Navigating the unpredictable waters of unemployment, I find myself in a unique position to reflect on my journey as a product designer and podcaster. After two weeks of radio silence, I finally sit down to share my thoughts, and boy, has it been a ride! I've recently been let go from my position at a podcast hosting company, a role that felt like a dream come true, blending my love for podcasting with my design skills. As I walk through the quiet streets, I can't help but dive into the emotional rollercoaster that comes with job loss. It’s not just about the loss of income; it’s about the identity crisis that follows. I talk about how AI is reshaping our industry, leading to layoffs and forcing many of us to rethink our professional identities. The world is evolving, and while technology can be a great assistant, it still lacks the human touch. As I explore my next steps, I share my vision of becoming a design consultant, leveraging my skills in a way that can provide a premium service that AI simply can't replicate. I invite listeners to join me on this journey and share their own experiences in this rapidly changing landscape. Together, we can navigate these challenges and find our place in the age of AI.

Takeaways:

• It's totally okay to take breaks when life gets overwhelming, just like I did recently.
• Working from home has its perks, especially when commuting is a nightmare, as I experienced.
• The rise of AI in the work world is a real concern, impacting many jobs, including mine.
• Creating content is more accessible than ever, and anyone can express themselves online now.
• I believe AI isn't quite there yet and human creativity still holds the premium value.
• Connecting with our audience is crucial, and I'm eager to hear your stories and thoughts.

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Meta
• Facebook

Hey, welcome back.

I'm so glad you're here and I'm so glad to record once again after what I think is a week behind the schedule.

Does it make two weeks behind the schedule?

Two weeks since the last episode?

Well, I keep on trying.

It doesn't always work.

A mix of personal life obstacles come into play and I guess also my personal rule of not really pushing myself to it when I definitely don't feel like recording.

I don't want to send those negative, exhaustive vibes on you.

No one likes to hear.

Tired, frustrated podcaster.

I went for a walk because I've spent the whole day indoors.

I'm doing a lot of that lately.

Since I'm unemployed.

I don't have that reason twice a week to go out to the office and I'm glad for that.

I really hated my commute lately.

Mix of inconsiderate people and noise.

A mess, total mess lately on those train stations would turn me quite tired quite quickly.

Maybe not tired, just overwhelmed with the this whole stimulation.

So I'm really glad to have my peace, to have my calmness, to have a cozy little apartment to work from.

I do work as an unemployed.

I do work on my next step.

It's now nearly a month since I was let go and I'm still fairly optimistic that my next step will be rather good and constructive, will push me to another phase of my life where I fully align with what I do professionally.

For those who don't know or don't remember, I've been working for a podcast hosting company and it has been to some extent realization of my dreams because I do love podcasting since the very beginning.

But also I've been working in my profession, which is product designer.

I've been working on the interface and some marketing materials fairly.

A wide scope of work kept me busy for over two years and I really enjoyed contributing to this company.

I haven't been extremely busy.

I feel like I had a good balance between private life and work.

But AI happened.

Isn't this what we used to say about COVID Covid happened?

No, I feel like we can start saying AI happened.

I say that because I've just read about latest layoffs at Meta, Facebook's parent company, and it's due to AI expansion.

Perhaps these are different reasons.

They need to apparently compensate for the cost of AI of running AI.

They did fire a significant portion of employees.

It's just yet another story of that kind.

And I wouldn't say it makes you think, but it does make me think it does make me more.

Reassured that what's happening is not just happening to me and that this is a global problem.

We are still trying to find our way in this new age of AI.

We're trying to find our place in it, because apparently AI can do so many things.

And while it's amusing us and helping us, I feel like many people go through this identity crisis as they're trying to question how they can contribute to society.

I don't really think those lines anymore.

In fact, I feel quite the opposite.

I feel like AI is not doing a job that's good enough, or maybe it's doing job that the output is good enough, but it's not as excellent as human is capable of.

And as a product designer, I want to provide that excellence as a premium service.

That's my new venture in a nutshell.

I want to become a design consultant.

I'm working on that quite intensively, Finishing my new landing page with the offering, and I'm running a lot of AI experiments where I develop software.

