Hey pmjv, thanks for dropping by! You’re an absolute legend and I couldn’t have made this (for better or worse) without your work.

That parody is a bit problematic, though

That’s a good point, yes.

Your empathy is really appreciated.

No problem! Fwiw I think a lot of us identify with a lot of that character these days.

There’s no criticism of the outside factors

The article literally starts with “In 2026, the job market is tough. AI plunged us all into economic despair” (itself exaggerated, and a play on the typical “AI doomer” clickbait articles saying what we all know more dramatically, which is another can of worms).

It shouldn’t be a sentence for poverty.

Agreed. And in the article it isn’t. He does get a job at the end.

But yeah, I can see how your reading of the article is valid. I’ll sleep on it and see if I can do something about it.

I don’t imply that being able to use AI tools is a panacea to get a job. I don’t imply that the reason for many lay offs isn’t related to AI.

I don’t insinuate that being out of work is entirely the fault of the worker. I’m just making the nuanced point that some workers can sometimes do more beneficial things when looking for work, without realizing that that’s the case. This can happen despite the main barrier to getting a job being a completely external cause (as it’s indeed implied in the article).

I understand that the topic is uncomfortable. That’s why I tried to to put it in the context of humor and satire. Basically I’m asking what can we do better when trying to get a job, even if an external, uncontrollable situation would make any improvement almost pointless.

It’s implied that he actually gets fired because of refusing orders for 3 weeks, and then slacking off another week.

Well, the idea was to have a narrator who is a bit self-sabotaging in their job hunt, doesn’t notice, and blames the job market and AI. The nuance is that they are partially right on the external diagnosis, but not on the internal one, and that’s something that happens.

For the record, I think the entire spectrum of accepting/rejecting AI has valid points, and that there’s a lot of value on the rejection side. I also think it’s alright to make fun of some of them, particularly if doing it mostly to highlight some contradictions and conflicts, without making a moral judgement.

I assure you that’s way off from my intent. But for privacy reasons, I don’t want to discuss publicly my financial circumstances and how appropriate they might be in the context of writing this. In any case, I appreciate your feedback on how this could be read. I’ll keep it in mind, and I apologize.

Anything in particular that felt like punching down or strawmanning people in financial problems?