I’m at our New York office between sessions. There are three drinks on my desk — all mine, all started, none finished. There’s a list of things I still need to pack for France next week. There’s a basement, back home, I’ve been organizing at midnight.

I haven’t posted in two weeks. The basement is telling on me, it’s where I’m focusing on organizing when I can’t wrap my head around much else.

Before Any of This

First: marketing got restructured. Three people I’d worked with my entire time at Automattic aren’t here anymore. Two of them were on my team. They were all some of my best friends at work.

Restructuring is hard. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying, and lying isn’t what I do here.

I’m not making this post about that. What happened to them is harder for them than it was for me, and they’re some of the most talented people I know, they’ll land. But I needed a beat to lick my wounds, and my team gave me the space to take it. I’m grateful, not every team would have.

And Then, the AI Training

Then this thing kicked off that I’d been looking forward to for months.

Automattic gave almost 50 of us the space and permission to put our regular work down for two weeks and focus on AI. To play with it. To build with it. The cross-BU piece is what gets me. I’m in rooms with marketers from every Automattic property — Tumblr, WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Jetpack, WordPress VIP, all of it. People I’ve shared a company with for years and never actually built something with. That doesn’t happen at most companies. It is, hand on heart, one of the more unique things about working here.

Last week was the virtual portion of the training. It collided with Media Product Forum week — one of our biggest events of the year, in New York. I missed Wednesday’s sessions for the event and made it up async. This week I’m back in New York for the in-person portion. Next week I leave for France with my entire family for a conference (extended a little, because of course).

Yesterday I had to present to the cohort. Impostor syndrome arrived early and made itself at home. Then I gave the talk and walked out with all 5s on the feedback and a room full of questions I didn’t have time to answer. That doesn’t always happen. I’m going to let myself enjoy it.

If you’ve been reading, you can already see what’s coming.

Back to the Basement

I went home between trips and organized my basement.

I know.

The basement is where the dogsitter stays when we’re away, and the basement is, generously, a disaster. There was no version of me leaving for a different continent with the basement looking like that. So I stayed up late. I got up early. I filled trash bags. I have never been happier to look at an empty corner.

You know the pattern by now. The garage was for stress. The laundry room was for overwhelm. The basement is for, apparently, international travel.

I have a system.

The Question Nobody Says Out Loud

Here’s the part of the AI training nobody is talking about, but everybody is thinking:

Am I partially replacing myself?

I don’t think so. I really don’t. There is no bot that walks into a room of stakeholders, reads it in the first ten seconds, and adjusts. There is no bot with my context. There is no bot that does what I do.

I know this.

And still. The thought visits.

I’m also thinking about my kids. What will their jobs look like? Will they have jobs? Am I being dramatic? Probably. Worst-case isn’t usually the case. But worst-case is a room my brain wanders into at 3am, uninvited.

I don’t have a clean answer for that yet. I’m not sure I’m supposed to.

Great Busy

Here’s what I do know.

I’ve been really, really busy. But this isn’t bad busy. This is great busy. There’s a lot I’m excited about. The training. The trip. The work. The future.

Earlier this week, someone high up at my company shared a Lenny Rachitsky thread — Dan Shipper’s takeaways on where AI is going. One line lodged itself: the AI job apocalypse is not happening, but you do need to evolve to stay relevant.

That’s a different framing than the one I’d been carrying around. Less “will I be replaced” and more “are you keeping up.” I’m not sure it’s more comforting. But it shifts where the anxiety lives, and that’s something.

I’m excited about the future. I’m scared of the reality of getting there.

“Scared” isn’t the right word. It doesn’t quite fit. But I haven’t found a better one, and I’ve been hunting.

Maybe that’s the post. Maybe the in-between word is the thing. Maybe I’m allowed to be excited and uncertain at the same time without naming it perfectly.

In a couple of days, I’m going to go home and pack for France.

And then, because I know myself, I’m going to go organize one more corner of the basement.