The sharp, metallic scent of floor wax drifted from the hallway into the reception area at on a Tuesday. It was a cold morning in Toronto, the kind that makes the radiator pipes groan with a sudden, rhythmic violence.
The moment a seemingly harmless office “lol” began its transformation into a professional crisis.
I sat at my desk and rotated my head to the left. A loud crack echoed in my inner ear, sharp as a dry branch snapping under a winter boot. I had pushed the cervical vertebrae too far. A dull ache began to bloom at the base of my skull, a reminder that the body does not forgive sudden movements. Across the room, Greg from the sales department was already at his station. He was a man of predictable habits and loud laughs.
Greg typed four words into a chat assistant. He wanted to see how the machine described the company. A few seconds later, a block of gray text appeared on his glass screen. Greg leaned back and let out a short, sharp bark of a laugh. He took a digital screenshot of the answer and pasted it into the internal chat channel.
He added a caption that consisted only of the letters “lol.” The assistant had confidently declared that our firm specialized in blockchain-based logistics