San Francisco, CA — Addressing the company via livestream from his private cryotherapy yacht docked off the Maldives, Clicksyne CEO Tyler Bragg reminded employees Thursday that “there’s no ‘my kid has cancer in team’,” after a senior engineer requested time off to care for his terminally ill son.
“I get it, I do,” said Bragg, adjusting his limited-edition Balenciaga hoodie and sipping from a crystal tumbler of neuron-enhancing, algae-infused water. “But guess who else probably had a kid with cancer? Nikola Tesla. Did he let that hypothetical tragedy stop him from revolutionizing electricity? No. He put the grief into a lightning rod and monetized it.”
Bragg, who once fired a product manager mid-Zoom for “projecting low-vibration energy,” clarified that “hard times make hard teams,” and that prioritizing family over quarterly OKRs is “exactly how empires collapse into mediocrity.”
“You have to ask yourself,” he said, clicking to a slide that read EMPATHY IS NOT A STRATEGY in bold Helvetica Neue, “do you want your child to remember you as the parent who read bedtime stories in the oncology ward—or as the visionary who finally disrupted subscription lawn care?”
According to internal Slack logs leaked exclusively to The Fazzler, Bragg’s remarks came after senior engineer Mark Rosen emailed HR requesting three weeks off to care for his six-year-old son undergoing leukemia treatment. The automated reply from HR offered its deepest regrets—and a helpful reminder that Rosen’s “Purpose Alignment Index” had unfortunately dipped below the mandatory 7.3 threshold.
Bragg, in a follow-up message to the exec team, expressed “disappointment but zero surprise,” citing what he described as “a troubling rise in performative tragedy.”
“Every time we push for innovation, someone’s grandma dies again,” he said, before reminding staff that grief is “a fixed mindset” and “not part of our KPI ecosystem.”
To close the meeting, employees were treated to a new motivational video, narrated by Bragg himself, featuring a CGI phoenix rising majestically from a pile of burning medical bills while dubstep pounded and the words GRIT. GRIND. GROWTH. flashed epileptically across the screen like a fintech exorcism.
“I lost my hair transplant specialist to an avalanche in the Dolomites last year,” Bragg added solemnly, “but I still delivered our Q2 earnings. That’s what it means to lead.”
Immediately following the announcement, Clicksyne unveiled its newest internal wellness app, Grievr™, which allows employees to schedule emotional breakdowns in 5-minute increments between standups. Premium subscribers can unlock bonus “Feel Credits” via payroll deduction, with monthly leaderboard winners receiving a Clicksyne-branded tissue box and a free trial of SadGPT.
Reached for comment, Rosen responded from the pediatric oncology ward: “It’s fine. My kid actually finds Jira sprints soothing. After chemo, Slack notifications put him right to sleep.”
