I work East Coast hours from Nevada. Which means 6 a.m. is generally the latest I can be “at my desk.” (The quotes are doing some work here; we’ll get to that.)
In this regard, I am the final, terrible manifestation of my father, Charles Brooks, who spent 50 years rising before dawn to work warehouse and labor jobs. Same 6 a.m. spine, different battles. He had forklifts and timecards. I have Teams meetings and white papers.
Still, the body remembers.
Some mornings — can’t sleep, too much to do, or both — Work Greg comes out early. This day, it was 5:30 a.m. and I was already an hour into it. My version of “the office?” Parked in a gas station lot, hot dog and a 50-ounce Coke Zero at the ready. (No ice, obviously — a choice made with spiritual intensity any lifer flashing a gang sign would recognize).
A 5-Hour Energy bottle sat in the door pocket, my personal equivalent of the teenage boy’s wallet condom. More symbol than tool. But like all totems of imagined readiness, you will eventually use it. And when that day comes? You’ll be glad it’s there.
I go about my work. One guy needs a gentle kick over a deadline. Another has gathered 10 people for something that should’ve been an email. The emails themselves? Most could’ve been a few moments of sober reflection before hitting delete.
An op-ed got placed. A bad video idea got shut down. A reporter called. Wins, all.
I eat my hot dog as I have, most days, for 15 years. I’m in my Spicy Bite era.
Halfway through, I realize I should have slept more. Too late now — the day is what it is. So out comes the little bottle.
(Pause here for appreciation: Capitalism, in its infinite adaptability, looked at a world filled with coffee, Red Bull, Diet Coke, cocaine, and meth — and said: No, what’s needed is a shot-glass-sized bottle that tastes like melted plastic and keeps you vertical through another godforsaken strategy sync. We build what we need. And what we need, apparently, is chemically assisted tolerance for meetings.)
Somewhere in this, a text arrives from the sort of politico that would have made Early Greg sit up straight just to see the name on the phone. The fact that this no longer feels bizarre is, itself, bizarre.
But I’m busy. Trying to open the energy drink.
This turns out to be a mistake.
The bottle is shrink-wrapped in industrial-grade shame-foil. I, stubborn and bleary, attempt to peel it off with my fingers instead of just using the tried-and-true method all gas station drink veterans know: teeth.
And that’s when it happens. The Fumble.
Greasy hot-dog-finger meets slick plastic, and the bottle leaps from my hand like a cartoon baby from a Looney Tunes maternity ward. A plume of liquid, blueberry-scented and energetic, launches. Most of it is gone.
Well, not gone.
Half the bottle has reconstituted itself as a new roller-product topping. Gods, gravity or both applied most of the spilled energy drink… onto my hot dog.
A meeting continues. Camera off. I chime in with “Nothing to report” like a man unbothered, unshaken, un-splattered. If you can’t take a point-blank blast of adrenaline syrup and still maintain calm in a status call? You’re not cut out for this life.
No time to go inside. Another call in two minutes. Still So Very, Very Much To Do. Not exactly Man vs. God. But it’s close to Man vs. Self.
Standards vs. survival.
Professional dignity vs. spicy meat and shame.
The respectable vs. the weirdo.
Hot Dog Greg vs. Work Greg.
The thing about trying to do serious work in a ridiculous world is that you sometimes end up holding power in one hand and a blueberry hot dog in the other.
Still, you show up. Build. Don’t flinch.
And eat the damn hot dog.
Greg W. Brooks. First published on Facebook, Oct. 8, 2025.