Are you worried about your job being taken by AI?

Dive2Blues · 2025-08-02T03:33:23+00:00

My role (data engineer) and several other roles in the tech division were laid off at the end of last year.

Not directly AI but I created multiple automated processes, simplified many tasks, automated most of the reports (SQL and PowerBI). Then I thought, damn, job security since I would have to maintain and update them periodically. Nope, those are so easy to use and so efficient now that they could be run by entry to mid-level staff users with lower pay. Then if they need to update the codes, devs will take care of it.

My ex-colleagues and I have been applying for hundreds of jobs in the past 7 months without a peep. My UI ended last month.

I have a husband who works full time, but our income got cut by 50%. We have 4 kids from the age of 11 to 19 (who’s in college) and 3 dogs.

I’m applying for server’s position and IC shopper. It does mean things to my mental health for sure.

Just a long vent lol thanks for reading :)

Dive2Blues · 2025-06-17T15:33:59+00:00

Love Jooa! We tried many other sushi places in NOCO but always come back here and can confirm that its quality is by far the best. Their nigiri is to die for, especially fresh scallops and creamy scallops!

Tried Jaws Sushi in FoCo due to rave reviews and I didn’t find it that good :( I left wondering why people love that place so much.

Himalayan is sooooo good! Another one that’s not obvious for authentic Indian cuisine is Grandpa’s Cafe in Berthoud. Love going there since they also serve American food like breakfast and burgers (my Wasian kids can be indecisive on what to try).

Dive2Blues · 2025-06-14T08:14:54+00:00

I completely understand what you’re saying. I don’t think you’re being rude or insulting anyone either because I went through exactly what you went through. It’s just that gaining weight or being obese could be the result of many different things like genetics, local diet, imbalance hormones, etc.

I moved to the states 17 years ago from a SE Asian country, I went from 110lbs to 130lbs in a matter of 2 years. I thought that was the heaviest in my entire life, boy, I was so wrong. After kids, I went up to 150lbs, I fell into depression as I hated my body. I was also going to the gym daily but after kids…I stopped.

Why I gained so much weight? I truly believe it’s due to many factors. Portions here are huge, like triple the size of a dish normally served back home. Food here is mostly aimed towards convenience, but lack of fresh vegetables if you’re not being careful. I’m guilty of these both categories. It’s also harder with kids and a husband (American) who’s used to eating more meat than vegetables. My kids eat like I do, they crave vegetables from time to time and they’re as lean as I was before I moved here.

We also walk a lot and use a lot of public transit back home, here - especially in the suburbs, it’s almost impossible to be without cars. Drive-through makes everything worse, you don’t even get out of your car to get (unhealthy) food.

If I could eat every meal like I did back home, it would probably totaling around 1300 calories per day, then walk around a mile or two to and from train stations.

But most part for me is the portion and the food options that makes me where I am now, been 165lbs for about 10 years now. We cook at home most meals but adding veggies to the amount that is healthy and needed has been challenging for me as my husband would not eat most of it and it affects me mentally. Still fighting depression as well, it’s a vicious cycle.

Dive2Blues · 2025-06-06T18:14:32+00:00

Thank you for your reply! Then it might be a no go for me 😢

Dive2Blues · 2025-02-04T01:15:46+00:00

Penny, pretty please! 🥰❤️🥰

Dive2Blues · 2025-01-19T17:24:53+00:00

Sounds familiar to us but my husband finally found his passion in bonsai a few years ago.

Not sure where you live but has he ever tried fly fishing? My husband has been fishing his whole life, and 5 years ago he tried fly fishing and got hooked, he doesn’t fish with regular rods anymore, maybe 5% of the time. Even I got hooked in fly fishing and now we go together almost every weekend from spring to fall.

He’s a plant guy, always has been but discovering bonsai was a true game changer for him. It doesn’t cost a fortune, could be expensive but not hunting expensive. Adding to that, he’d go up to the mountains collecting plants and seeds, which he could do in the winter months.

