Someone posted recently about their company running a leaderboard tracking AI token usage. Top 25 users got called “Champions.” People who barely used it were labelled “Sleepers.” The champions had collectively burned through $850,000 since January first.

It took me a minute to fully absorb that.

The kicker is that the Sleeper who posted about it seemed genuinely worried about being at the bottom of the list. Not because they were less productive. Just because they weren’t spending enough of the company’s money on an AI that may or may not have been doing anything useful.

There’s a story doing the rounds online at the moment. A team member gets a redundancy email. Manager fights up the chain, gets nowhere, then goes straight to the Chair of the Board, five layers above their pay grade. The GM’s decision gets overturned. Role is saved. Everyone breathes out.

The comments are predictably split between “what a legend” and “that manager is cooked.”

Both takes are probably right.

The thing that got me wasn’t the heroics. It was the detail buried in the middle: the GM hadn’t even looked at the numbers. A role with two years of work locked in, a critical skillset, a team that can’t function without it, and someone senior enough to make the call just… didn’t bother checking. That’s the part that should be making everyone uneasy. Not the manager’s escalation. The fact that the escalation revealed something that should have been caught three floors earlier.

There’s a particular kind of workplace theatre that never quite makes it into the onboarding materials. You learn it the hard way, usually while standing in a corridor holding a laptop, watching people who absolutely know what time it is pretend they don’t.

Someone posted about this recently and it landed with me. They had a room booked, a presentation to give, twenty people waiting. The room was occupied past the hour by a group of executives who had seen them, knew the time, and just… didn’t move. Eventually they knocked. The room cleared. And then, because the universe has a sense of humour, the executives complained about their attitude.

Ronny Chieng gave the commencement address at Harvard last week and told the graduates their mission was to destroy AI. The crowd cheered. Which is either deeply ironic or completely logical, depending on how much sleep you’ve had.

I’ve been turning the speech over in my head for a few days now. Not the “destroy AI” bit, which is a comedian doing what comedians do. The other line: “AI is just going to end up making mediocre people dumber.”

There was a discussion online recently about burnout and who should foot the bill for it. The comments were, as you’d expect, a mix of exhausted workers comparing war stories and the occasional person who still genuinely believes that “reasonable overtime” is a reasonable concept.

One comment stuck with me. Someone pointed out that if you strip the word “burnout” away and describe it plainly, what you’re often talking about is an employer causing lasting physical and psychological harm through negligence or cost-cutting. Put it that way and the question of responsibility becomes a lot less murky. We already have a principle for this in most shops: if you break it, you pay for it. Apparently that principle dissolves the moment the thing being broken is a person.

There’s a thread doing the rounds that I’ve been mulling over for a few days now, and it touches on something that genuinely gets under my skin — the intersection of bad management, AI-generated nonsense, and the quiet erosion of worker trust.

Someone posted about receiving a fairly formal email from their manager flagging “patterns” in their sick leave. On the surface, sounds reasonable enough. Twenty-six days in twelve months is above the standard ten-day FTE entitlement, the manager wants medical certificates going forward — fine, that’s within their rights. But then you read the details and the whole thing starts to unravel a bit.

Been thinking about this a lot lately after stumbling across a discussion online that genuinely made me laugh and then think a lot harder than I expected to for a Thursday afternoon.

Someone from Western Sydney was talking about how they flip between polished corporate-speak in the office and full “wallah bruva I’m from The Area” mode the moment they’re around other ethnics on a smoke break. And the responses? Gold. Turns out basically everyone does some version of this, regardless of background, culture, or postcode.

There’s a story doing the rounds this week that’s really stuck with me. A woman clocks up 45 years at the Commonwealth Bank — one of the most profitable financial institutions in the country — and when the milestone arrives, her son shares what she received: a marked pin and some flowers. That’s it. From a bank that regularly posts billions in annual profit.

Her son called it pathetic. Honestly? Hard to argue.

Someone posted online recently about their office being 80% empty — down from 50 people on a floor to about 10 — and honestly, the responses were gold. A mix of envy, recognition, and the occasional sharp observation about management having heads equally as empty as the office. Relatable content for a Thursday morning.

It got me thinking about how dramatically the whole “where do we work” conversation has shifted over the past few years. Because we’re not really arguing about it anymore, are we? The great Return-to-Office wars of 2022 and 2023 feel like they’ve quietly fizzled into a kind of uneasy truce. Most places have landed somewhere between “come in when it makes sense” and “we’re not paying for all this real estate for it to sit empty, so please just show up occasionally.”

