Likely Normal

The corporate world’s sudden obsession with the metaverse feels like watching your grandpa try to skateboard—equal parts amusing and deeply concerning. Companies that still can’t manage to run a glitch-free Zoom call are now pouring millions into creating virtual office spaces where employees float around as poorly rendered avatars with dead-eyed stares and physics-defying hairstyles. The promised “future of work” looks suspiciously like a low-budget video game where the main objectives are trying not to vomit from VR motion sickness and pretending you can’t hear the CEO’s avatar loudly eating chips through their malfunctioning microphone.

These virtual workspaces solve problems nobody had while creating dozens of new ones. Instead of awkward small talk by the coffee machine, you now get trapped in endless conversations with a coworker’s digital twin whose lips move out of sync with their voice. Team-building exercises have devolved into watching colleagues’ avatars clip through virtual furniture or get permanently stuck in the “innovation zone” (which, ironically, nobody can figure out how to exit). The promised productivity boost has somehow resulted in everyone spending more time customizing their avatar’s imaginary sneakers than actually working.

The real comedy comes from leadership’s desperate attempts to justify this digital circus. That all-hands meeting in the metaverse? A pixelated disaster where half the staff couldn’t figure out how to sit down, and the other half accidentally turned themselves into floating torsos. The “virtual happy hour”? Just as awkward as the real thing, but now with the added humiliation of your avatar’s drink hovering six inches from its face. Meanwhile, the IT department is fielding increasingly panicked tickets like “How do I retrieve my virtual badge from the blockchain?” and “My avatar’s pants disappeared during a client presentation.”

As we speak, some overeager startup is probably selling “metaverse team synergy packages” to desperate HR departments, while employees everywhere are quietly praying this fad goes the way of Google Glass. The only true winners are the consultants cashing checks for buzzword-laden presentations about “digital transformation.” In the end, we’ll all look back on this era and laugh—right before Mark Zuckerberg announces MetaWorld 3.0 and the nightmare begins anew.

“Coming soon: Mandatory VR performance reviews where your raise depends on how well your avatar can do the floss dance.”