Category: hire me

Well, my suspicion that my agency was going to cut jobs as they start rolling out mandatory AI was correct: I got laid off yesterday.

The last time I was laid off was during the 2008 Great Recession and wow, is there a difference between being 28, renting, not having anyone to rely on, and having no savings and being 46, having a house and a partner who’ll put me on his insurance , and having enough savings that I’m really not panicking (yet).

I also go this very kind text from my manager which, upon reading, made me shout, “I’m the John Henry of AI!!”

I mean, I hope it works out better for me than it did for John Henry but by god, I’ll beat those any of those writin’ machines and I have the work to prove it.

But the bad boss come up laughing at John Henry,
said, “You full of vinegar now, but you ’bout through–
we’re gonna get a steam drill to do your share of drivin,
then what’s all them muscles gonna do, huh John Henry?
Gonna take a little bit of vinegar out of you.”

John Henry said to his captain, “A man ain’t nothin but a man,
but if you bring that steam drill round, I’ll beat it fair and honest.
I’ll die with my hammer in my hand, but I’ll be laughing
’cause you can’t replace a steel drivin’ man.”

Life is funny: I got on Doc’s insurance and thought I’d be doing freelance for the foreseeable future, and then a place I’d applied to when I was just thinking about doing all of that got back to me and, well, I start there on Monday.

They call themselves a “social change agency” which means that instead of trying to convince people to buy clients’ sandwiches or mortgage services or video games, I’ll be trying to convince people to stop smoking or tell them about resources like food benefits. In other words…meaningful work (!) but still in an agency environment.

I’m really excited, honestly. Freelance life was great for going on afternoon hikes but the sporadic paychecks were rough. And this seems like a genuinely good company. And since I can’t be Toby, it sounds like a pretty good compromise.

It was beyond time for a better portfolio site, so I took some time the first few weeks of freelance and made one. I used Squarespace and it was astonishingly easy–cool templates, drag and drop design, mobile-ready, super simple to publish with a custom domain. (This is not an ad, I was just really impressed.)

Anyway, I have words on the internet about my work, so check it out if you need a freelance editor/writer/creative type: www.karen-kaminski.com. And no, I cannot think about selling things without thinking about the Precious Roy segment on the Sifly and Olly show from 1996:

“I’m Precious Roy! Buy my words!”