Shit level: cranked up to 11.
-
Not fishing for anything here, just kinda talking out loud because frankly this shit is now officially overwhelming.
My wife got laid off yesterday. The situation was insane. Basically, her company's security team held a personal vendetta against her boss, but they have some clout, so just to put her boss in her place they instituted new policies to make my wife's employment no longer possible, along with a few other people. It really screws the company over for a handful of reasons, and damages a few company relationships, but politics, man, what can you do.
On my end, the company I do contract work for usually renews everyone's contracts annually. Then it got changed to a 3-month cycle, starting this year. Kinda stressful, but no one anticipated any changes. Well now, the teams we do work for are very excited that they'll be getting their own sandboxed version of ChatGPT in the coming weeks. Right before contracts are supposed to renew.
The entire game is going to be who gets access. The teams I do work for find folks like me entirely inconvenient to work with. They don't understand what we do, how we do it or why we're even around. They see us as a necessary evil and would absolutely love to get rid of the lot of us. Sure, their work would suck ass, but they honestly wouldn't be able to tell that, and it'd streamline things like mad on their end. These folks are already under the assumption they'll have access, and they're VERY excited about that. So it doesn't look good.
It's giving me journalism flashbacks from a decade ago. I'd go over to someone's office for a meeting and find them clearing out their desk. Have coffee breaks and see yet another co-worker walk down the hall with a fucking crate. Once, I showed up for work in the morning and passed through entire empty floors that just the day before had 150+ people working there. One of my old co-workers that got laid off before I went to get my master's. I saw her at a coffee shop after I got back and she was still looking for work.
I knew that for a whole lot of reasons, this year is going to be a fucking ride. I guess we're there now.
-
FFS. Will keep you guys in our prayers and thoughts.
Any particular prospects for Elena (sp?)?
The Brad
-
Sorry to hear about all the stress. I hope you and your family make it through ok.
Education is extremely important.
-
@Mik said in Shit level: cranked up to 11.:
You cannot relace quality.
That's the pitch you hear at the Renaissance faire booths selling hand-bound journals and leather handbags, but there's a reason their stuff isn't sold at Target and none of the boothies have health insurance. It was also the pitch that luthiers gave when machines started mass-producing guitars. Which some people still do but as an exception rather than the rule.
In my universe, my predecessors dealt with this for a brief time in the 90s, when desktop publishing became a thing. Companies thought that buying Photoshop made them layout designers, and graphic professionals the world over couldn't find work for awhile. When it turned out that shit sucked, the boat righted itself, but it took years.
The boat never righted itself with journalism. No one can argue that news quality has actually increased in the past 15 years. Some things do actually get worse and stay there.
I think we'll see a dumbbell effect with AI and commercial work. The vast majority of stuff will be done with AI, and it will suck ass, but like the news, that'll be the new baseline. There will still be folks making human decisions in a few places, sure. But that'll be the rare exception, much like hand-made clothing and guitars.
I'd very much like to be wrong about that, but the most compelling argument I've heard to date has been, "yeah but AI work sucks." Yeah, well, much like clothing and guitars, very few people have the sensibilities to even know the difference. And hey, give it time. Wait until we have true AI.
This isn't some doom-and-gloom crap, I'm honestly looking for ways that I'm wrong about this. It's insane to take people tasked with coming up with something novel and replace them with technology that only aggregates, but, well, here we are. People are doing it.
-
FFS. Will keep you guys in our prayers and thoughts.
Any particular prospects for Elena (sp?)?
@LuFins-Dad said in Shit level: cranked up to 11.:
FFS. Will keep you guys in our prayers and thoughts.
Any particular prospects for Elena (sp?)?
Hard to say. Her now-former co-workers are all putting the word out on their end, and unlike myself she's in touch with basically everyone she's ever worked with, so I feel her chances are pretty damn good. On the other hand, the job market is bizarre right now. The memes about companies desperate for employees but not hiring anyone are true in many places.
