When A.I. Took My Job, I Bought a Chain Saw (Doesn't end well)

[BeyondGeography]

Some of the best career advice I’ve received didn’t come from a mentor — or even a human. I told a chatbot that A.I. was swallowing more and more of my work as a copywriter and that I needed a way to survive. The bot paused, processing my situation, and then suggested I buy a chain saw.

…And so it was that one anxious night, after staring at the due date for my property tax, I asked a chatbot what it thought would be the best work for me, exactly the way — if I’d had more money — I might have sought help from a counselor: I explained my work experience, where I lived and how urgently I needed income. Of the options it provided, cutting and trimming trees for local homeowners was listed as No. 1. I asked if that was seriously my best option. “Yes,” the bot wrote. “Based on your situation, skills and urgent need for income, tree work sales is almost certainly your fastest path to real money.” It told me what equipment I’d need, where to buy it, which neighborhoods to canvass, what times of day to knock on doors and even the nearest landfills where I could drop off brush.

Never mind the irony of taking career advice from the kind of machine that was replacing me. I felt increasingly hopeful. I love being outdoors, and soon I discovered I loved the clarity of the work. Unlike with copywriting, clients could never ask me to do the job over in a different way. The dead tree they’d wanted gone was now gone. And seeing them happy, handing me money, always made me happy, too…At 52, however, I sometimes found the work challenging. When I began doing it full time last spring, I was often sore for days straight. I told myself that by stretching more in the mornings or perhaps investing in lighter equipment, I could make it sustainable. Gradually, a pain settled in one elbow: a dull ache when I gripped the chain saw.

One afternoon, while I was knocking on doors, a man stepped onto his porch, shirtless, and pointed to the Bradford pears in his yard. “I paid an old friend to cut these trees,” he said. “He did a little, but then he killed himself.” In that moment, I saw before me — with an inner tremor — the path that too many of my neighbors had taken. Without steady, decently paying employment, they took on physically demanding day labor, got hurt, relied on painkillers and slid into a downward spiral…My arm still hasn’t healed. And last week while tearing out roots, I badly injured my back. A neighbor offered me prescription painkillers to help me get through the work. And I’m writing this, at least in part, to resist taking more of them. Even when I recover, I’m not sure how long this solution will last. I hope I’ll be able to get back to cutting trees for longer hours. But I suspect I’ll soon face increasing competition, as many people — especially recent college graduates — look for ways to make money that A.I. can’t yet replace. In towns like mine, outsourcing and automation consumed jobs. Then purpose. Then people.

Read at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/28/opinion/artificial-intelligence-jobs.html?unlocked_article_code=1.AVA.AlbG.BsCSRnUFL5QQ&smid=nytcore-ios-share

[multigraincracker]

1. Pain pills don't work on pain.

They just make you not care about pain.

[MichMan]

2. Takes a lot more equipment than a chain saw

When I hired one they came with a Bucket Truck, a wood chipper, separate trailer and pickup truck for log removal, and a stump grinder. I would guess at least $150k-200k worth of equipment.

Probably an AI generated story