i was a senior designer that basically had to reclass to a manager/senior manager role just to keep a job that didn't touch AI as much.
the wild thing is, i liked my job 3 years ago. i liked the satisfaction of creating for sales. they could be annoying, but it was minor normal (human) corporate squabbles. now, when they're explicitly bragging about getting rid of designers and treating us as sub-human, it's creating resentment and misery. personally job satisfaction sharply decreased in the last 6 months let alone the last 3 years - i'd say from 80% happy to 20%.
personally, i think suicides are probably going to be on the rise in a big way specifically due to this; and that's just the people who can hang onto a job right now; cannot tell you how many designers and animators are out of jobs and desperate.
I might quibble a bit with the 'just stay positive' line, but the "identity that's unrelated to work" is so real, crucial, and easy to overlook. Trying to jam a sense of life purpose that's a circle into a square hole of "make money" just leads to being miserable for the sake of being miserable.
I like your point about the "language" - as you said, there's a measure of truth, but there really is quite a lot of translation involved that may or may not include a good dollop of BS.
(source, designer in marketing. The BS is useful to trojan horse actually useful concepts to certain tiers of management.)
Want to personally thank you as a user of DW for a few years that migrated over from tumblr after the NSFW ban - I can't thank you and the team enough for what y'all provide. It's a haven and a remnant of the "old web" that is honestly the one thing aside from my personal webring-esque site that I can /trust/ not to change with trends (whether it be payment trends or idiotic aesthetic changes that end up making more of a mess than not). Having a place for fandom analysis and journal posts and just to exist with some level of privacy is a rare treasure. Glad to see your thoughts on this FB ban.
the wild thing is, i liked my job 3 years ago. i liked the satisfaction of creating for sales. they could be annoying, but it was minor normal (human) corporate squabbles. now, when they're explicitly bragging about getting rid of designers and treating us as sub-human, it's creating resentment and misery. personally job satisfaction sharply decreased in the last 6 months let alone the last 3 years - i'd say from 80% happy to 20%.
personally, i think suicides are probably going to be on the rise in a big way specifically due to this; and that's just the people who can hang onto a job right now; cannot tell you how many designers and animators are out of jobs and desperate.