On my end, there will be some epic behind-the-scenes fights about AI, so it's not entirely a foregone conclusion. But I'd still bet on the other guys.
-
The problem is that you are going to have to go through this fight every frigging 3 months.
-
The problem is that you are going to have to go through this fight every frigging 3 months.
@LuFins-Dad said in Shit level: cranked up to 11.:
The problem is that you are going to have to go through this fight every frigging 3 months.
Well, two things: For the sub-team I work for, there's only one me. Both my boss and my HR person have tried to put in a good word to get me and a couple other people hired full-time. But they have absolutely no say whatsoever. As Renauda would say it's all up to the bean-counters. And it really is.
Outside of that, I always knew this situation would probably be temporary. The problem is how I was going to position my work experience. It was dead obvious a year ago but now, it's different. For example, in the journalism world, companies using AI are pumping out 800+ articles a month. The quality is amazingly terrible but for now, the articles are doing their job: ranking the company higher in Google SERP and creating inbound traffic. Google doesn't want to lead people to shitty articles, but the algorithms haven't yet caught up with the AI content windfall so for companies, this dumbass strategy appears to be working perfectly.
As society becomes acclimated to AI bullshit, the demand for real things is going to increase quite a bit. But that too will take time.
-
@Horace said in Shit level: cranked up to 11.:
Sorry to hear about all the stress. I hope you and your family make it through ok.
Thanks, Horace. Fortunately, I was pretty convinced the world was going to end in 2020 and I haven't yet been convinced otherwise, so I started socking some serious money away. We can make it about 6-8 months with no income if we had to. There goes the house downpayment, but a roof overhead is worth two tomorr— you know what that doesn't really work.
-
I trust you guys will be fine. The two of you have good heads on your shoulders, and one thing I know for sure is a strong work ethic.
The Brad
-
Thanks, LD. One thing my parents did a good job on was brainwashing me into a Puritanical outlook on work and employment generally. Which only means I'm constantly worried about it, not that that fear actually translates to a work ethic.
But here's hopin' it does. -
Don't see how this could happen. Ax has reassured me repeatedly the economy is all hunky-dory.
Bullshit.
Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I hope things go well for you and the wife finds something very soon!
-
Don't see how this could happen. Ax has reassured me repeatedly the economy is all hunky-dory.
Bullshit.
Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I hope things go well for you and the wife finds something very soon!
@Jolly said in Shit level: cranked up to 11.:
Don't see how this could happen. Ax has reassured me repeatedly the economy is all hunky-dory.
Yeah okay.
I'm always looking out for other stuff—Puritanical fear and all that—so I'll take the conversations I've had with recruiters, freelancers and colleagues over any horseshit the White House says about employment, any day.Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I hope things go well for you and the wife finds something very soon!
Thanks, Jolly. We'll probably figure things out, but I wish Auden were around to see what we're going to see in the coming decade. Would make for one hell of a sequel to Age of Anxiety.
-
Sorry, Aqua. This sounds like really messed up corporate stuff. Bean counters and people who play politics are the worst. Hopefully you can through it quickly
I was only joking
-
I trust you guys will be fine. The two of you have good heads on your shoulders, and one thing I know for sure is a strong work ethic.
@LuFins-Dad said in Shit level: cranked up to 11.:
I trust you guys will be fine. The two of you have good heads on your shoulders, and one thing I know for sure is a strong work ethic.
This. Hang in there buddy.
-
Sorry, Aqua. This sounds like really messed up corporate stuff. Bean counters and people who play politics are the worst. Hopefully you can through it quickly
Aqua, sorry to hear that your family has to endure this third party initiated crap that is beyond your control. It has always struck me that it is the productive employees who suffer the consequences of the dubious decisions of unproductive administrators and disconnected managers.
-
@Aqua-Letifer Sending positive thoughts to you that things will work out as you wish.
