Working with the award-winning brain trust at the UK’s Godhead OmniCreative Groupe, Ltd., mildly entertaining website ShrinkedIn.com has been rebranded www.thenotworker.com

With a reported creative and media budget totaling upwards of $9 million (£6.8 million), Godhead Executive Chair and Chief Visionary Officer Baroness Prunella Tweed-Shambleton personally led the effort which “combined Godhead’s proprietary semiotic assessment protocol composited with our refractive pigmentation evaluation methodology to generate a clean yet complex paradigm which redefines the brand.

We also used dark blue.”

ALL SHRINKEDIN SUBSCRIPTONS HAVE BEEN TRANSFERRED TO WWW.THENOTWORKER.COM

Employee Benefits Security Administration Undersecretary of Healthcare and Snake Handling Lancelot Constantine today announced a landmark update to the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. “We are very pleased to share that, as of today, all medical care available through COBRA will be administered using honest-to-God real cobras.”

He continued, “Based on personal experience, I assure you this policy revision will be immensely beneficial fiscally and public health-wise.” Raising his voice to overcome the vocal disapproval from gathered physicians, whose roars of “You’re taking us back to the Dark Ages!”, Constatine bellowed, “Settle down, people! We can all agree the Dark Ages were a simpler time, right? And a snake’s much cheaper than a regimen of your fancy-schmancy gene therapy at the Mayo Clinic, right?”

Press conference observers noted that the Undersecretary’s hands and forearms were wrapped in blood-mottled gauze and bandages masking multiple puncture wounds associated with the Indian Spectacled Cobra. “Who needs antibiotics or so-called ‘modern medicine’?” asked the Undersecretary rhetorically before collapsing in a heap behind the podium.

Quickly rushing to stand atop Constantine’s grotesquely distended body and regain the room’s attention, Under-Undersecretary Prudence Offal directed attendees to just-printed pamphlets summarizing the new program, highlights of which include:

• “All cobras are Made in the USA and thoroughly screened to ensure the highest degree of toxicity.”

• “Reminder: Build your venom tolerance SLOWLY. Haste makes waste. And death.”

• “Pediatricians will receive grants of baby cobra eggs for giftting to patients 10 and under.”

• “No cobras were harmed in the clinical trial phase of the program, though scores of test humans were. Bravo to each and every one of these heroes.”

At its closing bell, the Chicago Mercantile & Reptile Exchange recorded a 1,273% increase in the value of mongoose futures.

Adieu, Daylight Saving Time.

Sure, you enjoyed your “extra” hour this morning.

At least, you think you did.

That’s what The Man wants.

But deep down inside, you know the score.

You know it waits.

It waits and it lurks.

Patiently.

Ever so patiently.

Sunday, March 8, 2026.

126 days from now.

It returns.

Once more, you’ll “spring ahead.”

That unnerving, soul-ripping sound you hear is The Man cackling.

At you.

And today’s “extra” hour.

That never, ever is.

And never, ever was.

Happy Standard Time, everyone.*

*Except Hawaii and most of Arizona. Carry on, you magnificent bastards.

Responding to headwinds facing the real estate sector, senior management at Babalu Title & Escrow’s hastily-called all-hands meeting today informed staff that the universally beloved Bagel Friday would immediately metamorphose into a gin mill.

“It’s drink o’clock somewhere, right? Right?!” demanded firm founder and CEO Heracles Babalu, sporting significant unkempt facial hair and what one observer believed was “the same velour tracksuit he’s worn for the last two weeks.” “Preach, baby!” screamed tipsy Chief Financial Officer Brunhilde Yamamoto, then cackled unnervingly while mumbling R.E.M.’s dystopian anthem, “It’s The End of the World As We Know It,” adding, “Bagels are for the weak. Closers eat liquor for breakfast.”

Babalu, brandishing a half gallon jug of generic big-box store vodka, continued, “No more ‘Toasted Everything with a nice veggie schmear’! New residential construction’s in the crapper. Case-Shiller Home Price Index is a disaster. Mortgage rates are higher than my idiot son,” who also serves as the firm’s Chief Operating Officer. “So belly up to the bar, boys!”

