Remi never intended to secretly outsource her job. It sort of just happened. After graduating from college in 2019 with a degree in education, the Gen Zer found work at a Chicago publishing company.
She did not love it. Most of her colleagues were decades older than her, and their struggles to use basic software forced her to become a one-woman IT operation. The work itself was uninspiring and relentless: On most days she juggled presentation slides, managed spreadsheets and databases, and formatted page layouts.
The pandemic provided a respite from the tedium of in-office interactions. But it didn't lessen her workload, and she quietly began asking her boyfriend, a STEM major working in a lab, for occasional help. Certain she'd be fired for it, she didn't tell her employer.
Then her mother died. Remi was appointed executor of the estate, and settling her mother's affairs was a never-ending nightmare: wading through countless gambling debts, maintaining the crumbling family home, and distributing the few remaining assets. Though she took a leave of absence from work and continued to rely on her boyfriend when she returned, she couldn't keep up.
Soon, she also turned to a childhood friend, who was unemployed and needed money. Remi proposed a plan: She'd pay her friend $100 a book to help with editing and formatting, saving her hours of work every week. The friend eagerly accepted.
Her colleagues, meanwhile, remained clueless . And just like that — although she didn't know it.