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AI at Work, for Better or Worse

AI at Work, for Better or Worse

A little robot guy I made with an AI image generator

As you surely know if you are a denizen of the online world like I am, artificial intelligence has made remarkable strides in the past few years. In particular, what they are calling generative AI has really taken off. This is a kind of advanced pattern matching software that grew out of machine learning. It lets you use prompts to create content like images, complicated text including writing stories, and even videos and music at this point. At the bottom of this post I linked to a YouTube video that explains generative AI really well so check it out.

I played with AI image generators for a while, and had some fun. In their early iterations they produced really weird, often creepy looking stuff, but now they’ve gotten pretty advanced. The images they produce are intriguing, impressive even. I saved a lot of the ones I generated, but stopped messing with the programs when I saw how many of my artist friends were upset by the proliferation of AI-generated images on social media. I gathered they could sense their own work being made obsolete by an overwhelming supply of easily produced knock-off art. Why hire an illustrator when you can just describe what you want into a text box in an AI tool, and get the result in a few minutes? Plus there’s the troubling issue of these programs possibly being trained on copyrighted material without the consent of the copyright owners, meaning they are effectively stealing from artists.

Another thing you have to consider about the product of generative AI (and this is covered in the video below) is that it is subject to one of the rules about computer programming that I was taught as a lad: Garbage In, Garbage Out. That is, if you put bad data into a computer program, then you will get bad data out of it. Generative AI is trained on massive data sets, and one result of the way the current AI programs have been trained is that they produce content that tends to express a sort of lowest common denominator of its subject matter. You put in the vast quantity of data on the Internet, apply sophisticated pattern matching, and you get out, as a result, something like an “Internet average” version of human knowledge.

For an example of what I mean, here is a fantastic article explaining how AI-generated images of selfies misrepresent culture. They do this because the pattern matching algorithms take the conventional way that selfies typically look and apply it to subjects where that wouldn’t make sense. So an AI-generated image of, say, a group selfie of medieval warriors makes them look like modern day humans. Now, since the idea of the existence of such a selfie is absurd on the face of it, maybe it’s pointless to worry about its inherent historical inaccuracy. But in a way, these kinds of images are erasing history.

The article goes even deeper; the AI generators tend to represent everyone as smiling into the camera the way that Americans do. But other cultures that do exist today and do take group selfies have different ways of expressing themselves when taking photos. So the AI programs aren’t just erasing history, they are also erasing existing modern cultures. They are turning everyone into Americans, because American culture dominates the Internet.

Here’s another way AI-generated content gravitates toward a dominant average mode, one you might have heard of already. It seems that AI chat programs, trained on the massive data of online conversations, will often produce racist, abusive comments. It’s like they inevitably turn into Internet trolls. This might seem like a mere annoyance, but AI programs generating racially biased content can have serious, life or death consequences.

With all of these concerns, it’s understandable that public perception of AI is not always favorable. Ted Gioia (who has an awesome substack, by the way) wrote about this perception recently, starting with a story about the audience at SXSW booing an AI presentation. His article expands into a general discussion of the public’s current distrust of the technocracy, in contrast with the way technocrats like Steve Jobs were idolized in the past. Faith in “innovation” and “disruption” has waned in a society facing uncertainty and disorder, and sensing that technology is leading us toward a dystopian future.

Where does AI fit into my life, now that I’ve stopped playing with image generators? Well, I may not be able to avoid using it, as the company where I work has been promoting AI chat programs to help with day to day tasks. We are all being asked to look into them and come up with ways this new software can improve our productivity. Other folks who have a job like mine might be encountering similar pushes at their workplaces.

I think this is an honest effort by our management to ensure that our organization doesn’t get left behind in the AI wave they are convinced will revolutionize the workforce. Stay ahead of the disruption, and ride the wave I guess is the thinking. Surely it’s not the case, as Aileen and I joked when I brought this up to her, that I am training an AI to replace me. I mean, why pay a software tester when you can just describe the tests you need into a text box in an AI tool? Oh my.

Below is the very informative video that explains Generative AI.

It’s Really Been A Year Already?

