Work Smarter
Exhaust Vent, Bentonville Arkansas 2023.
Last week, I was called before a committee of lawyers, IT executives, and my own boss. It was not to win an award.
The week prior, I had used a non-approved AI to analyze a spreadsheet containing employee information. I thought the risk was negligible: it was a pivot table of people who had attended certain training sessions. I was trying to figure out whom to invite to a new course, and the file wasn't labeled "sensitive" — though, unknown to me, one field indicated which employees had been terminated.
My interim boss, in Europe, flagged this as improper. I said fine, it won't happen again. I've been the "AI guy" in my department for a couple of years — hosting webinars with outside experts, regularly comparing how different AI tools respond to the same prompts. This was, however, the first time I'd uploaded a file for analysis. For what it's worth: Claude handled it better than Copilot did, and Claude needed only one prompt to get there, while Copilot needed four. But both eventually gave me what I was looking for.
She called the next day to reiterate that what I'd done was improper, and that she was reporting it to the European security team as a violation. I thought this was a gross overreaction. I said nothing.
The day after that — five minutes before a class I was co-teaching — she called again: expect a meeting invitation from the investigative committee. The invitation arrived an hour later. I had to ask a colleague to take over the class.
The outcome: no one was concerned beyond the initial "don't do that again." That was it. All of this happened two weeks after my boss of more than a decade was fired. A boss who would've said "Ooo, don't do that again," and not thrown me under the bus.
Today, on our global HR call, the head of HR said three things that stood out:
- Instead of asking for a new hire, see if AI can do the work for you
- I like to think of Human Resources as technical, not just human
- Our clients are becoming more efficient, and they're asking us to do the same
This is framed as an inevitable business case. What it actually is: We have no values beyond what's expedient — so suck it, peasants.
Honestly? I could live with that message. What I can't live with is the combination of "work smarter" and "if you use AI in any way that isn't explicitly sanctioned, we will drag you before the Council of Corporate Elders."
Pick one.
Yes, yes. I know. I am trying to hold on another five years. What a pitiful, perfect end to a career. My only goal is survival, and again and again and again, I achieve it. I am the Old Man pulling his marlin home while the sharks pick it apart.