Matthew Speiser

I'm like you, but with a blog

Career

How I Ramp(ed)

I’ve gone through several onboarding processes. Here’s what I learned.

Creative Writing

Only I Can Save Westeros From the Destruction I Have Brought to Westeros

Fellow Westerosi. You may look out at the chaos before you and wonder why you should allow I, Joffrey Baratheon, First of His Name, and Ruler of the Seven Kingdoms, to continue to govern. You may ask yourself why I choose to surround myself with sycophants, and reject the wise counsel of my uncle Tywin. You may question my erratic behavior, unchecked temper, and sadist tendencies. And you may even speculate on my parentage and whether or not I am the product of incest. But I’d caution you not to think too hard about these things. Instead, think about how…

Creative Writing

Rent My Luxury Condo In That Neighborhood You Definitely Couldn’t Have Afforded to Live in Before the Pandemic

Hello! I’m looking for someone to rent out my spacious 3-bedroom, 2.5 bathroom penthouse condo. Now’s your opportunity to live in the heart of the city because nobody currently wants to live in the heart of the city. This apartment is a dream! There’s brand new kitchen appliances, a bidet in the bathroom (😉), and floor-to-ceiling windows that offer panoramic views of our empty and abandoned city. And at 4,000 square-feet, it won’t feel like the walls are closing in on you after a two-week quarantine. The building has lots of great amenities. There’s a gym, game room, rooftop pool,…

Creative Writing

Gender Studies for Lemurs

DISCLAIMER: Research into gender dynamics has revealed that, in most species, the male is the socially dominant gender. However, in a handful of instances, females produce a greater amount of testosterone and are therefore more aggressive and more likely to take risks—leading to deference from their male counterparts. One such example is lemurs. The following is an open letter to all my fellow male lemurs: I’m fed up. It’s 2020, and male lemurs are still treated like second-class citizens. We can’t nibble on a piece of fruit without an entitled female sauntering up and snatching it away from us. When…

Creative Writing

We’re Abiding By All Public Health Guidelines at the Spyzo Circus

Dear loyal customers, We were extremely concerned to read about the events in The Hamptons last week in which attendees flouted public health precautions during a DJ set from the CEO of Goldman Sachs. For those of you who share our concern, we want to make one thing clear: We’ll be abiding by all public health guidelines at the Spyzo Circus. We understand that you and your family come to the Spyzo Circus each year to be enchanted by our coterie of trapeze artists, unicyclists, acrobats, and people with freakish birth defects. Now more than ever we could all use a…

Creative Writing

Fun Stand-ins for NYC Public Schools

New York City officials announced last week that the city’s 1.1 million public school students will spend only 1-3 days in NYC’s public schools this fall in an effort to keep occupancy down and maintain social distancing. In response, Manhattan Councilman Ben Kallos suggested using community centers, storefronts, private schools, and other venues vacated due to COVID-19 as spaces where students can learn remotely while under the supervision of adults on days when they’re not allowed in their schools. This plan, Kallos’ argued, will assist parents with childcare while allowing students to continue their education in a safe environment. Great…

Creative Writing

MasterCats Is Now Accepting Students For the Fall Semester

How are you spending your quarantine? Stuck inside? Nothing to do? Staring at your cat sunbathing on the carpet, wondering if they care you exist? Then we’ve got an exciting offer for you. MasterCats, the MasterClass knockoff operated by cats, is now accepting students for the fall semester. This is the only class where you’ll learn about your feline companions directly from the source (And not your shitty dog-loving friends who think we would stare at you indifferently as you choked to death on your cornflakes). And given the current public health crisis, this year we’ve decided to move out…

Creative Writing

O How I Miss the Office

O, how I miss the office. Those walls within which I ply my trade. Where colleagues coalesce to collaborate and commiserate. And working while sick is a sign of dedication. O how I miss my morning commute. Standing on the platform, sleep deprived, waiting for the 6 train. Turning up the volume on my podcast as the subway screeches into the station. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with other bleary eyed commuters. …waiting for the sliding doors to open. Forearming passengers in search of a pole to grip. And trying to find my breath as we go hurtling through darkness O how I…

Creative Writing

Why Trust the Alien Experts?