Employees pointed out that “the bar” was actually the front reception desk at which veteran receptionist Anastasia Soylent hastily lined up Tom Collinses for bemused colleagues. As Business Development Assistant Tyrone Keytruda reached for his phone to pay via app, CEO Babalu bellowed, “Cash only!” and pointed to an ATM that mysteriously appeared that morning next to the lobby’s ficus tree.

Looking on, CFO Yamamoto smiled and asked no one in particular, “It’s a new revenue stream, right?”

Citing its dizzying amalgam of inventive fabulism, swirling imagination, and bald-faced fabrication, the Pulitzer committee today awarded its Prize for Fiction to Hailee Rybelsus for her seminal work, “HaileeResume_FinalVersion_Revised_New_3.pdf.”

In its commendation, committee chair Iphigenia Rosenberg gushed, “This triumph of the fantastical woven into the everyday is reminiscent of a Borges or Murakami. When the author writes “Generated explosive month-over-month revenue growth for high-profile national enterprise” as allegory for selling Girl Scout cookies in Schleiderman’s Grocery’s parking lot 17 years back, she challenges the very notion of reality. Is she a ‘Seasoned Senior Regional Account Executive’ that Placentia Financial Services Group needs to hire immediately? Or a lazy second grader who let Brittani Mancuso and her mom do all the work with the Thin Mints? I do not know. And I could not help but be moved.”

Committee member and Booker Prize short-list candidate Evangeline LeBrontosaurus concurred: “Hailee Rybelsus gives us much to ponder deeply: As she elegantly composed, she ‘Spearheaded end-to-end deployment of enterprise-grade SaaS solutions for top-tier European Union member nations.’ What a stunning transformation of her semester abroad in Florence where she slept in, blew off her Renaissance sculpture lectures, snarfed Pappardelle al Cinghiale, and hooked up with a mid-fielder from the Croatian junior national team. The mystery is the medium is the message.”

Marveled Columbia Graduate School of Journalism visiting lecturer Ivor Grog, “Rybelsus lists ‘Expert-Level Skills in Python, Java, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, R, C++, SQL, Oracle, MySQL and IBM DB2,’ but she just pastes code into GitHub Copilot or sub-contracts for rupees on the dollar to Bengaluru! With all due respect, Philip Roth wished he had that sort of ingenuity.”

That evening, the Pulitzer Prize Board’s Gala highlighted the Breaking News Photography winner’s searing images which helped end internecine strife in sub-Saharan Africa, selections from the Music awardee’s politically-charged EDM opera that has “redefined the very concept of sound,” and Rybelsus, who handed out copies of her wide-margined, double-sided page to anyone within 25 yards of her cocktail table. The floor around it was strewn with these same copies.

When asked for a hint about her follow-up opus, Rybelsus smiled coyly and confided, “I’m workshopping a cover letter for a CEO gig. It will not disappoint.”

She then directed any further inquiries to her recently hired publicist, George Santos.

Andover Medical Supply hosted their 32nd Halloween Hootenanny, an eagerly anticipated highlight for employees and their families. The event is renowned for its remarkably creative departmental costume contests, waistline-busting candy buffets throughout the Danvers, MA, headquarters, and annual reduction-in-force/Most Sanctified Immolation of the Wretched Crones.

Chief Administrative Officer Sam Danforth hailed this year’s festivities as “the best yet. You see Accounts Receivable dressed as the KPop Demon Hunters? Amazing. Nearly overshadowed our sacred layoff pyre out back on the loading dock.”

Unlike companies which rely on projected P&L and organic attrition to tailor workforce scale, Andover has pioneered the “Whispered Accusation Followed By Mass Hysteria Right-Sizing Methodology.” This year’s “axing minus the axes” were instigated solely based on the word of Supply Chain Management Associate Abigail Putnam. According to the internal “#see-something-say-something” Slack channel, Putnam denounced her colleague Elizabeth Goody-Proctor for her “sub-optimal operations prioritization protocols” and “casting spells to charm and beguile Cute Jayden from Corporate Strategy with wicked thoughts of the flesh.”