I’ve been watching the AI layoff theatre with growing frustration, and there’s something fundamentally broken about how this whole thing is playing out.

Block cuts 4,000 people and blames AI. Atlassian drops 1,600. Shopify literally tells employees to prove AI can’t do their job before they can get more headcount. The CEO makes the announcement, the stock price nudges upward, and everyone nods along like this makes perfect sense. Except it doesn’t, because six months later, 55% of those same CEOs admit they regret the cuts, and companies like Klarna are quietly rehiring the humans they replaced after their AI-driven customer service quality went off a cliff.

I’ve been following a discussion online about someone who’s accumulated 400 hours of annual leave and is now facing resignation - that’s roughly 10 weeks of leave sitting there, waiting to be cashed out. The whole situation got me thinking about how we’ve created this bizarre system where taking time off becomes a financial puzzle rather than, you know, actually resting.

The original poster was looking for ways to avoid the tax hit on their leave payout, wondering if they could funnel it into superannuation or find some other creative workaround. The responses were a mix of practical advice and stories that honestly made me shake my head at the state of our work culture.

Reading through various workplace stories online this morning made me reflect on the peculiar phenomenon of office romances, particularly those of the illicit variety. The stories range from amusing mix-ups with high-vis shirts to rather awkward encounters in meeting rooms, bringing to mind several situations I’ve witnessed throughout my tech career.

Working in IT means spending countless hours in server rooms and rarely-accessed areas of office buildings. The number of times I’ve accidentally interrupted “private meetings” while doing routine maintenance checks is both amusing and concerning. There’s something about corporate environments that seems to spark these dangerous liaisons, despite the obvious risks to careers and relationships.

The warnings about AI’s impact on employment have been constant lately, but something particularly caught my attention in recent discussions. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei raised a crucial point that goes beyond the usual job loss concerns - he’s worried about the fundamental breakdown of democratic power structures.

Looking at my own industry, I’ve already witnessed how AI tools are reshaping the software development landscape. What started as simple code completion has evolved into systems that can write entire functions and debug complex applications. While I’m still employed, I’m using these tools daily, and they’re getting dramatically better every few months.

Reading about someone’s experience with department-wide one-on-one meetings scheduled with HR present brought back memories that made my stomach churn. The scenario is painfully familiar to many in the corporate world: the carefully worded email, the mention of a “support person,” and that ominous phrase about “changes to the department.”

Let’s be honest - corporate communication around restructures and redundancies often feels like it’s designed to create maximum anxiety. The moment you see that calendar invite for a one-on-one with both HR and senior management, your mind starts racing. Having been through this dance myself during the tech downturn of the early 2000s, I know exactly how it feels.

The workplace referral system has always been a double-edged sword. Today, scrolling through various professional forums during my lunch break, I came across a story that struck a chord - someone dealing with the aftermath of a workplace referral gone wrong. It brought back memories of similar situations I’ve witnessed throughout my IT career, and it’s worth unpacking why these situations can become so problematic.

The scenario is painfully familiar: you refer someone you worked with previously, thinking you’re doing both them and your company a favour. The interview goes well, they get the job, and then… everything goes pear-shaped. Your former colleague turns out to be completely different from what you remembered, or perhaps they show their true colours once they feel secure enough in their new position.

The tech industry never ceases to amaze me with its ability to create completely preventable problems. The recent revelations about North Korean IT workers infiltrating Fortune 500 companies have left me both frustrated and oddly unsurprised. While sipping my batch brew at my desk this morning, I couldn’t help but marvel at the sheer absurdity of the situation.

Remember when getting a job in tech meant endless rounds of technical interviews, personality assessments, and enough hoops to make a circus performer dizzy? Well, apparently, all you needed was to offer a slight discount and show up with some decent coding skills. The irony is palpable - legitimate developers are jumping through increasingly ridiculous hurdles while potential security threats waltz through the front door with a bargain-basement rate card.

Something’s been bothering me lately about the state of salary packaging services in Australia, and a recent online discussion really struck a chord. It’s concerning to see how these financial intermediaries, meant to make our lives easier, can sometimes cause significant stress and hardship.

The story that caught my attention involved someone who had $2000 unexpectedly taken from their pay by their salary packaging provider, with only a fraction returned through the normal fortnightly payment. The timing couldn’t have been worse - they’d just started a new job and were running low on funds. What makes it more frustrating is that when they tried to resolve the issue, they couldn’t even get through to customer service before closing time.

