I'm at a real loss here... BA in English (2010) MFA in Creative Writing (2013) My first job out of grad school was in the enrollment department of a for-profit, third party education company that worked with colleges and universities. I hated it and left after a year to do freelance writing for local magazines. I actually really loved this job. I was mainly interviewing people, transcribing my interviews, and writing up profile stories on local homes, businesses, etc. I quickly realized I couldn't make a living on this alone, though, and found a job as an in-house copywriter at a local university in 2016. I'd probably still be at that job today if they didn't close our marketing department in 2019. I somehow was able to find a new job very quickly at a small, local ad agency as a copywriter. They were, and still are, primarily a graphic design firm, but they wanted to experiment with a dedicated in-house copy person. I never really felt like I knew what I was doing there, and half the time I didn't have enough work to keep me busy through the day. When March of 2020 came around, we started working from home, and about six months in, they let me go because they didn't have enough for me to do. This was the worst unemployment period, because it was during the height of the pandemic and it took me a year and a half of constantly applying to jobs and fighting to get unemployment checks before I found my current job. It's actually at a company that acquired that first for-profit education company I worked in enrollment for (and we have since been acquired a second time). I have been here for five years as a copywriter. First, the good. The actual work I do on a day to day basis isn't super demanding, and I get to work from home which has been incredible for my mental health and work/life balance. After seven years of working from home, I know I would have a very difficult time going back to an office at this point. Now, the bad. I hate the company I work for. I don't like the mission. I don't like how hard they are pushing AI on us. I don't like the disorganization and miscommunication and constant detective work I have to do just to understand what my tasks are for the day. This has gotten significantly worse over the past two years after a merger and new leadership. I am constantly putting out fires in every direction every day. One example is that we used to finalize all copy before it went to design. Now I am regularly having to change copy after a graphic designer has already made assets out of it, and trying to communicate with them to make these changes on our strict timeline is so frustrating. Just a million little things like that because project management wants to speed up the process as much as possible. AI is maybe the worst of it, and I know that is going to be the same basically anywhere I go these days, but I have such strong ethical concerns with generative AI, and being asked to generate entire profile stories with it each week (like the ones I used to enjoy writing so much) is killing my spirit. These problems are frustrating and ethically concerning for me, but to maintain a full-time, salaried work from home job with health insurance in a world where it is such a nightmare to find work right now is a no-brainer. The problem is, there is no job security for me anymore. I have seen a handful of coworkers, many of whom have worked at this company longer than I have, let go or fired in recent months. One was a copywriter who was the only one I have seniority over. Another was my direct manager who is one of the hardest working people I know. We're being asked to track how long tasks take use to complete and whether or not we used AI. It's just all so grim, and I don't think I will have this job this time next year whether I like it or not. I trained in graduate school to write fiction. It's what I'm passionate about, and I do it outside of work. I have big goals with a novel, and I have already published a few shorter things. But even if I meet my goals, which would be difficult and require a lot of luck, it won't be a way to earn a living. If and when I publish my novel, I expect to get a small advance and maybe take my mom and girlfriend out to dinner with it, but that's about all you get as a first time novelist. I am more and more feeling like I have no skills to offer in this AI world. Copywriting has never been a passion of mine, but it was fulfilling enough to know I had a skill that people would pay me for. That's gone now. I have been scouring LinkedIn for months and applying to anything that seems even remotely applicable, but everything has over 100 applicants, and half of them involve training AI. So on the one hand, I am very unhappy at my job. I guess a lot of people are, and it's something I could suck up. The bigger problem is I have no job security, and if/when I am let go (and I definitely see the writing on the wall) I will have absolutely no backup plan or marketable skills. I know people will say I have learned valuable skills I could market in my time as a copywriter, but taking actionable steps to find work with these skills has not been easy. And I can't go back to school. I already have 27k in student loan debt. This isn't a unique problem. Much of the workforce is in the same situation as me. I just feel so hopeless and scared about the future of my career. I just bought a house with my girlfriend and feel more stressed than excited because every day I wake up, I don't know if it will be my last day of work. I need to make some kind of shift, or change. I just don't know how. PS - For what it's worth, I did post a month or so ago on a couple teaching subreddits, asking for advice on how I might make a shift into teaching. The comments were basically unanimous that I should not do this, and they were all desperately trying to get out to find jobs like mine. That was quite an emotional blow.   submitted by   /u/CawfeePig [link]   [comments]