There’s probably a Country and Western song in it somewhere, maybe in the style of Hank Williams or Patsy Kline.
A sad lament about a suspicion that your job has been seeing someone else, attracted by the idea of an easier life, more money and flash technology, and then finding one morning, your job has moved out, leaving only a text message by way of farewell.
To save time, ChatGPT wrote me a ten-verse song in the style of Hank Williams.
Here’s the first couple of verses:
“Silicon Valley Blues”
(Verse 1)
I woke up this mornin’, put my laptop on,
Another day, another code, tryin’ to hold on.
But the office is empty, they said we gotta go,
Ten long years of workin’, now there’s nothin’ to show.
(Chorus)
Oh, the times are changin’, and the work’s hard to find,
Used to be a tech man, now I’m just gettin’ by.
With tired eyes and a heart that’s bruised,
Singin’ them Silicon Valley blues.
(Verse 2)
The screens are all dark now, where ideas used to flow,
Echoes of the laughter, hauntin’ me so.
The startup dreams are shattered, the desks are cold and bare,
Promises were broken, but does anybody care?
Hardly great, but not bad, just average - even if the average is becoming better than it used to be with the help of AI.
It wrote me the music too:
G C G D I woke up this mornin', put my laptop on, G C G D Another day, another code, tryin' to hold on. Em C G D But the office is empty, they said we gotta go, G C G D Ten long years of workin', now there's nothin' to show.
Average lyrics, average music, but enough for a singer in a bar for a one night stand, or a marketing piece for a budget-conscious client, or a resume for an average job, or a piece of routine code, or any one of an increasing number of jobs that used to be called creative.
There is, though, a different ending to the song, when the job that’s left us gets depressed and misses the little mistakes we used to make, and the things we used to discover when jamming for the fun of it. Without the energy of the author, the song has no energy. It could be about heartbreak or horticulture, the production values will be the same.
If we’re content to be average, we’re toast because average just got better, faster and cheaper.
We have to consider cases where the average is irrelevant because there are no comparisons or data from which to derive it.
Something that makes us smile feeds the soul and the stomach and carries our signature.
Somewhere outside the walls.
And then do that.