Recently (relatively) I changed companies for the day job. I’ve ‘downsized’ to a much smaller firm, with a different portfolio of project types. A  number of people have asked me how much I like this new company. My only answer so far has been, “Meh. It’s a job very similar to all those I’ve had for years…” but certain things have made me view this in a new light. Allow me to explain.

I have used Facebook for decades now. Yes, a scary concept, but it has been more than 20 years. There are baby pictures of my daughter who is now an adult. There are literally hundreds of interactions and notes and memories attached to this online entity… and I own none of them. I tend to call Facebook “failbook” for the many shortcomings it has developed.

I saw in the news that ‘failbook’ wanted to have their staff participate in what they call a hackathon. Hackathon essentially is everybody in the company working on something that is not a daily work-related project trying to innovate something new or creative or special that would allow the company to add features to what they offer. One of the innovations from the past was the ‘like’ button. Innovative at the time, standard across many media platforms now. It’s a good idea, trying to spark creativity this way. 

Recently, Failbook laid off a significant number of people.Reports say they’ve laid off 8,000, and stopped the hiring process for 6,000 more. They’ve also moved about 7,000 of their staff (close to 10%) to AI related jobs. You know, training their replacement. Morale in those who remain is ‘low’. They are eliminating their humans. Humans are expensive. Humans tend not to like it when you chuck them out and they can’t get paid anymore. If you’re going to eliminate the humans, then the remaining humans working outside of work hours or being the volunteer to help the company is going to be a very hard sell. Many of the people still working there were disinclined to acquiesce to this request. 

I was also recently reminded of an interesting statement made by a friend of mine. “Human resources… nothing good has come from somebody who considers a person nothing more than a resource…”

So, how does this tie to me? My new job is decidedly among people. They are imperfect, don’t communicate well and are just trying to muddle along. Just like me. That has been the shift for me. My previous place of employment was a rather large company and they continually showed me that the people and culture just didn’t matter there. Are there things that I don’t like? Sure, but you’re going to get that with any job, no matter where you are. The only “perfect” job is where you’re the owner and the only employee, so if you don’t communicate with yourself that’s on you and nobody else.

I guess what I’m saying is, I’m still working in my field just at a different pace. That’s not a bad thing. There’s very little chance that AI will be brought in to take my position away here. I consider that a good thing – even if it means I have to still deal with people.