Dear Di-A.I.-ary:
Ran into Uncertainty in the elevator last night. Again.
Haggard and angular, all sharp elbows and rough edges in the cold light; dripping, as ever, doubt, unease, second thoughts, remorse, ambiguity, and regret.
Just my luck. After a year of pounding, clanging, echoing voices from creaking shafts, and “sorry for the inconvenience” signs in the 240 CPS lobby, we’re back to four elevators that, gasp, actually work.
Somehow, Uncertainty always finds a way to hop on mine.
So,” I inquired, “how was your day?” Reply: “Coulda, shoulda, woulda.”
“Ah, then. Business as usual.”
But actually, it’s not. Usual that is.
In fact, from just about every corner, it feels like Uncertainty is everywhere in the air, where “can, do, and did” are increasingly scarce.
Especially here in not-so-merry old adland.
More companies, entire categories, dithering, throwing granular baby step solutions at bleeping big global problems.
Media channels somehow fragmenting and consolidating at the same time. A neat trick, but hell to parse.
Brands stagflating in the same place they’ve been for the last 15 years: still buying into digital pretense as the growth generator, but, in truth, relying more on balance sheet gymnastics for simulated progress.
Agencies ever more aggressively pushing what the results increasingly paint as little more than digital crack.
Meanwhile, in the middle of all the kerfuffle over inconvenient Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers, the media managed to overlook a jobs report showing fewer than 1000 private sector NYC jobs total added in the first half of the year.
The technical HR terms for that: crumbs, shards, dust mites.
So, yeah, I get why Uncertainty perpetually walks around dour and sour.
The excuses are so many and varied and Uncertainty can recite them all by heart:
“But tariffs.” “But inflation.” “But politics and polarization.” “But social blowback.” “But procurement.” “But performance.” “But media overload.” “But creative commoditization.” But my job/bonus/survival.”
“But AI.” “But AI.” “But AI.”
Hell with all that.
Maybe we part company with Uncertainty by agreeing that change is the only constant.
That the only sure way to lose the game is not to play.
That the biggest risk is to take no risk at all.
And that clarity is the only known antidote to complexity and indecision.
All of which was running through my mind when the elevator belled “15th floor” and Uncertainty gave me a glance.
“Hey, I’m having a party.”
“Really, who’s coming?”
“Fear, Doubt, the usual crowd.”
I started recalling the last time I hung out with those guys for an entire night.
Politely, I said, “pass.”