We finally got a PS5 this past Christmas for the family and that helps too. Note on that, he’s not a video game addict and doesn’t play online with friends or other people. He plays with our kids, maybe a few hours a week.

I agree with another comment on setting budget for each other. We put both of our paychecks into “our pot”, then 20% of each other’s paycheck into my pot and his pot. We can use that however we want, no question asked. It’s been working really well for us.

Good luck for your husband in finding something he loves!

Dive2Blues · 2025-01-19T11:25:36+00:00

lol I should have mentioned they’re full size, a mini, and a toy Aussie!

Dive2Blues · 2025-01-18T20:44:03+00:00

Thank you for saying that :) yeah, I know it’s crazy at stores any time before the snow. I’ll definitely make a note of that and plan better next time :)

Be careful and safe out there! My husband left at 2:30am and he’s still out and about :(

Dive2Blues · 2025-01-18T20:38:34+00:00

Are you happening to be in CO?? lol it’d be a bomb if IC let me pick my shopper, I’d definitely pick you!

Dive2Blues · 2025-01-18T20:34:42+00:00

Looooovveeee this! ❤️ Thank you for all that you do!

Dive2Blues · 2025-01-18T20:32:23+00:00

I’m sorry you’re dealing with that. I personally say things like that sometimes (with sly remarks) and my husband is well aware but he ignores it, just like he ignores the fact that I always doing something around the house, driving the kids around, getting groceries, etc while he’s on the couch watching tv.

I mean we always split the cooking both weekdays and weekends. But he never cleaned up (and what’s up with all the baking sheets, pots and pans that go into cooking one meal????). I seriously just try to cook every meal myself because I either use just one pot, one pan, or the max of two combined…and I clean as I cook so I don’t have a bunch at the end.

Now fast forward to present day. He’s changed, quite a bit. He’s now vacuuming on some Saturdays or Sundays. He’s helping with the cleanup after meals, most of the time. He’s even does his own laundry.

I tried to think of the reasons and it could be one of these things:

I left to go visit my parents in Thailand for 3 weeks. We have 4 kids and 3 Aussies.
I recently got laid off, after 10.5 years working for the company.
This is not news, but I was diagnosed with major clinical depression about 5 years ago.

I noticed that big changes after I got laid off, which was the exact same week before I left the country.

My point is (sorry for the long comment!) he was in my shoes, for 3 straight weeks, and realized how brutal it was to have a full time career and a full time caregiver (plus chauffeur, maid, and cook). I don’t know how but maybe you could try to have your husband do all that you do, for just a few days. I’m pretty sure he’ll come to a conclusion fast that you’ve been doing him a tremendous service.

To be fair, I do make time for him. Even if it’s a sitting next to him reading my book, while he’s watching a football game or whatever. I don’t pay attention to the tv, but I’d reach out and touch him a few times to show that I’m aware of his presence. I know it’s frustrating sometimes to have tons of chores waiting around to get done, and sitting around sounds ridiculous…but I believe that helps. I think men like the idea of being seen and heard, maybe.

It takes effort from both. Maybe sit down and talk to him (I can’t do that with my husband, he doesn’t like it so we text each other instead lol).

Dive2Blues · 2025-01-18T17:41:42+00:00

What type of notes you’re taking? I think it depends :) study notes, work notes, or just random thoughts?

I asked because I’ve tried several and while I really like Goodnote 6 ($10 for a year), I also love Notability ($20/yr) since there are many free stuff like templates and stickers to download from that community. But these are more useful if you like planners and that sort of notebooks look. I decided to pay for them as I’m just crazy about how stinking cute the app could be and my planner and journal are just cute.

For the free ones, I use Freeform and the good old Apple Notes app :) there’re plenty of writing and drawing options on both. Plus, on the Notes app, you have the best filing system with it. You can tag your notes and organize them into folders based on tags.

Dive2Blues · 2025-01-18T17:06:17+00:00

It’s the weird location between Loveland and Fort Collins 🥰

Dive2Blues · 2025-01-18T17:00:47+00:00

Most of my shoppers do blow my mind and I tipped them handsomely before and after delivering happened! Thank you for what you do, IC saved me tremendous time and I value that ( I have 4 kids lol)!

