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I hurry away from the giant poster of Doppelgänger Mitch, trying not to think about my empty apartment with the moldy takeout in the fridge waiting for me at the end of the day. I duck into an elevator, fighting back bitterness. All my well-laid plans—publicly traded company by twenty-eight, married by twenty-nine, have a baby by thirty, or at least be baby-adjacent by thirty—have been waylaid by forces beyond my control. In my twenties, I used to think nothing was out of my control. If I studied more, worked harder, and hit the gym like a Peloton instructor, every goal was within reach.

And now I think we're all pinballs pinging around at random, hoping that when we collide with something, it's good.

Soon, I'm at my floor, darting away from the elevator and out into the happy buzz of our bustling tech firm. The Toggle office might be in Chicago, but it's got the Silicon Valley vibe: bright colors, open floor plan, Ping-Pong and foosball tables in the break room. Free cans of soda in the clear-door fridge, and a fully stocked juice and espresso bar. Ridiculously smart twentysomethings in Vans and faded concert tees roam the halls. At least four of them toss a Frisbee back and forth down the main corridor, riffing on new app functions, while others lob a Nerf football. Another pair have their heads together trying to solve a glitch, or arguing about who was the better Star Trek captain: Kirk, Picard, Sisko, or Janeway, and an "official" vote of the matter is currently open on the break room whiteboard. These developers and programmers are loud, boisterous, and hilarious, and I love them. I breathe a little sigh of relief, the tightness in my chest loosening.

"Nam-eeee!" Priya Patel, a senior software engineer, shouts, her bright blue hair impossible to miss as she stops, mid-Frisbee throw. A few others swivel around in their chairs and join my senior engineer in the chant. "Nam, Nam, Nam, Nam-eeee!"

They chant like I'm a gold-medal Olympian and not their boss. These are my people. They love me and I love them back. I've spent a lot of time and effort building a community, not just a regular old workplace, making sure that Toggle is the kind of place people feel good about working for. In fact, our tagline on a bunch of employee shirts last year read: toggle: fun. not evil. really. we mean it.

Arie Berger, my chief technical officer and Priya's boss, slowly rises from his desk. He's got his TV Dad vibe on hyperdrive today with his short, curly, sandy-blond hair; a brown plaid shirt; khaki shorts; leather hiking sandals; and his company ID around his neck in a Toggle-logoed lanyard. He's the only employee on the floor to wear his ID, and some of the other programmers joke it's because—at age forty-five and the oldest employee at Toggle—he's getting too old to remember his name. He's got a wife and two kids in the suburbs, proudly drives a silver minivan, and listens exclusively to old-school hip-hop from the early 2000s.

He nods sagely at Priya, who hits the volume button on the portable cube speaker on her desk.

The first bars of 50 Cent's "In Da Club" boom out. The engineers slip on sunglasses and turn their baseball caps backward, some wearing bling in the form of paper clip and Post-it Note necklaces and immediately start a poorly planned group dance. They might be able to create the most complicated code from scratch, but coordinated they're not. I slap my hand over my mouth to suppress a giggle.

The engineers unfurl a banner that says "It is your birthday." It's decorated with two limp brown balloons—ode to The Office. Arie hands me a small box wrapped in Toggle flyers.

"Go on! Open it!" Priya cheers.

I open it, slowly, and pull out a ceramic mug.

It reads World's Best Boss on one side, and on the other We Mean This Un-Ironically. This mug instantly becomes my most favorite thing in the world. Everyone applauds and cheers. My face hurts from smiling and my heart feels like it might burst. I couldn't ask for a more perfect present.

"Aw, thanks, everyone!" They almost—almost—make me like birthdays. But it's right now, as I'm glancing at the words World's Best Boss, that I start to wonder if I am. Am I the world's best boss if I can't keep Toggle afloat?