It’s Really Been A Year Already?

This photo showed up in the memories feed which my smartphone helpfully throws in my face every once in a while. It was one year ago today since I went back to the corporate campus of my previous job to turn in my laptop. I took this photo because this was a new building that wasn’t up yet when I left the campus to begin remote work in March 2020, and I was excited to see it on my return. It was under construction when I left and there was a lot of hubbub about it.

I think it’s a pretty building. The campus has this striking architectural design that resembles modern art, and this building fits right in. It also has a lot of stairs (I mean the campus as a whole does) which makes it challenging to walk around in if you are not physically fit. When I walked on that campus I felt my age. I felt like I was obsolescing as I was surrounded by the aggressive energy of a workforce that keeps growing younger with every new job I take.

I did go up that formidable looking staircase and go into the bulding. It was impressive on the inside, too, with a spacious lobby with some nice art installations. The security guy at the desk paid me no mind.

The campus was custom build for this corporation, and it must have cost a bundle. So I can understand why they wanted people returning to onsite work. Aileen and I speculated that maybe I was let go because I declined to go hybrid and wanted to stay 100% remote. They gave us the option to do either, and assured me that my decision to stay remote had nothing to do with my position being cut. But who knows.

I’m glad I made the choices I did, and that I amazingly was able to get a 100% remote job elsewhere after being let go. I feel very lucky to be in the position I am in today, and grateful for the support of my family here in Pennsylvania. I just can’t believe it’s been a year already at my new job. Tick tock.

Emojis at Work – How Social Media Infiltrated the Workplace

Emojis at Work – How Social Media Infiltrated the Workplace

I still remember the excitement when the first iPhone came out in 2007; only a few people were using this new kind of mobile phone, but boy were they delighted with it. At the same time, everyone was jumping onto Facebook, which had just opened up to the general public in 2006.

Fast forward to a decade and a half later, and everyone has a touchscreen phone (I got my first one in 2014). Social media platforms have proliferated, and are a constant, pervasive feature of daily life.

Once, employers tried to prevent workers from browsing the Internet during the day, but such efforts have been abandoned. Everyone is on their phone all the time. In fact, the software used to officially collaborate in the workplace looks a lot like the apps we use in our personal lives.

At least, that’s been my experience as a white collar professional in a cubicle environment. I’m a middle-aged GenXer, and my career is split pretty evenly between the world before social media, and the world after. I’ll explore what that’s been like for me a little more in this post.


I joined Facebook in 2008, because all of my coworkers were doing it and I didn’t want to be left out. It was a clear case of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), a term then recently introduced, to explain how social networks stimulate compulsive following and mimicking behavior. I friended all of my coworkers, and had fun setting up my profile and exploring the site.

Do you remember those days, and how primitive the Facebook interface was compared to today? Your main profile page was called your “wall” and to post on it, you “updated your status.” If you look back at your posts from fifteen years ago, you’ll see how diffferent they were. They seem kind of awkard and tentative, like we all didn’t quite know what to do with this new way of communicating.

Back then, there was a site called “Please Rob Me” that tried to raise awareness about the dangers of sharing the fact that you weren’t home, like someone was wondering how anyone could be stupid enough to do that. The site is defunct now, and today it is routine for people to tag their locations when they go out, even though we all know we’re giving valuable information away to giant corporations (the ones who are really robbing us).

Back then, as employees found themselves sucked into their Facebook feeds, companies started blocking the website from their local intranets. They established policies about what employees were allowed to post on social media platforms, warning them against representing the company or divulging corporate information.

In the late 2000s, the world was just getting used to social media, and its implications. Today, a decade and a half later, social media is routine in our daily lives. Everyone accesses social media platforms from their smartphones on a more or less continuous basis, even while at work, and employers have no chance of stopping them.

One thing I’ve decided since those early days is that it is best to keep my work life and my personal life separated, where social media is concerned. I no longer send Facebook friend requests to my coworkers, as I did back when I first joined the site. But that’s just how I personally manage my online presence. For other people, depending on their line of work, it might be better or even necessary to network and post about work across all social media, and have less of a distinction between personal and professional social spaces.

