MY BOOK IS OUT 📚 and how we can make an algorithm wave

Fuel from Mary Carns and Halftank Studio

How voicemail pranks are like algorithms

One random day a few years ago, my husband asked me if I had been at Columbia University in the Spring of 1990. I answered “yes, whyyyyyyyy?”.

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I did not expect the answer I got: he asked me if I remembered a voicemail about the Little Mermaid and I burst out laughing. I even remembered the content of the voicemail.

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Apparently the NPR show This American Life (listen here) had just featured a story about what they called “the greatest phone message of all time”: a student named Fred’s mother telling him that “you and the Little Mermaid can go f*** yourself” after she was sick of hearing Fred’s outgoing message featuring “Under the Sea” from the 1989 movie.

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At the time, the University had just rolled out a new voicemail system. What they didn’t realize is that students could forward voicemails to other students an infinite number of times, and also add their own commentary at the beginning of the message. So every student got a voicemail that was 20+ minutes of people saying “You HAVE to listen to this” or “you and your FREAKISH friends would appreciate this” and ending with Fred’s angry mother. If you were lucky, you also got the remixed version that was a rap version of Fred’s mother repeating “go f*** yourself”. And the messages just got longer and longer as they kept getting forwarded.

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This early viral phenomenon, like others that semester, crashed the voicemail system.

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I mention this very briefly in my book about how Columbia University students would shut down the University’s voicemail system. The first time it happened, it was a student beatboxing and rapping “Columbia Cold Medina” by leaving a friend a voicemail. I don’t know if that student also did the Little Mermaid remix, but it was certainly possible. That’s when students also first figured out the forwarding feature. Good times.

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The big lesson I and others learned from this is that big systems are fallible. If you really want to connect with someone, you can find a way.

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I am writing this because I wrote my book after I was looking for any kind of information about how people handle getting fired multiple times, as I had been. I found nothing, so I figured it was a good time to tell my story. It’s my turn to entertain someone, hopefully.

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I know I am not the only one out there who has been fired multiple times, and it did serious damage to me. Getting fired so much not only affected me but they also affected the companies who fired the very people they needed when they got in trouble. They also affect everyone who has to use the crappy products that they produce when they only have yes-people working for them. I think this is a BIG reason why enshittification is a thing.

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I also know that as a first-time author, no one, absolutely NO ONE, is looking for this book. This means I need to ride an algorithm wave to get my book out there. How can I play this game? Like I played it as a university student, I can’t ride this wave alone.

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This is where I ask you to help me play, by:

• ​ordering my book BAD FIT on Amazon I've priced it low for the first couple of weeks. The price will go up in September.
• to read it (it’s my favorite kind of book: short LOL).
• leave a review on Amazon for the paperback version.

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Leaving a review is the #1 thing that you can do to help me get my book out to the people who need to read it: those creative people who are struggling at work and may be looking for a change.

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We all know that the systems that keep minimizing creative people at companies are toxic. To change these systems, we need to identify and understand them. I am hoping that this book goes a little way in that direction, but I need your help.

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Thank you and happy reading <3<3<3<3

If someone forwarded this to you: check out my archive and subscribe here.

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