Identities hidden to protect the ignorant.
On Monday someone posted on LinkedIn that they still didn’t know a single real business that had actually benefited from AI. Capital letters on “single”. A hundred and thirty-odd people liked it. And I thought, well, I can help with that, because I know several, I built the tools for them, and I can see the hours being saved because I built the thing that tracks the hours. So I said that. With a link.
What came back wasn’t a question. It was a clapping emoji and “keep building, builder”. Then someone else turned up, quoted my headline back at me with “uh huh”, told me there was a lot wrong with me, told me I was part of the problem, and then, after I’d stopped replying, told me to cry about it, because when the bubble bursts the gravy train stops. Hope you have a plan B.
I’ll be honest, it annoyed me more than it should have. I’d answered the question I was asked, I’d done it with my name on it, and the answer was to have a go at me instead of at what I’d said.
But I’ve been sat with that last line since, “hope you have a plan B”, and I don’t think it was really for me. I run four businesses. I’ve got a plan B, and a C, and frankly a D that involves a mechanics garage. The person who wrote it is a senior developer, in the trade where junior hiring has fallen off a cliff, and I’d guess he knows it, because he’s watching it happen to the people coming up behind him. So when he says hope you have a plan B, I think that’s him talking to himself. Out loud. In the comments.
And the first post, the “not a SINGLE business” one, is the same thing really, just quieter. If nothing counts as evidence then you never have to do the sum. Every example is marketing noise, every result is rigged, so the bit where you sit down and work out what it means for your own job just never has to happen. I get that. I’m not sure I’d want to do it either, in that seat.
Nobody in that thread was allowed to say they were scared, and that’s the actual problem. You can’t really say it at work. Everyone’s meant to be excited, love the tools, exciting times, and so the fear has to go somewhere, and it goes looking for a face. On Monday the face was mine, because I’m the bloke saying it out loud. Which, fine. I build the stuff, I employ the people it replaces, I’ve made that call on a hire more than once, a spreadsheet on a Tuesday afternoon, and I’ll make it again. I’m a pretty easy face to pick.
But getting rid of the person saying it doesn’t stop it. The call still gets made, in pretty much every business in the country, whether I build anything or not. All you’ve done is make it quieter, and quiet is exactly how it lands on people. A role that doesn’t get backfilled. A restructure email with nobody’s name on it. Nobody ever actually telling you.
I didn’t write this to win the thread. I muted it. Honestly the insults were the best bit of it for me, because anyone reading down could see evidence on one side and “cry about it” on the other, and I didn’t need to add anything.
I wrote it because the question he threw at me is actually a decent question. It’s just pointed at the wrong person.
So, turning it round. Ten seconds, not a plan, just the first step. If your role went in the next restructure, what would you actually do on the Monday morning? Not the LinkedIn version, the real one. Who would you ring first, and would they be in a position to pick up?
If you can answer that without your stomach going, fair enough, you’ve got a plan B. If you can’t, that’s not a character flaw. It’s just a sum you haven’t done yet.
That sum is most of what my book’s about. The Next Rung is out on 19 January with Practical Inspiration Publishing, and you can pre-order it at thenextrung.co.