A clever post about work I made on a social media app

That’s not to say that social media isn’t a part of my work life at all. There are, as you well know, work-specific social media sites, such as LinkedIn, where I do make sure to connect with my coworkers. The Intranet at the company where I work uses software that has posts and feeds that resemble those on any other social media platform, and while I’m not particularly active there I do browse, to get a feel for the corporate culture.

I also sometimes post about work on my personal social media accounts, but in a sly way. I don’t want to reveal where I work, but just say something about work that’s clever, maybe even vaguely subversive, hoping for likes and shares. I’ve included an example screenshot in this blog post. You can see that I got zero engagement.

Social media conventions have infiltrated workaday tasks as well, such as is in the use of emojis and reactions in online conversations. I have long been using messaging software in the workplace; I remember Skype being in place in the office back in 2002. I also remember that at as emojis started coming into use in personal messaging, I was hesitant at first to include them in work conversations. It just seemed somehow unprofessional to use a smiley face in a work related chat.

But, in time, it simply became a norm. On the messaging software I use at work now, there are emoji reaction options, and my coworkers and I routinely “thumb up” and “heart” one another’s messages. It’s just a way of signalling agreement or showing appreciation. Workplace communication has become more friendly and informal than in the past, and I think this reflects a preferred mode for today’s mostly Gen X and Millennial workers.

For me, a Gen Xer who adopted less formal modes of communication in the latter portion of his career, it’s been an adjustment. But for many of my coworkers, who are Millennials twenty or thirty years younger than I am, it must just seem like the normal way people communicate in the digital space. For Boomers, experiencing these changes at the tail ends of their careers, it might seem too informal or alien to their expectations.

I suppose I shouldn’t speak for others, especially if they are from a different generation. These are just my thoughts on the matter. There’s no denying that the proliferation of smartphones, along with ubiquitous access to the Internet and its software platforms, has changed our daily routines, including our work routines. Please feel free to share your own experience in the comments below.

Hi, It’s Me, Your Friendly Individual Contributor

Hi, It’s Me, Your Friendly Individual Contributor

When I was unexpectedly laid off at the beginning of the year, I scrambled to update my LinkedIn profile and my resume. I was not prepared to suddenly be looking for work.

If you are a white collar professional like me, then you know the drill. When you start a job search, you have to review your resume, which has probably been languishing, untouched since the last time you got an offer. It did what you needed it to do then, and you promptly forgot about it.

But now you need to update it with your latest experience, maybe streamline it so it’s not too long. Tweak it a little to reflect what’s new in your industry, so you look like you’re keeping up with the changing times. I mean, you are, of course, since you are a brilliant professional.

When I was doing this at the beginning of the year, I was feeling vulnerable. As I stated in my blog post then, I was thrown off balance. There was no way of knowing how long it would take me to find another position. And I was anxious about age discrimination; that the older you get, the harder it is to get hired.

Now they say that when you are doingĀ up your resume, you should always phrase your experience in terms of how you were proactive and made a difference, rather than just list out the tasks that you performed. You’re trying to convince some hiring manager that you provide some special value. But “proactive” isn’t my vibe. My vibe is, I do the damn tasks and get the shit done. I am a worker bot. As I’ve told Aileen, my aspiration is to be like R2-D2: not a main character, but resourceful and reliable. The one you call on.

In the parlance of the corporate workforce, I am an “individual contributor.” I have never held a management or leadership position, nor have I ever sought one. I have worried a bit about what this means for my prospects, as I’ve noticed how other workers around me are younger than me by more and more years as time passes. Everyone my age, it seems, has moved on to management, to more impressive titles. But I am not seeking position or status; I just want to get paid to do work.

I know that it’s possible to finish my career this way, because I recall a job where there was an old-timer who was in the same position as me, but in his sixties. He was white haired and a little bit stooped and he was just doing his little low-level tasks under someone else’s direction. He actually retired while I was still working there. God willing, I thought, that could be me in twenty years. And that was ten years ago.

How could you let this guy go?

