The AI Midlife Crisis: When 45-Year-Old Plus Middle Managers Meet Machine Learning
The Morning Everything Changed
Picture this: It's Tuesday morning, 7:43 AM. You're clutching your third coffee of the day (yes, third—don't judge), scrolling through emails in your Volkswagen estate outside the office car park, when you spot it. An email from HR with the subject line: "Exciting AI Integration Initiative: Optimising Operational Excellence Through Intelligent Automation."
Your heart sinks faster than house prices in a recession. You know that corporate speak. You've written enough of it yourself. "Optimising" means cutting costs. "Intelligent automation" means replacing humans. And "exciting"? Well, that's just insulting.