In alarmingly rapid succession, Goody-Proctor’s lunch companions, car pool buddies and dentist (who works across town at a practice unaffiliated with Andover Medical Supply) were summarily rounded up, then thrown into makeshift stocks erected in the third floor employee break room. Their ultimate fate will be determined once Andover Medical’s Council of Most Just Elders convenes with HR and the Massachusetts Department of Unemployment Assistance and Necromancy.

Following his utterly wrongheaded orchestration of another merger debacle which overpromised to “unlock shareholder value” through never-specified “identification of synergies” coupled with “elimination of redundancies,” Gargantuan Conglomerated Entertainmediaverse CEO Charlton “Chuck” Quisling will exit with a handsome 9-figure golden parachute rivalling those received by America’s mediocre-at-best college football coaches.

“Now that there’s one nice-looking job of bargaining, I tell you what. Good for that young fella,” commended lifelong gridiron man Lonnie Earl “Skeeter” Fontenot, who recently landed a $97 million contract buyout from Eastern Pennsylvania A&M. Though A&M’s Fighting Quakers won a total of three games over his six and-a-half seasons at the helm - one by typhoon-related forfeit - the university’s Council of Trustees justified the payment via statement: “There are only so many middling leaders out there. To obtain the services of someone like Coach Skeeter, we had to compensate according to prevailing market conditions. Hate the game, not the player. Or the coach.” Notably, the Council refused to address whether the outlay had any bearing on A&M’s elimination of the departments of English, Theology, Anthropology, Fine Arts, and Botany.

In Tinseltown, Quisling leaves behind a 14-month-long tenure described by one trade press editorial as “the firebombing of Dresden in balance sheet form.” By evaporating $72 billion of market capitalization through staggeringly boneheaded initiatives including Project Needle-In-The-Hackstack (using AI to pick screenplays), Project Look Over Here! (using AI to make all marketing decisions) and Project Asbestos (using AI instead of the studio lot’s fire department), the corporation’s Board was able to easily justify his north-of-$600 million payout “just to make the greedy troglodyte go away.”

Set up with a lavish production deal at his now-former employer, Quisling’s first theatrical project will be “Skeeter: A Coach’s Story,” which he has described as “Like ‘It’s A Wonderful Life,’ but for middling Division IV football.”

Self-described Workforce Futurist and Extreme Employment Shaman Cameron “Cam” Zyloprim, in a sobering repudiation of all he espouses to his dozens-strong “CAM DO ARMY” of ShrinkedIn followers, has formally accepted that the current job market is “a total cluster. Don’t even bother. Better to sell your blood. Recycle White Claw empties. Barter beaver pelts.”

As jobless figures tromp upwards due to the fraught combination of economic uncertainty, political upheaval, and technology-fueled displacement, Zyloprim admits that “one of my slapping memes just won’t help you get past the 900 other applicants for Assistant Growth Marketing Coodinator at Steak n’ Shake corporate.”

The Pacoima, CA-based CYO (“Chief YOUployment Officer”) admits that his unfailingly optimistic exhortations to those out of work are “jargon-engorged word burritos” which are “obvs delulu to any person with an IQ higher than their body temperature.”

Gavin Candelabra, the Rodgers Or Hammerstein (But Not Both) Professor of Organizational Behavior at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business concurs. Dr. Candelabra cites Zyloprim’s recent blog post, “Optimize Cutting-Edge Solution Transformation To Facilitate Seamless ROI Innovation And GET THAT BAG!” as merely one example of the “synapse-corroding, pixel-wasting drivel” which he assures “no way, no how will make any difference to your resume, cover letter, or interview. If you even get that far. Which you won’t.” Concedes Zyloprim, “Guilty, bruh.”

Even Zyloprim’s trove of effusive TikToks -- for instance, “Spank That App(lication),” “Ain’t No ‘AI’ In ‘Team’ … But There Is In ‘Ain’t,’ (Think About It)” and the viral-adjacent “10 Sure-Fire Tips To Make The Applicant Tracking System SCREAM YOUR NAME” -- offer little succor to the masses seeking their next paycheck. “Game over, man. Game over,” laments Zyloprim. “I really thought that Entrepreneurship and Demagoguery double major was my ticket.”

All media inquiries should be directed to his parents’ house, where Zyloprim has recently reclaimed his childhood bedroom-turned-exercise-nook.