So I decided to embrace the idea of being an individual contributor. To own the brand, so to speak. I mention it explicitly in my LinkedIn profile, as well as how well I fit into any team (which is true, I believe). I also took a new profile pic, with the most puppy-dog-eyes look I could muster, like I want the hiring managers to see me as a rescue they just couldn’t turn away.

I guess it must have worked, since I got hired pretty quickly. I’m very lucky to be in a field where there is high demand for workers, and to have found a company that was in a hiring boom. The economy still works for some of us, and I just need it to keep working for me for another decade (or two?) so I can R2-D2 along, making a small difference.

Summer Update

Summer Update

And just like that, it was halfway through 2023.

I am over three months into my new remote job, and things are going swimmingly. It’s interesting because I get to work for a new kind of company (agricultural sector as opposed to finance), and also pick up on a new corporate culture. The IT department there isn’t very mature, in part because it has been expanding rapidly (how I got the job, essentially), so I get not only to prove my chops but also to help the folks who aren’t as seasoned as I am to understand the software development lifecycle. It’s very gratifying that my experience is being put to good use, and to know that despite my advanced years I am still relevant in the workforce.

Aileen, meanwhile, is working on the summer Arts Bubble musical, which this year will be City of Angels, a satirical noir comedy (not to be confused with a Nic Cage movie of the same name). As usual, she is committed 100% to all aspects of the production and putting in tons of work. Equally committed is our son, Tiernan, who is cast in his first lead role, as the hard boiled private eye from the movies. I hope you will be able to come see it (many friends and family already have confirmed they will, thank you all). The show dates are July 14-17; message me for details if you want to attend. But note that opening night is sold out. Woo hoo!

Our other son, Lionel, has just come back from a month in France, where he took a French immersion course with his University, and had a taste of life in another culture. This included going clubbing and he had some interesting stories there. He’s becoming such a worldly young man. Back home, Gavin continues his relentless work maintaining the region’s water infrastructure. He is a wizard with programming PLCs, which are these logical circuit board thingies that basically hold our entire civilization together. Aileen goes over to his house more often these days, since that’s where the best computer is, which is great for Potato, the cat who lives there, since it means she gets more attention now.

There is still a big hole in our heart and home that used to be filled by our sweet kitty, Sashimi, our magical girl. Aileen made this portrait of her after she died. It’s hard to believe it’s already been almost two months. Have we really moved on?

Is it ok to move on?

Is it ok to die?

We all will. Already this year two FB friends have died from cancer. Another, a very dear friend from back in the day, is sick and currently hospitalized. The clock is always ticking, ticking away to midnight.

Last night we watched a video on YouTube that informed us that the Doomsday Clock is the closest it’s ever been to midnight: 90 seconds away. The war in Ukraine is not helping here. The video we watched was actually about how scarily sophisticated A.I. is getting, and speculated on whether it might just decide to destroy the human race. It really terrified Aileen and gave her nightmares. I tried Stevesplaining to her that A.I. chatbots aren’t sentient beings with a will, just really impressive pattern-seeking algorithms, but I don’t think I reassured her.

In any event, just because A.I.s are “merely” computer programs doesn’t mean they won’t be put in charge of everything and then God knows what will happen. And if that doesn’t get us, we just might end up cooking to death anyway when Earth turns into a Venus-like planet. All we can do is carry on with our usual business while the summer broils us.

Oh dear, sorry to end on such a heavy note. Here’s a poem about cats by Jane Hirshfield to hopefully lighten your mood. Have a great summer, everyone, if you can. And come see our show!

The Rise and Fall of Drinking Culture

The Rise and Fall of Drinking Culture

We’ve recently been watching Mad Men (available on Amazon Prime with our AMC+ subscription), a TV show about New Yorkers in the advertising business in the 1960s. It clearly is attempting to paint a portrait of what life was like in that bygone era, and how social mores were so much different back then. For example, everyone is constantly lighting up cigarettes, in any context, even in front of kids. The men unabashedly treat women like sex objects, and the women just accept it and learn to navigate what today would be considered a hostile work environment.