Hello, Spyzo here. A concerned citizen who thinks their voice should be heard regarding these pesky alien attacks. Now I know that the so called “alien experts” are urging everyone to hunker down in place. I realize they’re encouraging us to wear tinfoil hats so that the aliens can’t use their telepathy to find out where we’re hiding. And I know that New York City and Los Angeles were recently decimated by a giant alien tractor beam. But when it comes to stopping these alien attacks, I think it’s important that we take into account the opinions of folks who…

Creative Writing

HHR

“HHR, how may I direct your call.” “What?” “What” “What is this.” **Deep Sigh** “This is HHR.” “I, uh, what’s HHR” “Health and Human Resources.” “Oh…uh, ok.” “No I’m kidding.” “What?” “This isn’t Health and Human Resources.” “Ok, then what is it.” “Where are you.” “Where am I?” “Is there an echo?” “No there’s no echo where I am.” **Another deep sigh** “Describe your surroundings.” “Well, it’s, uh, there’s nothing.” “Nothing?” **Sounding increasingly panicked** “Yes nothing…” “Ok.” “Hey wait, I’m not on the phone.” “I know.” “No I mean I’m not holding a phone.” “Obviously.” “I’m hearing you…how am I…

Creative Writing

The Man With The Purple Hands

“Why are your hands purple?” said the little girl. “I was born this way,” said the man. Her mother approached. “Why are you talking to my daughter,” she said. “She asked me a question,” said the man with the purple hands. The mother shot him a nasty look, took her daughter by the arm, and marched off. As the little girl walked away, she turned around and gave a sympathetic glance. It made the man with the purple hands feel good. He left the park and headed back across town to his apartment. As he walked he glanced in the…

Creative Writing

Tyus At The Bat

Tyus stepped into the batter’s box. He knelt down, picked up some dirt, and clapped it between his batting gloves. He thought it meant good luck.  The pitcher was a gangly bastard. 6’5 and milk white. Witz was his name. The scouting report said he could hit 100mph on the radar gun. The first pitch came high and tight. He could feel the breeze on his chin as it exploded into the catcher’s mitt. Ball 1. The next pitch was coming straight down the middle. Tyus squeezed the bat handle, cocked his left leg upward, and gave it a nice…

Creative Writing

Startup Job Description

Do you think culture eats strategy for breakfast? Do you like to “fail fast” and work “cross-functionally?” Do you enjoy meaningless business-speak like “futureproof,” “operationalize,” and “let’s drop a pin in this?” Well then, you might be exactly what we’re looking for at CreamYoyo. We make data analytics tools for companies that provide data analysis to companies who build ecommerce marketplaces for merchants who want to sell homemade portraits of their dogs to consumers located in the greater Des Moines area—and we’re proud of it! We’re looking for a rockstar Marketing Manager to join our team. In this role, you’ll…

Personal Essays

Costa Rica

Day 1-2 Melissa and I touched down in Costa Rica around 10 PM, took a shuttle to the rental car facility to get our car (a Nissan Versa), paid for rental liability insurance ($300, and required by law), and we were on our way…to downtown San Jose. The drive from San Jose airport to San Jose is a bit like the drive from Newark airport to Newark. There’s some trucking facilities, a chemical plant—that kind of thing. Our hotel was located in “central” San Jose, but you wouldn’t know it from looking around. For a Friday night, the area was…

Personal Essays

Teeth and Tupperware

I floss every night. I didn’t do this as recently as two years ago. But then one day my dentist told me that not taking care of your gums is linked to heart disease. So now I floss. I used to leave tupperware behind. If I bought lunch in a tupperware container, that container was never making it back home with me. It would be left on a kitchen drying rack for eternity, or until the office throws away all the excess tupperware that’s been collecting over the months. Whichever comes first. I used to groan about working weekends. Now…

Personal Essays

Bali Trip

Day 1 (5/9) I woke up at around 6:45 AM to make an 11 AM flight to Qatar. I met up with my friend Jon at a bagel place near the A train, then took the hour long subway ride out to JFK. On our flight to Qatar I sat in the very last row, 47G, next to a large man from Albany who was visiting a friend in Kuwait. During the 12 hour flight he fell asleep multiple times and encroached on my side of the arm rest, which frustrated me. I watched three movies during the flight: The…

Creative Writing

Train Chair

Often I feel New York City is a very impersonal place. Other times I feel like New York City is one big tight knit community—especially when I am transporting furniture. Moving furniture is a common enough thing to do in New York, considering people are always moving in and out of apartments. Yet the sight of two people carrying a couch/dresser/TV stand down the block is just novel enough that most otherwise self-absorbed New Yorkers will give it a glance. A few weeks ago I needed a desk chair for my bedroom. It just so happened that my office was…

Personal Essays

Japan Trip

Day 1 (9/14) We fly out of JFK at 10:30 PM on Thursday, September 13 and land in L.A. around 1:30 AM on September 14. We decide to find a bar where we can waste a few hours, but everything in L.A. closes at 2 AM. We end up at a hukkah bar near LAX, where we hang out until 4 AM. Then we go to a diner and get some food, even though all of us are barely awake. We head back to the airport around 6 AM and doze off for an hour or so until security opens…

Creative Writing

Safe Space

1. It had been months since the sun shined. Nathan walked along the crumbling highway with his son Samuel in tow. Samuel had a rope tied to his waist. The rope was attached to a shopping cart which contained all of Nathan and Samuel’s worldly possessions: some cans of food, a rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammo. The shopping carts’ wheels clattered along the cracked asphalt. But then Nathan heard another noise. The noise of an engine. He looked back and saw a cloud of gray dust on the horizon. “We need to get off the road.” Nathan grabbed…

