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kottke.org posts about jobs

Layoffs on TikTok

Just about everything on the web is on TikTok, and going viral there too, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that people who’ve been laid off are there too, trying to figure out what it all means.

Part of me is cynical about this. You mean that as people, we’re so poorly defined without our jobs that our only resource is to grind out some content about it? But on the other side of the coin, making content is what human beings do. Other animals use tools, but do they make content? Apart from some birds, probably not.

My favorite TikTok layoff video is by Atif Memon, a cloud engineer who offers a clear-eyed appraisal of her situation:

@atif_kaloodi So true !! #cloudengineer #sysadmin #layoffs #microsoftlayoffs #googlelayoffs original sound - Atif Memon

“At the company offsite, we celebrated our company tripling its revenue in a year. A month later, we are so poor! Who robbed us?”

“Even if ChatGPT can take away our jobs, they’ll have to get in line behind geopolitics and pandemic and shareholders and investors. I lost my job because the investors of the company were not sure will become 400x in the coming year. ‘How will we go to Mars?’ Someone else lost their job because the investors thought ‘Hmm, if this other company can lay off 12k people and still work as usual, shouldn’t we also try?”

“Artificial intelligence can never overtake human paranoia and human curiosity. AI can only do what human beings have been doing. Only humans can do what no human has done before.”

A lot to chew on in four minutes.

Update: Apparently this is not native to TikTok, but was posted to YouTube by a comedian, Aiyyo Shraddha. It really is a perfect TikTok story! The video is a ripoff.


Two-piece suit

A Las Vegas Weekly article about the realities of the fantasy job search for a model/bartender in Sin City highlights the hurt felt by those other sectors of the American Dream. For one, choosing what to wear to a job interview can be especially challenging when the uniform is a bikini.

After much deliberation, I chose a minimalist (cloth-wise) brown dress that matched my brown bikini and stilettos. To bring the look together, I chose a business jacket. Unfortunately, I only had non-matching black business jackets. My second choice, a leather jacket, made the outfit look oddly slutty. So I went with my jean jacket, which gave the ensemble a wholesome all-American look, but didn’t do much to make me look like a businesswoman.

Nomi Malone wouldn’t have survived an instant in this economy.


Since people are “poor at predicting what

Since people are “poor at predicting what will make us happy in the future” (the term of art is miswanting), perhaps careful career planning is a waste of time. “The best strategy for career planning is this: make your best guess, try it out and don’t be surprised if you don’t like it.” I’ve done 0 minutes of career planning and I’m happy with the results. See also The Chaos Theory of Career Development.


Job opening for a web designer

I’m the Design Advisor for a new small company in NYC, and we’re looking for a full-time web designer. I can’t tell you a whole lot about the company here, but I can say it involves the web, contagious media, & weblogs and the people responsible are creative, reasonable, smart, level-headed and not at all “dot com”.

What we’re looking for is a generalist sort of web designer, someone who can develop the information architecture for an information-oriented web application, do visual mockups in Photoshop/Illustrator based on the IA, code the site up with valid XHTML/CSS, doesn’t flee at the sight of a little Perl or PHP code, is familiar with weblogs, and knows some JavaScript. You don’t need to be completely solid on all of that, but if you’re not, you should be a quick on-the-job learner and just generally curious about the world and interested in learning how it all fits together.

I will provide ad hoc feedback and you’ll be working closely with Jonah Peretti and a small team of smart folks onsite in NYC (most likely in Soho or Chinatown). This is a full-time salaried position, benefits are included, and you’ll get equity in the company. The position is open immediately so if you’re interested, send your resume/portfolio to [email protected] with a subject line of “Web Designer position” (plain text resumes and links to online resumes/portfolios are greatly preferred to email attachments). We look forward to hearing from you.


NYC Craigslist computer services offered: “Will read

NYC Craigslist computer services offered: “Will read and comment (semi-intelligently) on your blog for $2”. There’s a five comment minimum with future comments for free (!!) if your site is entertaining enough. (via lia (rhymes!)) Update: doh, the page has expired. It was pretty funny though, sorry you missed it.


How to find your dream job

How to find your dream job. Advice from four people, including chef Tom Colicchio, on finding that once-in-a-lifetime job.


What’s the deal with unusual job interviews?

What’s the deal with unusual job interviews?. And more importantly, how do you deal with them?