I know that a major premise of the TV show is to highlight these social differences between then and now. How accurate this portrayal of the period is, I can’t be sure, since I wasn’t there, but it seems plausibly realistic to me. And the show certainly has high production values, beautiful art design, and fine performances, making it a delight to watch.

What truly amazes me about the lifestyle of these advertising guys (as depicted on this TV show) is their capacity for consuming alcoholic beverages. They keep liquor in their offices, and take any opportunity to have a finger or two of scotch. If one of your coworkers comes into your office at, say, 10:30AM, well – it would be rude not to offer them a drink! It’s a much different experience than I’ve had in my work life, which has occurred since our society moved on from the casual alcoholism of these Madison Avenue men.

For the duration of my young adult life, it would have been unthinkable to have alcohol in the workplace, or even to have a drink during the work day. It’s possible that this is because I spent those years living in the South of the United States, which while certainly known for its hard-drinkers, is also known for puritanical restrictions on public life. Maybe up in the big cities in the North, people were still having three martini lunches. But I suspect the real reason my work life was so different is my generational placement in history.

I do recall one early work experience which was like a glimpse of the last vestiges of the older generation’s casual work drinking. When I was a college student in the mid-1980s, I was in a work-study program, and worked at a major government agency in the DC area. The director of our department had an office suite that was behind a frosted glass window, so I never saw inside. One holiday season he opened up his suite for a company party, and lo and behold, he had a fully stocked dry bar in there. I even had a glass or two of something strong (I was 19 at the time, so I believe this was technically illegal), feeling a little bit guilty since I had to drive home afterwards. I was already internalizing the safety messages about drinking alcohol that were becoming predominant in the culture.

Logically, the director who presided over this dry bar would have been from the same generation as the “mad men” on the TV show, just twenty years older (since it was the 80s instead of the 60s). The way generations work, a cohort of people born about the same time tends to retain the same attitudes and behavioral patterns throughout the lives, bringing those patterns with them to older and older age brackets as time passes. This old timey office executive wasn’t going to give up his liquor, unless they pried it from his trembling fingers.

By the 90s and 00s, the tenor of public life had changed. America was in a social era in which the Baby Boomer generation – a profoundly moralistic generation – was entering midlife; while my generation, Generation X – an opportunistic but disorganized generation – was entering adulthood. Society became safety-obsessed and health-obsessed, and drinking on the job was counter to this new values focus. While my generation may have chafed under the emerging neo-Puritanical values regime, we weren’t about to collectively do anything about it. We would just deal with it.

A similar dynamic occurred in an earlier era: the Roaring ’20s, when Prohibition under the terms of the Eighteenth Amendment was in place. In that time the midlife generation was the moralistic Missionary generation, while the young adults were the free-wheeling Lost generation. Prohibition didn’t exactly stop drinking, but it did drive it underground.

The Eighteenth Amendment was repealed around the same time that the Great Depression started. In the new social era that emerged, the generation that came of age – the Greatest Generation – developed a reputation for collegial drinking and smoking. These behaviors became associated with recreational pleasure in a context of sociability and solidarity, never mind all the health problems they were destined to lead to down the road.

This pattern of casual drinking and smoking in public continued into the postwar era in which the Mad Men live(d), until further generational change led to a more health-conscious society, and those habits fell out of favor. So the cycle goes. The era of the executive with a ready a supply of liquor at the office came to an end.

During my young adulthood, drinking on the job became an underground activity, as during the Prohibition era. I say that because I do recall having a boss who was a bit emotionally unstable, in my opinion, and heard through the grapevine that he drank during the day. One time I found an empty bottle in a staircase, and took it at as sign that the rumors were true.

At a different job I had, there was a programmer who reputedly came to work drunk. His fate was to be sent to rehab; the company actually gave him a month off to clean up his act. I think they might have even paid for the rehab. He was really good at programming so I guess they couldn’t let him go. It just goes to show how much attitudes had shifted, and how drinking alcohol had become understood to be more of a pathology than a pastime.

