Reintegration works!

An ex-severed employee tell all

March 2024 - Employed

Costa Rica Trip

Code, code, eat lunch, scroll X on the can, meeting, meeting, go home, disassociate, repeat.

That’s the real day in the life as a corporate software engineer. I’m not complaining, cause they pay me too much to do that, but I’m burnt out. I also live across the country from the boys, so I took some of my unlimited PTO, and headed to Costa Rica.

I left my laptop at home, deleted Slack, removed email notifications - completely disconnected from the corporate beast. Jumped on the train to JFK, entered the longer Clear tsa precheck pretentious elitist line and started tweeting. Hit the lounge for some gross food, took some medicine for the flight, took off, and Ding!

Costa Rica was amazing. Caught up with the boys. Went on adventures. Got robbed. Got tired of the rice and beans. Met a shaman.

Then before I knew it, I was landing in JFK, waiting in the immigration line, and Ding!

I redownloaded Slack, opened the ignored emails, and reentered the beast. At work the next day I had the typical first day back pile up of 1-on-1s. In each one they asked, “How was the trip?”. I responded with some cliche comments, the trip felt so distant already, there were meetings to attend.

January 2025 - Self-Employed

Europe Trip

Go for a run, hit a coffeeshop for a few hours of work, wander around and find some lunch, chill in my rocking chair, put on a record, and do some more work. Go to the gym, lift, eat dinner, hang out, scroll TikTok, and go to sleep. That was my day in the life as a self-employed profitless builder - the word founder is overused, I haven't found shit yet. I’m not complaining, because it is awesome. Raj, Bicoastal co-writer, hit me up asking if I wanted to go to Europe. I thought about it for all of 4 seconds and said yes. Unless I have a good reason to say no, I typically say yes, which typically leads to good things. I hit up my boy Pranav to see if he too wanted to join. And we were off for a trip around Europe.

I took my laptop with me and rushed out of my apartment as I was late for my shuttle. Sprinted to the subway, jumped on the L, sprinted to the uptown 4, got off at Grand Central, and got the last seat on the shuttle. Got to the airport, went through the casual tsa precheck, took some medicine, and took off for Paris.

Paris was nice. I loved the escargot, bistros, and red wine. The city was beautiful to run through with the Seine winding through the monuments and wealthy neighborhoods. Raj and I enjoyed exploring the working class, lesser-known arrondissements that tourists typically don’t go to. As we toured, little things about French culture caught my eye. The easily accessible trough urinals, the copious smoking, the fashion, and the TikTok addiction.

On our last day in Paris, Raj ditched me to take an Argentinian gal from our hostel on an excursion to a boring castle I'd visited before. So I spent the day walking around the city, observing, and working. It was pretty hard to find a laptop cafe in Paris, but I found a small little local roaster that worked. I sat at the cafe, caught up on Substack, and thought about an idea I’d been noodling on for a bit. A product to truly help people, and myself, with our TikTok use. Talking to the people in Paris and observing the similarities between them and me reinvigorated the idea.

We headed to Berlin next, where it was snowing hard, and stayed at a great little hostel. We made some friends at the hostel and I had a late night heart to heart with a British lad about the state of world politics and economic systems. During this conversation TikTok came up. I heard about how he used it, realizing the similarities and differences. I told him about my product and got some great feedback. I was now thinking about the product a lot.

Pranav met us in Berlin. We had great currywurst, toured lots of WW2 monuments, and went to a sick Berlin EDM club. I channeled my inner Bourdain and tried some jellied meat. It was te… well you’ll have to find out for yourself. Raj left us here as his limited PTO was up.

We headed next to Amsterdam. The canals were beautiful and we spent lots of time walking around, chatting, and observing. My product idea started solidifying and I started to work on it.

We next went to Brussels. We’d made a friend from Brussels at the Berlin hostel who graciously showed us around. Interestingly there’s not much to do there. We saw some statue of a peeing boy that was famous for some reason, and then drank beer. Honestly there’s not much to do in Brussels in the winter except grab a beer at the pub, chat, maybe grab some fries, repeat.

And then the trip was done. I was back in NYC. I woke up, headed to the coffee shop and started working. I caught up with the barista and when asked “How was your trip?” I responded with various highlights and observations. I remembered so much of the trip. But now there was a product to build and I am more excited than ever.

Reintegration has pains, it’s not always easy, but I’d highly recommend it, it helped me enjoy life a lot more.

-Ajay V’s reintegrated outie