You stare at the screen. The exact same scenario at a new company. The same impossible timeline. The same delusional optimism. The same patterns repeating.
And then... you laugh.
Not a polite chuckle. A deep, genuine, slightly unhinged laugh that starts in your chest and echoes through your home office.
Your cat looks concerned.
You laugh because you finally understand: This isn't a bug. It's a feature. This is just how corporate project management works. Everywhere. Always. The illusion of control, the theater of methodologies, the impossible timelines justified by magical thinking.
You're Sisyphus, but the boulder is a Gantt chart, and you've finally realized the absurdity is the point.
You accept the chaos. You stop expecting sanity. You do your best, document everything, and let the boulder roll downhill when it inevitably does.
Your soul? Still intact. You haven't become them. You're just a PM in hell who's stopped pretending it's heaven.
You schedule the sprint planning. You update your risk register. You laugh quietly to yourself.
The lead developer messages: "You okay?"
"Never better," you reply. And weirdly, it's true.