A Whole New World

Late last year my team got disbanded, my boss got let go, and I got “handed the bag”. Politics were sensitive. My job description grew three new heads overnight. The work we'd spent a year building shifted out from under us like a rug some invisible hand kept tugging. I panicked, quietly, the way you're supposed to when you're the one now expected to have answers. Then I got to work, because panicking doesn’t get shit done. A couple months later, I was swept down to Washington, D.C. for an IT leadership summit. To help formulate our "AI plan". We picked our tools (incl. Claude Code), round-tabled security and governance, and wireframed a lightweight roadmap. As the junior man in the room, I did the wise thing: I shut up and listened. I left that summit half thrilled, half seasick. It felt like we were building a plane after already having jumped. The universe heard "half thrilled" and decided to even the score. Within two months, both of my remaining employees quit. I wasn't shocked.…