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When the Epstein emails were released this week, a I saw lot of people on Bluesky – media guys mostly – saying things like “Maybe the most shocking revelation is how dumb/sub-literate these powerful men are!”

First of all, no. The most shocking thing is the heinous sexual abuse these men perpetrated on children, and how casual and flippant they were (and let’s be real, probably still are) about it.

Second, what? Maybe being in a profession that’s writing-based and theoretically demands accuracy has shielded these guys, but respectfully, buddy are you fucking kidding me?

Allow me to present a sampling of the dumbest things men in positions of power have said or emailed to me at work over the years.

All of these are direct quotes, and all of them were said by men who were presidents & CEOs, VPs of departments, or owners of regional business empires.

I wrote them down as they happened because it was that or have an aneurysm in the conference room.

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I know those examples weren’t barely coherent email messages like the ones in the news, but don’t worry – there were plenty of those too.

This next one is my all-time favorite, but it needs a little backstory first.

This came about because the leadership at a smallish firm I worked for thought the organization needed something to bring the teams together. Something bigger than crazy hat day or a chili cook off. Something meaningful and inspiring that would inject some life into an increasingly disengaged staff.

It was time, they decided, for a brand refresh.

But not any old brand refresh. It needed to be something dynamic and modern, sleek but not so sleek that it would scare off the more meat-n-potato types among the clientele. It had to be exciting! But not just for customers – employees should love it too.

Whatever they did needed to give everyone a reason to be proud to show up everyday and give it 120%! To keep moving forward until the job is done exceedingly well. They needed a rallying cry they could point to in difficult times to fire up the troops. Heck, maybe it could be something that would look cool painted in big letters on the office wall.

This, my friends, was said rallying cry:

Yep.

The old “tendency to do nothing or to remain unchanged” itself.

Please don’t try to argue that it can also mean something in motion can stay in motion therefore “moving=doing=forward=inspiring!” and in that way you can kinda see where they got it from, because you know goddamn well nobody in their right mind would take it that way.

I think of it at least once a week, usually when I’m imagining what it would be like if all that was a Tim Robinson bit and not an actual lived experience. (It would be identical, is what.)

In the end it didn’t get used officially, but it would still pop up in meetings every so often because the CEO just really loved it.

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Anyway.

Overly-confident mediocre men are literally everywhere, and to be surprised that the ultra-rich are chock-a-block with ’em is laughably naive.

All these naked emperors and aspiring c-suite viscounts have been running around with their balls dragging on the carpet all day long, proud as can be since the dawn of time.

I know nobody’s perfect and we’re all just trying to get through it. I’m just so tired of us having to pretend these ding-dongs are in any way more special or precious or deserving of grace than anybody else in order to do it.