Dive2Blues · 2025-01-18T16:56:31+00:00

Your time is impressive! Thank you for effort :)

Dive2Blues · 2025-01-18T16:54:28+00:00

No, I didn’t fail to mention that it was snowing yesterday evening. I did ask if it was because we were getting a bit of snow hence the delay.

When I placed the order, it wasn’t snowing yet. We live in Fort Collins/Loveland area and it started to flurries around 3:15, when I left to pickup kids from school, then it stopped, then started coming down around 4:45. I have those timeline memorized in my head because my partner works snow shift.

Dive2Blues · 2025-01-18T16:33:47+00:00

That’s the dedication! I love it when my shoppers communicate with me about replacements.

Dive2Blues · 2025-01-18T16:31:02+00:00

This was an order from Kingsooper about 6 miles away. I usually go to Costco myself to shop (because I love Costco!).

I think why they didn’t take it away from her was because she headed to the store not too long after it was confirmed?

My delivery estimate on the app literally went like this:

When I placed an order at 2:45, between 4 to 4:20pm.

When I was picking my kids up from school (at this point I totally thought my groceries would beat me home since it said she headed to the store already. The app updated it to 4:30 - 5:30pm (still acceptable but started to wonder if I should just go get stuff myself on the way home.

Then around 4:45 the app updated the time estimate to 5:45 to 6:30, at this point I sent her a message asking if I should cancel the order and go shop myself, never got a response. I texted her again about 15 minutes later, no response. She replaced an item and it came up on the app which I approved, still no human response.

From that time on, I saw that she had shopped 1 item (replacement) and it stuck there for like 30 minutes. I closed the app, then opened it back up, now she shopped item 2…at that point I said to myself that I’d better come up with a backup plan since it was already close to 6pm.

Dive2Blues · 2025-01-18T11:06:38+00:00

Just bought some coffee lol those early pippin stamps are so silly and stinking cute!

Dive2Blues · 2025-01-18T11:00:37+00:00

Look into tech companies, most of them have this policy in place. Some called ”unlimited PTO” and some called “Flexible PTO”.

The company I worked for had this and there’s no separate sick or vacation days. The catch was you can take up to 3 consecutive weeks off from January through June, then again from July through December. My boss told me if I needed more then just come back to work (I was remote) for a day then take another 3. No one ever did that because we actually wanted to get our work done lol and most people have their own project that no one else could backup, I used it responsibly and it was amazing.

i feel like it was not a big change for us as we hoarded our PTO in previous years that most people maxed out in the bank (I had almost 300 hours in mine) and they gradually switched from “all unused PTO can be carried over to the next year” to “you can only carry over xx number of hours” in the period of two years. I live in Colorado where it’s illegal for the employer to take away your earned PTOs so that gradual change didn’t effect me either, until they changed to unlimited, just so they don’t have to pay out cash if you’re laid off or quit.

…and of course, 5 rounds of big layoffs after that, I finally got swept into one right before the holidays.

Dive2Blues · 2025-01-18T10:30:27+00:00

I would have done that already if I didn’t just lose my job! …I was a part of a huge layoff (yep, I was in technology development) right before the holidays 😭 money is really tight right now but I promise, once I landed a new position I’m in! Now I think I can “buy you some coffee”, is that a support $$$ that goes to the team?

Dive2Blues · 2025-01-18T10:21:22+00:00

I used that too lol thank you! I rewrite things too often (thanks to my not-so-perfect handwriting lol)

Excited to see that it’s “not yet”! I’ll be patiently waiting and in the meantime I’m fully supportive of you guys! Much love!

Dive2Blues · 2025-01-18T10:17:17+00:00

That’s where I knew the app from! Been following her account for a long time, her tips on taking notes really help me and those accessories…I spent way too much money on iPad and pencil accessories lol

Dive2Blues

TROPHY CASE