Weeknote #27 [W26.14 – 15] - Amaira’s first week, coversations with friends, and bullshit jobs

I missed posting a weeknote for the first time in 27 weeks. This one is going to be a combination of the last two weeks.

The arrival of Amaira

The kids dowstairs finally left for their gandmother’s place for the duration of their summer holiday (which they sadistically kept reminding me was 40 days long).

They left their 6-month-old kitten, Amaira Fathima, with me.

Amaira has been settling in well. She kept hissing at me, Malcolm and everything else in existence for the first two days. She also kept trying to escape every opportunity she got, almost jumping off from a window once.

I was very afraid of a fight breaking out between her and Malcolm. I have had my share of angry violent cats in the last few months and I don’t want to deal with violent at once. So I kept her locked the study for the first two days.

But she is a cat after all. And all of this was nothing a bribe of a few treats couldn’t fix. By day 3, she seemed at ease. She’s now very cuddly with me, running around and being a mischief in general (I have had to hide all my dustbins because she kept overturning them in search of treats), and is happily bullying Malcolm all the time (who has a look of, “are you seeing this shit?” on his face every time I look at him).

Conversations with friends

I had a few great conversations these last two weeks:

• Both weeks ended with long conversations on justice and morality with Munazzah. These were very fun for me, because I got to take a contrarian stance argue from perspective which I don’t usually hold.
• I had an interesting conversation with Jatan about China’s poilitics, economy and their recent advancements in technology.
• I made a list of books that changed the way I see the world for Mariam, which I plan to elaborate on and publish on the blog some time soon.

What am I reading?

I added a new page on the blog on what I’m reading. It has a few numbers and charts along with a list of books I’m currently reading and a list of some of my favourites.

I don’t know what I want to do with it yet, but do something I will.

AI is ruining my life, again

The completely irresponsible and narrow-minded obsession with “make everything AI” at work has robbed me of whatever little joy a corporate job can sometimes offer.

I spent the last two weeks:

• writing prompts and skill.md files for Claude,
• in endless meetings on how to replace existing workflows with LLMs and AI agents, and
• talking about and hearing other people talk how to efficiently use Claude to get projects done.

I do not see how this leads to anything improving much. I still maintain that LLMs are a fad which won’t change much about the nature of work is organized.

The cost of writing content and code is going down, sure, but when was that ever a bottleneck?

The bottleneck is always higher up the chain, in decision-making. And using LLMs to replace anything that involves decision-making is fundamentally misguided. Most decision-making jobs (i.e., managers) exist not because they are essential, but because companies need someone to hold accountable (read: blame) when things go wrong. Companies will still need someone to blame when using LLMs.

Indeed, it is not just managers; most jobs which exist today are mostly superfluous. They exist for reasons which are not immediately apparent.

In Bullshit Jobs, David Graeber argued that a significant portion of the workforce is engaged in tasks that are ultimately pointless. They serve no meaningful purpose beyond maintaining existing social and economic structures.

If we accept Graeber’s premise — and there is good reason to — there are no meaningful efficiency gains to be made from LLMs. For the natre of work in present day society has little to do with efficiency.