this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2026
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The deer in the headlights thing with the kids today is real. It's like the way they were raised - in that every move had to be "safe" and "right" - has short circuited the ability ot just leap at a problem, and tackle it.
I am the tech/maintenance/art director of a handful of small shops and work with the kids that are coming out of their first or second years of college (the "summer butterflies", I call them) and I am constantly telling them that in the workplace situation, to not be afraid or hesitate to act on something.
There's a lot of self doubt and not trusting their own gut instincts. (which often are correct) If the action isn't right, that is less an issue than letting the problem fester.
For me, it's about getting the kids to use their smarts - which they DO have - and in the framework of a situation where the answer isn't found with AI, they know more than they believe.
It's not just the pivot to AI, there's also some cultural/political hangover tied to "getting it wrong" that cripples their ability to move. Yes, I remember going through the SAME thing, with the lack of confidence in my late-teens and through my 20's, but the difference was, I did not hesitate to tackle a problem.
Screwed up plenty. Sorted the problems perfectly more often. The willingness to jump is what I always try to encourage.
I'd love to see these kids turn AI into the tool that they want it to be.
This really depends on the workplace. I'm at a megacorp and trying to fix anything is far more pain and work that just not.
Like I could try to convince them to move off of python3.9 because that's old and well past end of life. But I need to explain that to my boss, the business lady, some other manager, "the audit team" (whoever the fuck they are), and then grapple with how they have 5-10 years of code and not a single line of automated test coverage.
There's no reward.
I just don't see megacorps hiring people anymore. I mean is that really a career path like it used to be?
That's kind of like "no one goes there anymore - it's too crowded"
I mean, the one I'm at is mostly doing a hiring freeze. Management is frothing at the mouth over using AI. But there are currently a lot of people working here, some full time and some under dubious "contractor" arrangements.
Has no one been pointing out to management that even firms like Microsoft are backpedaling on using AI?
The costs seem too high, been reading about the whole pricing changes coming and it's breathtaking.
I honestly see this as yet more of the same mentality that puts more faith in things than in other people. Corporations are notorious for this and it's getting close to the tipping point where their literal human disconnect is going to bite them in the ass.
Management doesn't listen to low level people who actually do work. I think this is part of Ed zitron's "Business Idiot" thesis. Upper management is so far removed from how things actually get done, they are in all measureable ways idiots
Sometimes they also have selfish or stupid side goals, too. Like, the rumor is the company gets a tax break for people going into the office. So now they make people go into the office, even when most of their team is remote. Climate criminals all, but they're removed from the consequences.
Upper management are fools. Middle management just wants their paycheck, and maybe to rise high enough to become a business idiot themselves.
Ah. Decades ago it was described as The Peter Principle wheren one rose in corporate hierarchical structures to their level of incompetence.
Charming to see that it is still there.. (ofc, why would it not be?)