Time has continued to pass, and I am no longer a young adult. Our society has recently gone through a financial crisis which can be likened to the 1929 stock market crash that was followed by the Great Depression. Has there also been a shift in attitudes towards drinking alcohol in the workplace, where it is now more acceptable as a social lubricant and source of conviviality, rather than being perceived as a personal moral failing?

I think so, at least to a limited degree, based on my experience in the workplace. In my recent positions, it has been common for the company to host parties where alcohol is served, sometimes but not always with a cap on the number of drinks per person. I’m not sure if age limits are enforced; it’s not impossible that an intern under the age of 21 has been able to sneak some drinks in. It isn’t exactly Mad Men, but it is an acceptance of drinking in the workplace, at least under controlled circumstances.

Media reports from the past decade or so have also suggested that this is happening, with the emergence a new kind of startup culture where drinks are a perk, available in the break room. Not that I’ve ever had the luck to work at a place like that, but then my startup days were during the dot com era, long ago.

That drinking at work may be on the rise makes sense in this social era. Instead of having moralizing Boomers in middle age, we now have practical Gen Xers, who will do whatever it takes to boost productivity and retain employees. Instead of having lone wolf Gen Xers in young adulthood, we now have sociable Millennials, who favor group activities, for which alcohol – since it lowers inhibitions and elevates mood, albeit temporarily – is a natural fit.

It must be noted, though, that the long term trend is that younger generations are drinking less than us oldsters did at the same age. The party days of my Gen X youth are in the past, and today’s youth are more cautious, and more conscious of their future. In fact, it’s those crazy Boomers who are drinking the most these days. That is the real story behind the controversy over the “woke” marketing campaign by Anheuser-Busch: a major corporation is desperately trying to generate sales among the young demographic, and finding that their only customers are uptight old farts. “Anti-woke” alcoholism is for a generation that is currently in its sunset years.

It’s probably for the best that, in the long term, we are drinking less as a society. The harmful effects of alcohol, such as the health problems it creates, and its contribution to car accidents and to domestic violence, outweigh its benefits. Prohibition might not have worked (no one likes to be told what and what not to do), but behavior can still change with time as beliefs and priorities change from generation to generation.

The question is, will this trend eventually reverse for future generations, in a future social era in which living for the present and taking chances with one’s health become fashionable once more? It’s hard to envision a completely alcohol-free future, given humanity’s long relationship with the pleasures and perils of consuming fermented beverages.

And Just Like That, He Was Overemployed Again

And Just Like That, He Was Overemployed Again

I hope the dear reader will excuse me for bragging, but I have to say that I am proud of myself for finding work again so quickly. My last day at my previous company was February 28th; I had an interview with my new company on March 1st, during which they made an offer. I accepted the position, which is 100% remote, with a start date of March 20.

There was a little tension as I waited for the background check to clear, as well as the drug test (!), which I haven’t had to take for a job in a long time. Meanwhile, I was “funemployed” for a couple of weeks, including a week which coincided with Aileen’s spring break from her University job. You would think I would have gotten a lot done, been super chill and relaxed all the time, but it didn’t seem to turn out that way. Aileen says I was a very cranky bear! All play and no work makes Steve a dull boy, I guess.

Once I was cleared and they shipped my equipment, it felt more like a sure thing, and I think my mood improved. It was kind of exciting to be doing a 100% remote onboarding, as this is my first time. I was feeling like I had mastered this new mode of remote work that has come with the 2020s, by proving I was able to switch jobs and stay remote. I was told to expect an email (to my personal account) early on Monday morning with login instructions for the work laptop. All I could do was set it up and wait over the weekend, which was filled with shows for the Independence Awards anyway.

Aileen made sure I got up early on Monday (thank you!) and sure enough, an email came just before 8 AM. I was able to log in, get oriented, and start meeting my colleagues and learning about the project(s) I will be on. In some ways, it’s the same as it ever was; it’s much the same kind of work, just with a different organization. This org, I will say, has embraced the remote work paradigm (as was explained to me during the interview), which partly explains how this all come together.

