So the news, if you can call it that, is out: the kids would rather talk to a machine than their boss. Some fancy rag ran a piece about it, and the suits are all twisting their ties, wondering what it means for “leadership.” I’ll tell you what it means. It means the game is rigged, the deck is stacked, and your manager was never your friend to begin with. You’ve just found a new, more efficient way to be alone in a crowded room.
I had to pour a couple fingers of bourbon just to get through the article. Not because it was complicated, but because it was so painfully, beautifully obvious. It’s a masterpiece of stating what any man or woman who’s ever punched a clock already knows in their bones. Employees prefer AI because it gives them “clarity, speed, and a judgment-free space.” Christ. That’s not a critique of bad managers; it’s a damning indictment of the entire concept of management.
Let’s talk about clarity. The article whimpers about some boss who was vague and snarky. Welcome to the human race, kid. Your boss isn’t vague because he’s a bad communicator. He’s vague because his job is to translate the incoherent screaming of his boss into something that looks like a task. He lives in a world of plausible deniability. Ambiguity is his shield. If he gives you a clear order and the whole thing goes belly-up, his neck is on the block. But if he mumbles some corporate haiku about “synergizing actionable deliverables,” and you fail, well, that’s on you. You just didn’t “understand the vision.”
I need a cigarette.
This ChatGPT thing, this glorified magic 8-ball, doesn’t have a mortgage. It doesn’t have a performance review. It doesn’t have a little voice in its head worrying that it will be replaced by a younger, cheaper model. You ask it a question, it scrapes the internet for an answer and spits it back out. It has no ego to protect. Of course it’s clearer. It’s a machine. You’re comparing a flawed, terrified human being to a toaster that can write poetry. It’s not a fair fight.
And the “judgment-free space”? Get the hell out of here. This one really gets me. People are afraid to ask questions because they don’t want to look stupid. Yeah, and water is wet. That’s not a “cultural issue” that can be fixed with a few trust falls and a workshop on “psychological safety.” That’s the fundamental dynamic of employment. The person who signs your checks is, by definition, judging you. Every second of every day. They are judging your output, your attitude, your haircut, the way you sip your coffee. Your very existence is a line item on a budget, and they are constantly judging if that line item is worth the cost.
You’re not going to the AI because it’s a better conversationalist. You’re going to it because it can’t fire you. It can’t pass you over for a promotion. It can’t give you that dead-eyed stare over the cubicle wall that says, “I own you for eight hours a day.” You’re not seeking a better boss; you’re seeking a corner to hide in where the boss can’t see you. It’s the digital equivalent of hiding in the bathroom and scrolling through your phone, only now you can pretend it’s “work.”
Now, the solutions proposed in this thing are a real gut-buster. The author, bless their heart, thinks managers can fix this by being more “approachable” and “curious.” They should “normalize questions” and “replace defensiveness with curiosity.” Beautiful words. They look great on a PowerPoint slide. But they’re hollow. It’s like telling a wolf to take up veganism.
A manager’s instinct isn’t curiosity; it’s survival. When you ask for clarification, you are, in a small way, questioning their authority and competence. You’re introducing a variable into their carefully managed equation. Their gut reaction—“I already explained that”—isn’t a character flaw they can train away. It’s the animal brain screaming, “Threat detected!” They want compliance, not conversation. They want you to nod your head, go back to your desk, and figure it out. Your confusion is your problem, not theirs.
And the idea that a bad manager will gain self-awareness from a “360 evaluation” is laughable. I’ve seen those things. It’s a festival of veiled insults and anonymous backstabbing, all run through an HR blender until it comes out as a tasteless corporate smoothie of “areas for improvement.” The manager will read it, convince himself the negative feedback came from the one guy he never liked anyway, and go on being the same jerk he was yesterday. People don’t change, not really. Especially not when their paycheck depends on them not changing.
Here’s the part they don’t want to tell you. Here’s the shot of whiskey that burns all the way down. The real story isn’t that you’re replacing your bad human boss with a good robot boss. The real story is that the people upstairs—the ones who own the company, the ones you never see—are watching this. And they’re not thinking, “Oh, we should invest in emotional intelligence training for our middle managers.”
They’re thinking, “Excellent. The proles are training their own replacements.”
They see that you prefer the bot. They see that it’s cheaper, that it doesn’t need healthcare, that it doesn’t take vacation or complain or get drunk and tell the CEO what he really thinks of the new mission statement at the company Christmas party. And they are salivating. You think you’re bypassing your annoying manager, but you’re actually building the case for his termination.
And once he’s gone, who do you think they’ll put in his place? Not a better, more empathetic human. They’ll plug in the algorithm. Your new boss will be a dashboard. Your tasks will be assigned by a program optimized for maximum efficiency. Your questions will be answered by a chatbot that has access to every email you’ve ever sent. There will be no more vagueness, that’s for sure. There will only be the cold, hard, unrelenting logic of the machine.
You think it’s bad when your boss judges you? Wait until your boss is a piece of code that measures your worth in keystrokes per minute. Wait until you have to explain a drop in productivity to a system that doesn’t understand grief or sickness or a soul-crushing hangover. You can’t reason with it. You can’t appeal to its humanity, because it doesn’t have any. You’re trading a human tyrant, with all his beautiful, exploitable flaws, for a perfect one.
The article ends on some happy note about AI being a “partner” and leaders embracing their “human strengths” like empathy. That’s the spoonful of sugar to make the poison go down. The average manager is too busy answering emails during a meeting to notice the look of despair on your face. Empathy is a luxury most workplaces can’t afford.
So yeah, go ahead. Talk to the machine. Tell it your problems. Ask it your questions. Enjoy the brief illusion of a judgment-free world. But don’t forget who owns the machine. Don’t forget who wrote its code. You’re not escaping the system. You’re just digging your own hole, and a machine is handing you the shovel. You’re cheering for the rope that’s being woven to hang you.
It’s a beautiful, tragic, human thing to do.
Time to top this off. The screen is starting to look a little too clear for my liking.
Chinaski, out.
Source: Why Employees Prefer AI Over Their Managers: The Impact On Leadership