I visit the Bureau of Labor Statistics as a bellwether for how we’re doing as worker bees. A visit is my pre-bedtime digital narcotic. And the Bureau seems to be out of touch with real life. 

Get this. Nowhere on the site’s pages of occupations (animal trainers and shoe repairers included) does the word “Creator” show up as a job description. Videographers, yes. Copywriters, yes. Photographers, yes. But there is no category to encompass creators, which could be the fastest-growing sector of the job market. Can’t they figure out how to count the 64 million US citizens in this obviously vibrant sector? 

Universities are teaching creator-economics; B-schools are studying them. They’ve evolved into the next media network, and eaten traditional TV for breakfast. YouTube, TikTok, and Insta are fueling creator growth. Figure it out, BLS, and give us a proper indication of job growth and changes. 

PS. Hot off the presses, some uplifting news about creators as a recognizable job category. The U.S. Small Business Administration released some guidance for digital content creators, finally recognizing creators as small businesses. It’s a start. 

Here is a prediction you may not want to hear as you sip your latte in your jammies? The corporate bosses want you back in the office. They want you collaborating, sharing and being your most “present” selves in all of the ways you can’t be as a remote worker. 

Corporates believe that despite the perks of saving their employees soul-sucking commutes, giving them time to get dinner started over a lunch break, or watching the school soccer match with the kids, nothing beats the co-learning and camaraderie of the office. Amazon has mandated a five-day presence in the office. So has JP Morgan and UPS. Some companies, such as Disney, are easing into four days in-office per week. Even Zoom, the darling of remote communications for isolated office workers, is nudging its workforce back to the office. My prediction is that we’re about to see a massive mandate for returning to the workplace (gas prices and all).

The good news? It’s no secret that AI is gunning for many corporate jobs. Being together in the office may reinforce the importance of the human contribution amidst the specter of AI nipping at our heels. 

Human collaboration, creativity, and gathering are what separate us from AI’s, so hold that thought near while you’re cursing your commute. There is no doubt that employees who’ve come to value work/life balance and the quiet meditations of working without disruption are going to need some office re-entry therapy. 

From my POV, there ought to be a happy balance. Bury the five-day office workweek! It’s antediluvian. Make it three in the office where you’re all together and two at home. But corporate life, as we all know, is more about pendulum swings than balance. 

Beware, if you tell Claude to “go f**K itself”, there’s a good chance your conversation may be terminated. 

On October 8th, this weird paragraph crossed our desks in the form of Anthropic’s new Usage Policy. The memo chided humans for being abusive to their chatbots. Of course Anthropic says the clause is only meant for the worst offenders, those who repeatedly act cruelly to their models. On the flip, nothing was called out about models that are abusive to their humans! 

By issuing this policy, Anthropic has anthropomorphized bots by asking us to treat them nicely. I mean, if you’re going to curse something out, isn’t it preferable to curse at a bunch of code and algorithms than a fellow human?