Creative Writing

Special Interests Draft

[Monday Night Football Music] [Bob Costas] “Live from Radio City Music Hall, it’s the 2017 Special Interests Draft on ESPN.” [Camera pans across a crowded auditorium of old white men in suis. The camera then swoops up and comes to rest on an overhead balcony where four other white men are sitting behind a big ugly desk] [Bob Costas] “Hello folks, I’m Bob Costas here with my colleagues Joe Buck, Chris Berman and the incomparable Mel Kiper Jr. and we are excited to bring you this year’s Special Interests Draft, live from New York City.” [Joe Buck] “That’s right Bob,…

Creative Writing

Board Game

In the Oval Office of the White House, a game is being played. The participants are Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel and Xi Jinping. They all sit on pillows in front of the Resolute Desk. On the floor in the middle of them is a board. The board features a colored twirly path that starts in one corner and ends in another, similar to that of a “CandyLand” board. The main difference between this board and “CandyLand” is the cards. Depending on the color of the spot you land on, you have to draw a card from a specific…

Personal Essays

Photos 4/23

My British cousin Josh is an architect. He was in town so I gave him my camera and brought him to the Guggenheim, Central Park, the Highline and the World Trade Center. Here are the photos he took:

Creative Writing

Salad Bar

The salad bar stands apart from the shelves of veggies in the produce section. An approach from any direction would leave one exposed, out in the open. It is independent. Nonpartisan and freewheeling. An island. On one side of the salad bar are lettuce and tomato and cucumber and red onion and beets and celery and shredded carrots and chickpeas and olives and corn. On the other side are chicken and turkey and hard boiled eggs and quinoa and goat cheese and feta and miniature cubes of ham. At the end of the bar are plastic containers and bottles of…

Creative Writing

The Minimalist

Being a minimalist means looking at every single item in your life and asking yourself honestly if it brings you value. If the answer is no, then you have to be willing to cut ties with it. The difficult part is that the only person you have to be honest with is yourself. You need to ask yourself honestly if you really need this thing in your life. Once I had a house with lots of stuff in it. There were TVs and books and exercise equipment and pots and pans and t-shirts and shoes and lamps and chairs. Lots…

Creative Writing

Come On Down To Matthew’s

The hottest new restaurant in Manhattan is called Matthew’s. It’s this really cool concept eatery where you eat scalding hot soup off of a plate with a knife. It’s exorbitantly expensive and they don’t take reservations. To get there you need to jump off the L Train while its moving between 3rd Avenue and Union Square. Tip toe around the rats until you find a large wooden door with blood splattered across it. Wait there and one of our hostesses will come meet you within an hour or so. If and when she does arrive, she will instruct you to…

Creative Writing

Bike Dads

I always wanted to be a dad who rode a bike. Every morning I would watch with envy as the fathers in my neighborhood tore down the street on their Trek’s and Schwinn’s. They wore skin-tight thermal onesies and aerodynamic helmets. One of them would always have a large boombox equipped to the back of his bike blasting music by the band Wilco. I thought they were so cool. One night my wife hosted a fondue party for all the families in the neighborhood. A couple of the bike-riding fathers were conversing near the breakfront so I decided to ask…

Creative Writing

Where are they now: The interviewees from Bill Maher’s 2008 documentary “Religulous”

Religulous is on Netflix. So I watched it. It was only the second time I had seen it. The first time I saw it was New Year’s Day, 2009. I don’t know why I know that, but I do. I liked Religulous a lot more this time. Despite being nearly 10 years old, the documentary seems as relevant as ever. While watching, I couldn’t help but think about what became of the people Maher interviewed. There were some very odd characters, and it seemed like an awfully long time since anybody had checked up on them. So I did a…

Creative Writing

Swimmer’s Ear

For some weird reason, there is no room 512 in Jon’s building. There is a 501, 502, 503 and so on. There is a 516, 515, 514 and 513, which is his room. But then it goes 513b, and on to 511. What this means is whenever his neighbor in 513b orders a pizza, the delivery guy gets confused and ends up knocking on his door. This doesn’t usually bother him, but tonight he had very bad swimmer’s ear. So when the pizza delivery guy knocked on his door at 10 p.m., he rolled out of bed clutching his ear.…

Personal Essays

NYC Photos 1/11 – 1/16

The following are some photos I took around New York City over the past few days. Washington Square Park, 1/11 Washington Square Park, 1/11 Washington Square Park, 1/11 Washington Square Park, 1/11 Washington Square Park, 1/11 Washington Square Hotel on Waverly Place, 1/11 Garibaldi statue in Washington Square Park, 1/11 Bridge over The Lake in Central Park, 1/16 Brooklyn Bridge, taken in September of 2016

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