Some challenges light you up inside. Others make you say, “Nope. Not for me. No thank you. Nope, nope, nopenopenope...” as you run in the other direction. 

But now that we've spent a year vilifying people who use AI to enhance their content, I think "performative imperfection" is going to be the new trend of 2026. We're going to edit photos to enhance imperfections, not deemphasize them. 

Every 👏 Single 👏 Person 👏 AI generates for me is caucasian. What is AI for if not to override our implicit biases with random representation? 

Here's a rule of thumb: The best states to work in are some of the worst states to work with.

And speaking of equal opportunity, pirates welcomed escaped sailors from marginalized identities, giving them opportunities for advancement that they never would have had in the navy or merchant marines. Lady-pirates could even become captains, like Ching Shih, who led a fleet of 1,200 ships and a workforce the size of Morgan Stanley. You could call it D-E-Aye-aye-matey.

If you build a workflow that requires more than half of their brain, they’re going to mess up. The best workflows can be done while driving in the 2-minute gaps between chat support responses from the corner of the couch with Dora the Explorer playing at top volume in the background.

The game begins. You have one calendar year to spend the money. The company has a year to collect it back from you. If you both follow the plan, you’ll both walk away scot-free, with the taxes you didn’t spend still in your pocket.

Spybots... I mean, 'AI notetakers' freak me out. Not because I’m paranoid. Because I sit in on a lot of meetings that people wouldn’t want recorded. Luckily, I live in California, which is a two-party consent state.  Meaning those nosey little spybots need to announce themselves. 

Before you start planning how you’ll spend that “free” paycheck before your finance department re-balances the budget for 2026 you need to know that your payroll provider is probably smart enough to anticipate this. There are two methods that payroll providers use to solve the 27-paycheck problem: Pro rata and pay as usual.