uncomplicated and frankly, awesome. But coming back to work after a real break isn't just about missing the conversations or rediscovering your...
5 months ago • 1 min read
Work is a Verb A weekly(ish) newsletter by Hey Reader, Running Remote Reflections: What I Learned (And Didn't) Still tasting salsa... and cognitive dissonance. I've been back from the Running Remote conference for a week now, and I'm still processing the experience. Rather than give you the standard "everything was amazing" conference recap, I wanted to share some candid takeaways that might surprise you.The conference was energetic, inspiring…and weirdly disjointed. Below is the honest...
7 months ago • 2 min read
Work is a Verb A weekly(ish) newsletter by Hey Reader, Ever notice how remote work gets the tabloid treatment? One week it’s a miracle cure, the next it’s a punching bag—usually from the same handful of media conglomerates (surprise!). But the scare‑story well is running dry: Only one in eight U.S. executives still plan to tighten RTO rules, and even their toughest mandates would trim work‑from‑home by a mere 0.4 percentage points (21.2 → 20.8 % of paid days). SIEPR Swipe‑card reality agrees:...
8 months ago • 2 min read