Internal Comms
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A document drop from the Complaint Factory.
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From: Complaint Factory CEO
To: Complaint Factory Manager
Date: Fri, May 1, 2026 at 9:02 AM
Subject: April KPIs
Looking at April KPIs and have concerns about [Redacted]’s output…are you prepared to speak to this in Monday’s one-on-one?
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From: Manager
To: CEO
Date: Fri, May 1, 2026 at 9:41 AM
Subject: Re: April KPIs
Yes, she’s hit a wall. Will prepare a deck.
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From: CEO
To: Manager
Date: Mon, May 4, 2026 at 3:14 PM
Subject: Re: April KPIs
Can you send a PDF of what you walked me through today? And address the font size. As a reminder—keep internal comms at 12 pt. Outgoing should be half that for anyone over 40. We’ve found this very conducive to hitting our numbers.
What’s been done to course correct?
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From: Manager
To: CEO
Date: Mon, May 4, 2026 at 4:40 PM
Subject: Re: April KPIs
We’re filling her Instagram feed with ads for cool pants that open to “Baggy Carpenter Utility Jeans for Toddler Boys,” and we’ve already doubled up on spam calls. Unsure of next steps.
Attachment:
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From: CEO
To: Manager
Cc: Complaint Factory HR
Date: Mon, May 4, 2026 at 5:24 PM
Subject: Re: April KPIs
See if Biohazards can engineer a hormonal acne flare-up. Spring is always a rocky time for morale but we need to keep shareholder value in mind.
CCing HR to assist. Loop me back in once resolved.
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From: HR
To: Manager
Date: Tues, May 5, 2026 at 10:17 AM
Subject: Re: April KPIs
Hello—I had a chance to go through [Redacted]’s full file this morning, and pulled a few incident reports from April. See attached, please let me know your thoughts.
Attachments:
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From: Manager
To: HR
Date: Tues, May 5, 2026 at 11:14 AM
Subject: Re: April KPIs
I’m not sure what I’m looking at here.
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From: HR
To: Regional Manager
Date: Tues, May 5, 2026 at 1:58 PM
Subject: Re: April KPIs
Based on [Redacted]’s age, it’s safe to assume the complaint drought is just a temporary overcorrection to this recent series of Women in S.T.E.M. interactions.
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From: Manager
To: HR
Date: Tues, May 5, 2026 at 2:12 PM
Subject: Re: April KPIs
Women in S.T.E.M.? Like…NASA?
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From: HR
To: Manager
Date: Wed, May 6, 2026 at 8:30 AM
Subject: Re: April KPIs
I’d advise you to brush up on the “People in S.T.E.M.” chapter of the training manual. For now, I’m attaching a one-pager that covers the Women in S.T.E.M. section. It's nuanced, so please review thoroughly.
Attachment:
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From: Manager
To: HR
Date: Wed, May 6, 2026 at 10:33 AM
Subject: Re: April KPIs
This is helpful, but I’m still not following. How is it related to [Redacted]’s productivity dip? She never complained about the asparagus run-in…
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From: HR
To: Manager
Date: Wed, May 6, 2026 at 4:15 PM
Subject: Re: April KPIs
No, there was a Curb Your Enthusiasm quality to the asparagus situation that she was secretly thrilled by. Still, that and all other April incidents involved OlderWomen in S.T.E.M., which is an important distinction.
I’m attaching [Redacted]’s file in full. You’ll note she’s 45, and therefore understandably prone to preoccupation with potential futures.
Early middle age is not unlike adolescence—the Complaint Inventories for both phases include inconsistent menstrual cycles, mood swings, and generalized dermatological disappointment. The main difference? Being 40+ comes with a fully fledged sense of autonomy and perspective, and [Redacted] would like to think she can move into the next phase of life on terms she’s decided for herself.
She’s been inundated with rhetoric about “giving zero f-cks” and “caring less” post-menopause, and while she understands the positive benefits of this magical release from societal expectation, there’s very real trepidation about how she occasionally sees it modeled.
