Colleague - A blog on every pro to fun

 Let's be honest, in the vast, chaotic universe of the internet, your X (formerly Twitter) bio is your digital front porch. It's the tiny, 160-character billboard that's supposed to scream "This is who I am!" to anyone who stumbles upon your profile. And for me? Maintaining it is a low-key existential crisis that renews itself every few months. The Great "Who Am I?" Debate It always starts simply enough. I'll be scrolling through X, see someone's incredibly witty or professional bio, and then glance at my own. Suddenly, that bio I wrote three months ago feels like it was written by a completely different person. Am I still an "enthusiast"? Is "coffee-powered" too cliché? Does "Views my own" even mean anything anymore? The cursor blinks mockingly in the "Edit profile" box. And the pressure mounts. How do you condense your entire multi-faceted, complex personality—your job, your hobbies, your sense of humor, ...

The cursor is blinking on a blank document titled "New Year's Plan 2026." My coffee is getting cold. If I'm being honest, my "plans" from previous years look more like a wish list I abandoned by February. That gym membership that gathered dust. The language app that still sends me notifications, bless its heart. The ambitious goal to "read 50 books" that stalled out at book number four. Every year, I’d write a list of all the things I thought I should do. And every year, I’d feel like a failure for not doing them. This year, something feels different. Maybe it’s the fact that this last year has been... well, a lot. I'm not interested in a total life overhaul. I don't want a "New Me." I'm actually pretty fond of the "Current Me." I just want to be a version of myself that feels a little more intentional and a lot less burnt out. So, I'm ditching the "To-Do" list. This year, I'm making a "To-Be...

There are some teachers you remember for the lessons they taught from the textbook, and then there are the ones you remember for the lessons they taught you about life. Ms. Alani was the second kind. She wasn't the "warm and fuzzy" type. She was sharp, observant, and had this uncanny ability to see right through the usual classroom drama. She commanded respect not by being loud, but by being quiet. Her classroom was a an island of calm. I was in eighth grade, and I was carrying a secret that felt enormous. My best friend, Maya, had confided in me about her family's plan to move across the country. It was sudden, and she'd made me promise not to tell a soul until her parents had finalized everything. For a 13-year-old, this was a heavy burden. I felt important, trusted, but also deeply sad and isolated. I wanted to talk about it, to process it. I wanted someone—an adult—to tell me it was a big deal, to validate my feelings. I found myself staying after class one Tu...

Building 34 is its own kind of beast on a Tuesday. The air hums with the quiet intensity of a thousand keyboards, the scent of espresso from the micro-kitchen, and the unspoken pressure of the next earnings call. As an executive here, your calendar isn't a schedule; it's a game of Tetris, and you're always three blocks behind. My days are a blur of strategy reviews, product roadmaps, and forecast meetings. I live in Outlook and Teams, my world neatly segmented into 30-minute blocks. In this sea of blue-light and ambition, you learn to read people quickly. You spot the talent, the climbers, the coasters. And then there was Maya. Maya wasn't just "a girl in the office." She was an executive on a parallel track, managing the Azure data services portfolio while I handled the developer tools side. To say she was sharp is an understatement. She was the one in the Senior Leadership Team meetings who asked the one question nobody had prepared for. She could dismantle ...

If you're trying to build a brand, a project, or just a personal presence, you've heard the advice. It's 2025. You have to be on social media. That's it. That's the "help" you get. It’s like telling someone to "just get a job" without mentioning what field, what skills, or where to even look. For months, I was drowning in this advice. I had a passion project I was desperate to grow, and I knew the "followers" were out there. But where? I felt like I was standing in the middle of a digital food court, with everyone shouting at me to try their platform. "TikTok is where the views are!" "Instagram is the king of aesthetics!" "LinkedIn is for 'real' connections!" "Don't forget X (Twitter) for real-time engagement!" So, I did what any overwhelmed person would do. I tried to be everywhere at once. And it was a disaster. I called it my "Social Media Gauntlet." On Instagram, I'd ...

Let's start with a fact: I am an excellent gift-giver. I love the hunt. I keep a running list on my phone of random "ooh, that's cool" things my friends mention. I take pride in finding that perfectly specific, thoughtful, "how-did-you-know-I-wanted-this?" present. Unless it's for my boyfriend. My boyfriend is wonderful. He's driven, he's smart, he's kind, and... he's successful. He's one of those people who, if he wants something, he just... gets it. New tech gadget? Pre-ordered. That cool watch? Already on his wrist. A weekend trip? He booked it last month. Which is fantastic, 99% of the time. I'm so proud of him. The other 1% of the time is the two-week panic before his birthday. How do you find a gift for a person who has removed all the friction from their own "want list"? My search history becomes a digital graveyard of bad ideas. "Gifts for men who have everything." "Luxury gifts for boyfriend....

Of all the milestones we celebrate, the first birthday has to be the most bizarre. It’s a massive party thrown in your honor, attended by people who are overjoyed to see you, and you have absolutely zero recollection of it. I, of course, am no exception. My knowledge of my own first birthday is a patchwork quilt, stitched together from grainy photos, half-remembered family stories, and the undeniable, photographic evidence of cake... everywhere. Apparently, I was the star of the show. Based on the evidence (a blurry photo album I treasure), I was dressed in some poofy, adorable-but-probably-itchy outfit that my mom had likely been planning for months. My hair, which was more of a dedicated fuzz at that point, was brushed into submission. I looked thoroughly confused. And why wouldn't I be? For 364 days, my life had been a pretty consistent loop of eat, sleep, cry, and discover the magic of my own feet. On day 365, I was suddenly the main attraction. The house was full of giants (my...