So now my days are filled with work once more, and then again my evenings, as high school theatre season is in full swing. When will I have time for books, games, and TV? (Aileen is laughing right now, because she knows how much of all those pastimes I squeeze into my waking moments). I’m very lucky, of course, that I have an email laptop job, which makes 100% remote work possible, and that I am able to work at this stage of my life, when I most need to be saving for retirement. Overemployed I may be, but life treats me well.

PS: Sashimi the cat is doing OK, eating well but she is very drooly.

2023 Update

2023 Update

The cat is eating much better, presumably thanks to the anti-inflammatory medicine she is taking. It must reduce the pain and irritation in her mouth. She still is eating mostly mushy food, though we have found that she has a fondness for ham, so she sometimes gets pieces of that to eat. She really likes ham, reminding me of Ponyo the way she tears into it.

Thanks to eating more, Sashimi has gained weight. But she still drools a lot, meaning she must still have that growth on her tongue. It is comforting, at least, to know she is not in danger of starvation.

Nor, it seems, are we in danger of income starvation, as I have been offered, and accepted, a new position. It is the same kind of work I always do (software testing), and it is a 100% remote position with a company in Minneapolis. Pretty excited to be onboarding 100% remote; that will be a new experience for me. Right now I feel like a remote till COVID champion.

Sweet Sunshine Kitty

Sweet Sunshine Kitty

Our sweet kitty, Princess Sashimi, pictured here basking in the sunshine, has been diagnosed with cancer. She had been drooling a lot, and having difficulty eating, and when we took her to the vet we found out she had something on her tongue. Antibiotics didn’t take care of it, and a biopsy revealed that it was indeed cancerous. šŸ™

The vet says it’s just a matter of time, and we are giving her all the love we have. She has an anti-inflammatory which seems to be helping a lot, as she has been able to eat. We’ve been giving her baby food (chicken is her fav) and also pureeing meats that we prepare for ourselves. For example, she ate an entire fish stick once it was stripped of its breading and mashed up real good. She’s been regaining her appetite and her energy, which are good signs.

It’s just a matter of time for all of us, of course, but this sweet girl is pure love and we want to keep her with us for as long she’ll allow. So we keep sending her the good reiki energy and letting her know how much we love her. She really is the center of our domestic bliss.

Our new cat care routine, plus the fact that I am now jobless (I fell off the “overemployed” wagon pretty hard), means a big shift in 2023. Since things always happen in threes, and it’s still early in the year, I can’t help but wonder what new shock is coming. Best to enjoy the sunshine while it lasts.

Thrown Off Balance

Thrown Off Balance

Last week I received somewhat shocking news when I logged into work on Tuesday (Monday was a holiday so this was the start of the week). Apparently, for cost cutting purposes, some positions had to be eliminated, and unfortunately mine was one of them. I was told that my last day would be January 27. In other words, I was given two weeks notice.

This was unexpected as I recalled having been assured at the end of 2022 that my contract was extended for 2023. I guess they just meant for the start of 2023. What a raw deal. Now I am faced with the prospect of looking for work, always a challenge and ever more so as I grow older.

I might have known something like this was coming, since the amount of work the team was doing had been declining. But I guess I thought it would happen to someone else, not to me. Apparently there’s been a trend of tech layoffs, and I got caught up in it. I wonder if it’s a sign of more widespread economic troubles to come.

The manager on my project says he wants to hire me back, once they have the funds. It’s just a question of if there is anywhere they could move me to in the meantime; they say they are looking, but I’m not sure how much faith I have. A sneaky paranoid feeling makes me think they’re just blowing smoke in my eyes and are glad to be rid of me.

I went for a walk later in the week, and on my walk I stumbled on the uneven sidewalk and took a spill. I couldn’t catch my fall and hit the ground hard, luckily onto my side so I didn’t hurt myself badly, except I did skin my knee. It is still raw and red and painful, and I have a little limp from avoiding bending my leg. Was it clumsiness that caused my fall? My failing vision? It feels like this unexpected news threw me off balance, and so I literally lost my balance and fell, and now I bear this painful limp like a mark of my misfortune.

I’m sure it will heal quickly, and I’m sure I’ll get back on my feet again and be stable soon, one way or the other. It’s just getting wearying trying to stay on the path.