Attachment:
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From: Manager
To: HR
Date: Thurs, May 7, 2026 at 8:58 AM
Subject: Re: March KPIs
You’ve lost me completely.
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From: HR
To: Manager
Date: Thurs, May 7, 2026 at 10:44 AM
Subject: Re: April KPIs
People tend to become more themselves as they get older, and this is absolutely a "for better or worse” kind of thing.
Each recent interaction with an O.W. in S.T.E.M. has been tinged with both recognition and fear. [Redacted] is already impatient and prone to quick (though, to be fair, often eerily accurate) judgment, and generally operates from a place of gentle suspicion. She’s concerned this does not bode well for a future in which one's internal filter is promised to function more like a sieve.
We’ve found that for women in early middle age, more than three interactions with Older Women in S.T.E.M in any one month can set off a domino effect of reactions (as opposed to one M.o.A.A. [Man of Any Age] in S.T.E.M. encounter, which just unleashes earth-scorching fury).
First is the triggering of a deep, internalized misogyny, the vestiges of which the early middle-age woman has been attempting to exorcise since college-aged service workers started calling her "Ma’am.“ This is followed by an uncomfortable period of self-questioning and internal beratement, which may include (but is not limited to) dialogue such as:
Why am I in my head about this? Sure, she may have been…ok fine, yeah, objectively awful, but if it had happened in a TV show or a movie instead of in real life, I’d roll my eyes and call it clichéd. No one is the sum of a single snide comment or unhinged listserv tirade (or even four unhinged listserv tirades, though Terri could truly benefit from a hobby and also some therapy). And shouldn’t I be giving her some leeway—just a small serving of benefit of the doubt—for the heart of gold that’s likely buried beneath a lifetime of disappointment or chronic pain or society’s ills? Or does that make me an even worse person, disguising empathy as pity, making up scenarios in which an O.W. is somehow damaged and broken? What's wrong with me that can’t I just let this mean-ass girlboss spread her evil, still-vital wings and fly? Maybe I'm not even mad about this at all…maybe…maybe I’m actually impressed?
As she heads towards acceptance, the next phase is similar to proximate reactions to cancer diagnoses, career derailments, and divorce (and similarly, best kept to one's self): How do I make sure this doesn’t happen to me? Because the simple fact is that if you lose your filter completely, if you go around sharing every disagreeable thought that comes to mind—no matter how good it might feel, no matter how liberated from societal expectation your hormones or wisdom or experience allows for—well, that is diabolical behavior. If we are all Larry David, then no one is Larry David, and what a sad world that would be.
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From: Manager
To: HR
Date: Thurs, May 7, 2026 at 2:37 PM
Subject: Re: April KPIs
Please, I beg you—as plainly as possible—how has this led to my Department missing KPIs by 74%?
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From: HR
To: Manager
Date: Thurs, May 7, 2026 at 4:24 PM
Subject: Re: April KPIs
[Redacted] will eventually realize there’s only a small Venn diagram between liberation and complete filterlessness—and likewise, between filterlessness and being a total d-ckhead—but she's currently stuck in overcorrection. She thinks that if she can start reining in her Woman in S.T.E.M. tendencies now, she might have it muscle-memorized by the time she’s 65. Complaints will naturally start up again with time and/or the right impetus.
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From: Manager
To: HR
Date: Fri, May 8, 2026 at 9:04 AM
Subject: Re: April KPIs
Got it. So when, exactly, am I going to get my best complainer back?
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From: HR
To: Manager
Cc: CEO
Date: Fri, May 8, 2026 at 3:19 PM
Subject: Re: April KPIs
The hormonal acne request was approved yesterday. KPIs should be on track by Tuesday of next week.
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From: CEO
To: HR, Manager
Date: Mon, May 11, 2026 at 9:10 AM
Subject: Re: April KPIs
Thank you both for your time on this.
“Internal Comms” emailed out 5.12.2026 with newsletter-exclusive extras. Subscribe for free here.