COLUMBUS, Ohio — After nearly a decade of struggle, local mid-level logistics coordinator Derek Fannin, 38, announced this week that he has finally achieved the elusive work-life balance that career coaches and wellness influencers have promised is available to anyone willing to put in the effort — an effort Fannin has notably chosen not to make.

"I used to pour everything into my job and neglect my family," said Fannin, speaking from a home office where three browser tabs were open to a spreadsheet, a fantasy football waiver wire, and a paused episode of a Netflix series he began in February. "Now I spread myself thin across both, and honestly? Nobody's happy, but nobody's devastated. It's a kind of peace."

Friends, colleagues, and family members confirmed the assessment, describing Fannin as a man who leaves work early enough to be physically present at his daughter's soccer games while remaining mentally present at neither location.

"Derek is what we call a 'bilateral underperformer' — someone who has achieved homeostasis not by excelling in two areas, but by failing to excel in either one at the exact same rate."

That observation comes from Dr. Pamela Strout, Associate Director of Achieved Equilibrium Studies at the Forsythe-Bellin Institute for Occupational Halfheartedness in Akron, who called Fannin's case "genuinely remarkable in its symmetry."

Fannin's performance review at Meridian Supply Solutions described him as "present and contributes when reminded," while his wife, Joanna, noted that he has remembered their wedding anniversary "about half the times, which, if I average it out, is probably more consistent than anyone I know at work."

According to Fannin, the key was rejecting the conventional wisdom that balance means giving one hundred percent to everything. Instead, he pioneered what he calls a "forty-forty split," reserving the remaining twenty percent for what he describes as "buffer," though he cannot specify what the buffer is for and has not used it to date.

His employer has not promoted him in four years. His fantasy football team finished sixth out of ten. He has been meaning to re-caulk the upstairs bathtub since spring of 2022. He considers all of this "basically fine."

"I see guys killing themselves for a promotion they'll never get," Fannin said, glancing at his phone, then at his laptop, then back at his phone. "I see other guys coaching little league every night and burning out by June. Me? I'm coasting at, like, sixty percent of my potential capacity, split right down the middle. You can't take that away from me."

Dr. Strout confirmed that, clinically speaking, you cannot.

Fannin's LinkedIn profile describes him as "passionate about results." It was last updated in 2019. He has 94 connections and has not posted original content.