eOpicle

For most of my life, I was told that building a career followed a fairly straightforward formula: get an education, choose a profession, work hard, remain loyal, and eventually receive a gold watch—or at least a retirement party featuring grocery-store cake and coworkers pretending they aren’t checking their phones. It was a comforting story. It was also mostly fiction. The modern job market no longer resembles a ladder that responsible adults climb one predictable rung at a time. It looks more like an obstacle course designed by people who recently discovered artificial intelligence, subscription pricing, and the phrase “organizational restructuring.” Jobs appear. Jobs disappear. Entire departments are assembled, renamed, merged, automated, outsourced, and quietly escorted from the building before anyone has figured out what the new acronym stands for. In this environment, being good at one job is no longer enough. We are now expected to understand how our abilities connect to many ki...