Pixietown

soooo... my employer has gone "all-in" on "AI" development and has a mandate that all work be done "AI-first"

needless to say, I am ... not buying this

I've been at this job for nine years and seen a lot of really stupid shit (including being forced to do all my work on a windows laptop ~6mo ago) but this is the thing has pushed me over the line; I've stayed at this job because I was able (within limits) to do my best work, and now I'm being told I need to do work that is worse than that

no

I'm looking around for options; got a few job applications out, but if you're hiring for Clojure work (or, somehow, Lua???) let me know

I have a lot of friends who have been looking for work for a long time and finding basically nothing, so I get that this is a bad time to do this, but I just can't stay with things going like that

https://technomancy.us/resume

edit: found a job now, thanks for your support

@technomancy I'd immediately scrawl
THIS IS SOME BULLSHIT I QUIT
and then photocopy it on a ream, and throw the pages on the desks of every manager type.

But I may be temperamental.

@mdhughes downsides of remote work, yknow

@bjc thanks

I count myself lucky that I have been able to take a stand on this, but it did churn my stomach having all this going on

more than once in the past week I've come out of a meeting and gone directly to the punching bag in the garage to let it all out for a bit

@technomancy I do not understand this approach. I don't think managers should mandate any individual productivity tools. Measure people on their output, not their internal methods!

@ehashman yeah, I mean taken as a rational method towards the goal of writing software that works, it makes no sense

but it's pretty obvious it's just a cover story; the real goal is to project the image of having a company that is "cutting-edge" and innovative so that the CTO can get invited to all the cool silicon valley parties

whether the code being produced is any good never really factors into it at all

if it was any good, you wouldn't have to beg people to use it!

@ehashman and the thing is, my manager knows that even if you ignore quality and look at output, I'm still the fastest person on the team! the excuses the CEO uses in the all-hands calls about having "next-level velocity" don't hold up at all!

@technomancy well I suppose there's always malicious compliance ("I installed it, look" and just happened to forget to turn it on oopsie)

@ehashman if I were in a more precarious situation, yeah

I have played thru some scenarios in my head of how to fake it, but I just paid off my house and my spouse has a path to healthcare that could work for both of us, so I am fortunate enough to not have to play that game

@technomancy @ehashman

congrats on the house i guess

I kinda doubt they will fire you unless you specifically try to get fired. Just telling them that you wont be using LLMs, but you will continue to do work, probably wont be enough

I think despite the layers of ignorance and social hierarchy performance, the people who make these decisions in software companies still kinda know not to mess with Scruffy the Janitor.

The company I work for is sort of on a similar track, I just don't have the same ability to walk whenever I want to.

in my head I have plotted what I refer to as a "desperation curve" where the X axis is time and the Y axis is my willingness to work with technologies I know I will find unpleasant

and if I somehow could find a place that doesn't have any LLM use, that would be a powerful multiplier against that curve

is this realistic? who knows... would I prefer a langlemangle-free Java shop to my current circumstances? yeah, almost certainly, but I'm still holding out hope for a while that I don't have to

but eventually it enters the realm of possibility if the current search parameters go nowhere

@technomancy This, but the inevitable bubble pop

@jaawerth feelin' this deeeeep in my bones

@technomancy an old favorite. This prompted me to go to his site and click the random comic button a few times and I hit another one that... resonates https://pbfcomics.com/comics/the-flight/

@jaawerth that site is a treasure

thanks to all for your words of support, means a lot to me <3

@technomancy I have confidence you'll be able to find stuff! You've got cachet, and can back it up!

Not... necessarily stuff you will really enjoy, though? I'm not even sure how much of that is out here these days. You'd hate where I am. I'm kinda just keeping things rolling; thus far avoided a significant portion of AI, but that is likely to change in the very near future. Also, I still end up writing JavaScript a lot

How about this, you start a co-op and I'll quit and join you 🫠

@jaawerth maaaan if I lived in a country with civilized health care I would have gone independent long ago!