And all of this is quite exciting.

There's this unique unknown before feeling that I get when I work with AI.

I really feel like this is my assistant and yet it's not yet capable of doing my work.

I do feel currently it is an extension of what I want to make.

Like I said, I think it's becoming a global issue, global problem.

And if you have your personal story, please, please, please write to me.

Simonkxxd xmail.com you can find my email address in the podcast description.

I'm looking forward to hear more about you.

I'm looking forward to connect with my audience.

I'm purposely not on social media because I feel like this.

It's such an old premise that just doesn't work anymore.

I deleted my social media from my phone a couple of weeks ago entirely.

I think I only have my Reddit that I check every few days and YouTube.

I think YouTube can be still considered a social media platform.

What I have to say is I don't feel I'm lacking anything.

Part of this project, this podcasting project was to reach out to people while avoiding social media.

I'm not promoting this podcast online.

I want you to find me if you're looking for me Now, I want to give an update on how the growth is going because I feel like this can be relevant to some people, some people that are attempting the same kind of project.

I feel like my podcast is growing.

I see steady growth, I would say even exponential growth, but I really don't know who you Are when I'm looking at those charts, numbers, I really feel, yeah, it's more downloads, but I don't know if people are actually listening, especially now when we get to have AI agents reaching out for content that they can learn from.

So I want to know how many of those ears are real, how many of those ears are human ears?

The point that I just made, perhaps more of you are into content creation.

It's something that I hear, something what I started thinking about when starting this podcast few months ago.

I hear this over and over again now from people.

I would never expect to be interested in this.

People seem to be embracing content creation a lot more than ever before.

It seemed to be no longer an activity reserved for narcissistic extroverts.

It's more of a thing that anyone can use.

And perhaps the promise of, of a side income is so tempting, people feel like they can record their videos and establish their online presence that way, earn some money.

Now, since this idea reaches mainstream, perhaps it's now too late.

Yeah, it's a common rule, but I don't think it applies here.

I feel like we'll be consuming more and more content.

There is still a way to go.

So I would say I still recommend expressing yourself in whatever form possible.

I think the biggest challenge here is to make our lives exciting enough and maybe our mind capable of expressing our thoughts.

Because maybe, maybe you're not moving much, you're not traveling, you're not encountering new adventures every day.

But maybe I have something to say without that form of stimulation.

Maybe you like to sit down in your armchair and talk about a thought, an idea that came to you.

Maybe it's a conversation you had with somebody.

Maybe it's a book you've read, a movie, TV series you watched.

Ultimately, we still want and need to connect, and maybe we'll be all our own video broadcast station.

Those old words come to my mind, and I know they're really archaic.

I was going to say TV station initially, but I stopped myself.

Yeah, tv, television.

Television stands for remote viewing, doesn't it?

Well, that's completely outdated now since nothing seemed to be remote.

I don't know how much you can hear from this area that I'm in.

It's quite residential.

I'm already doing a series of loops, twists and turns in order to stay in a quiet zone.

But I'll be getting to the main street and once I get to the store, I will lose the vibe, I will lose the mood.

Honestly, I don't really know what I want to talk about today.

Or maybe I said enough.

Maybe I'm just catching up with you and that's all that it's meant to be.

Maybe.

Maybe that's the case.

Maybe that's the case Now.

I've been thinking about doing like an employment journal.

You know, like an employment series, couple of episodes of how things go.

How is, how is the mind working when it's no longer in that employment loop.

Loop of employment.

I was going to journal my progress of registering for different agencies for unemployed and applying for jobs, but I feel like this is very self serving.

Honestly, I'm thinking what this podcast should be about.

I constantly struggle with the big picture here.

Who knows?

Who knows?

Well, why don't I leave this episode as it is, just to clear my mind and I'm hoping that the whole purpose that I hopefully achieved was to give you some companionship.

And ultimately it's a call out to get you connected with me.

And let's have a bit of a dialogue offline and maybe even online.

Maybe.

Maybe that's the next step.

Maybe I should engage in some online interviews with listeners.

Until then, thank you for being here.

Thank you for downloading.

I'll speak to you soon.