Reading about someone’s last day at work after being made redundant brought back memories of similar experiences in the tech industry. The familiar scene played out - the awkward HR meetings, fake sympathetic faces, and that strange liminal space between being employed and not.

The tech industry, particularly here in Australia, has seen its fair share of redundancy waves recently. Major players have been “restructuring” (corporate speak for showing people the door), often with very little warning. The story shared online today feels particularly relevant - that final walk through the office, the perfunctory HR meeting, and yes, the traditional raid of the stationery cupboard.

Reading about DOGE’s latest venture into developing software for automating government worker terminations sent a chill down my spine. Not just because of the cold efficiency it represents, but because it feels like we’re watching a particularly dark episode of Black Mirror unfold in real time.

The concept itself is disturbing enough, but what really gets under my skin is the cavalier approach to human employment. Picture receiving a termination notice generated by an AI system, probably with all the warmth and understanding of a parking ticket. My years in tech have taught me that even the most sophisticated systems can’t fully grasp the nuances of human employment situations.

The phrase “organisational restructure” has become an all-too-familiar part of our corporate vocabulary lately. While scrolling through various online discussions today, I noticed a disturbing pattern emerging in conversations about workplace stability - or rather, the growing lack of it.

Looking back to my early career days in the late 90s, redundancies were relatively rare events that made headlines. They were treated as serious corporate decisions that could damage a company’s reputation. These days, it seems like they’ve become just another routine business strategy, as casual as updating the office coffee machine.

Reading about someone’s decade-long mix-up between their Unique Student Identifier and Unique Superannuation Identifier struck a chord with me today. The story highlights how easy it is to get tangled up in Australia’s maze of administrative acronyms and identifiers.

The bureaucratic overlap between USI (Student) and USI (Super) is exactly the kind of system design that makes me want to bang my head against my standing desk. Why do we insist on using the same acronym for two completely different identifiers? It’s like naming two different Melbourne train lines “Western” - it’s just asking for confusion.

LinkedIn has evolved into something quite fascinating lately. What started as a professional networking platform has morphed into a peculiar mix of corporate theatrics, humble brags, and increasingly, brilliant satire. The platform’s transformation mirrors the absurdity of modern corporate culture itself.

Reading through discussions about Ken Cheng’s satirical LinkedIn posts, it’s both hilarious and slightly concerning how many people initially miss the satire. The lines between parody and reality have become so blurred that posts about “emotionally connecting” with potential hires or exploiting workers for “culture fit” could genuinely pass for authentic corporate content.

Looking out my office window in the Docklands, watching suited figures shuffle between glass towers, I’ve been thinking a lot about how corporate life shapes us. The discussion I stumbled upon recently about corporate personalities really struck a chord.

Remember that spark of enthusiasm we all had in our twenties? That genuine excitement about entering the workforce, making a difference, and climbing the corporate ladder? Fast forward fifteen years, and something fundamental has shifted. The enthusiasm has been replaced by a sort of programmed efficiency, and that sparkle in the eyes has dimmed considerably.

Reading through online discussions about corporate life lately has triggered some deep reflection about my own twenty-plus years in the tech industry. The recurring theme? We might all be faking it to some degree.

The tech world is particularly prone to this phenomenon. Job descriptions read like someone threw a technical dictionary at a wall and listed whatever stuck. Must have expertise in seventeen programming languages, four cloud platforms, quantum computing, and the ability to time travel? Sure, why not. These wishlists have become so detached from reality that they’re almost comical.

Looking for a new job has always been stressful, but recent developments in hiring practices are taking things to an unsettling new level. While scrolling through tech forums during my lunch break at a cafe near Flinders Street, I stumbled upon numerous discussions about HireVue, an AI-powered interview platform that’s becoming increasingly prevalent in government recruitment.

The concept is straightforward but troubling: instead of speaking with an actual human being, job candidates record themselves answering predetermined questions. The system then analyses everything from voice patterns to facial expressions, supposedly determining if you’re a “good fit” for the role. It’s like something straight out of Black Mirror, except it’s happening right now.

Reading through online discussions about workplace satisfaction feels like wading through an ocean of discontent. The prevailing narrative seems to be that everyone absolutely loathes their job, their boss is terrible, and corporate culture is soul-crushing. But is this really the complete picture?

Recently, someone started an interesting discussion by admitting they actually enjoyed their job in risk management. The responses were fascinating - a mix of skepticism, agreement, and everything in between. It reminded me of conversations I’ve had over coffee at Hardware Lane, where friends would look at me oddly when I mentioned not hating my work in tech publishing.