Working From Home

Several People are Typing by Calvin Kasulke

Pages: 256 Genre: (light) sci-fi, humor

Rating: 4 Star

Kindle Notes & Highlights

Gerald works for a New York-based PR company when he gets trapped in the company's Slack channel. Luckily, since his productivity is up, no one is really worried about where he's working, or why. He does have his coworker, Pradeep, helping him at least. Meanwhile, the PR firm's biggest client, a high-end dog food company, is having a poison-related disaster. Love stories fly, work is completed, and the Slackbot is happy to direct you to the Help Center if needed. Also, the whole story is told through Slack messages.

I was really impressed by how well a story and community was built through just texts. Everyone had different text styles and personalities that did a good job of establishing them as clear, independent people that felt very real. I also appreciated that the author didn't try so hard to give them typing quirks. Emojis (shoutout dusty-stick) and gif references played a role, but we weren't forced to read stupid abbreviations and slang. As a result, everyone felt more genuine.

This book also did a good job of balancing the profound reflections with the humor. It reminded me a bit of The Good Place. The emotional stakes weren't sacrificed for the jokes, and the jokes didn't entirely cover the horror of the idea of being disconnected from your physical body and being absorbed into a company Slack group. It's not the deepest book in the world, but it succeeded at what it was trying to be.

While I really enjoyed the GeraldBot plot, I will admit that the dog poison subplot was a little confusing in the end. I was into it and liked the concept, but it was the weaker half.

Overall, this was a very unique book that was told in the perfect way. It was a clever way to explore the scarier side of technology, as well as being a hilarious way to tell a story.