On March 28th, my employer will be outlining a bold new plan for the organization, laying off half the staff and changing the job descriptions of the other half.
Some days I feel pessimistic, and some days I feel optimistic. Some days I’m optimistic that I’ll get to keep my job, and other days I’m optimistic about a complete career change.
As a kid, I wanted to be a writer. Not only did I want to be a writer, I fully expected to be a writer. Not only did I expect to be a writer, I expected to be a prolific and profound best-selling and highly respected writer.
I’m a webmaster.
There’s no way I could have predicted as a child that I would have been a webmaster, since the web didn’t even exist back then. We’d heard of computers, but it’s not like anybody had ever seen one.
My road to webmastery was twisted and serendipitous, as have been most of my roads to anything. I’m not the kind of person who knows what their goals are and has a plan to achieve them. I just see opportunities and get inspired.
I used to have a plan. As a child I was going to be a writer, and I was going to marry a fireman who played the guitar, and we were going to live in a bright yellow house and have five children: Harry, Pansy, and the triplets – Timmy, Tammy and Tommy.
How much does your life look like the life you envisioned for yourself as a child? Are you driving the bus, or gazing out the window? Do you know where you’re going, or do you want it to be a surprise?
When I was a kid, I thought I’d be living in a space colony by 2006. With robots looking after tedious chores. And a friendly artificial intelligence computer that kept me on track with appointments.
Do you remember “Here come the Seventies”? The only thing that came true from that show was pushbutton telephones.
I think they do have those friendly artificial intelligence computers that keep you on track with appointments…don’t they?
I’m sure it’s just a matter of time until you have your mundane-chore robot and I have those triplets.
Maybe they do have friendly AI computers that track appointments, but my computer just isn’t artificially intelligent enough. For example, right now it should be telling me, “Excuse me, boss, but you really should be reading that section of the Criminal Code for your equality class, not checking in on Knitnut.”