I work in IT, and surprisingly I use AI for about 5% of my work. Mainly because the suggestions are almost always useless and if I’m troubleshooting, I don’t exactly want to sit here reading irrelevant AI summaries of menu options that don’t even exist. I still use it for scripting, but I audit the output entirely and test it out before deploying it widely. Call / meeting transcript summaries are also very helpful and other menial tasks like powerpoint creation.
But my coworker is senior to me by a couple years and he’s technically my direct report. And I’ve stood behind him and watched him frantically type what users describe to him during a live call into Claude and follow the suggestions line by line and get frustrated when they don’t work, and then turn to me and ask me what I think without really trying anything himself. I feel like I’ve solved more of his problems than him solving mine. Every single troubleshooting call, claude is pulled up immediately.
A lot of the issues are either repeat or similar to each other, and even without detailed documentation I think one should be able to recognize some patterns and know what to look at first. But he’ll complicate simple issues by trying AI suggestions then when they don’t work, doubling down on what the AI think is wrong and try to find different ways to achieve its suggestions.
Elsewhere, I’ve had to delay retrieving old computers because the non-technical user decided to start a huge complicated application project in Claude on the old computer, and it’s not easy to transfer contexts and conversations over to a new computer.
I don’t know man. I’m just tired
I think the only people I can get along with on an intimate level are creatives and teachers because at least the probability of them not relying AI entirely in their lives is higher
It shows up in my field of work sometimes, to my great annoyance. I have an increasing number of customers who now give me some variation of "i asked chatgbb how to fix this ABC plumbing issue and it says all you have to do is XYZ".
Then I have to justify my explanation as to why the fucking AI isnt right, why their incorrect hunch now improperly reinforced by a computer program is also wrong. I had a guy tell me recently that Claude is smarter than I am, so my decades of experience and knowledge is now moot and I am 'just a parts changer now'. Also love to come behind someone who looked up how to change a shower cartridge on chatgpp, bought the wrong cartridge, broke additional parts of the shower trim trying to follow the wrong removal procedure and is now pissed that I cant get their shower trim back together correctly and how my license must have been acquired via a Cracker Jack box.
Last Friday, my final call of the week was to go to someone's house to swap out a Moen Posi-temp cartridge. Customer has the parts, you just need to swap them Microfiche.
Go over. Customer has water off, trim is off. Cartridge is broken into multiple pieces, some stuck in the valve body, some on the shower floor. In the process of removing the cartridge in attempt to save themselves some money, the customer stripped the screw hole on the handle. They cracked the plastic adapter that holds the now broken handle to the shower cartridge. They tried to remove the cartridge with the wrong tool, bent the brass shaft on the cartridge. Brass shaft gouged the valve body internally where a o-ring sits so now water will leak by the o-ring and now the shower will never shut off fully. Ive been here before. Just change the whole valve. Customer wants to be a tight ass, wants me to try and salvage it and then change it if salvaging doesnt work.
It's Friday at 545pm. Plumbing supply houses are now closed. I can get them to open but they charge an after-hours open up the doors fee of 250, non negotiable and due before they will even unlock the door.
Because the guy couldn't just leave it alone, his $200 dollar shower cartridge swap turned into $1,800 dollars worth of emergency service work. And then he complained after the fact, about how he was getting hosed for the cost and he wasnt sure whether or not I was at least partially responsible for the predicament because chatgpp told him it was super duper simple.
Fuck AI.
Just awful. I don't envy having to do house calls
I prefer commercial work for that reason. Plans are spec'd for XYZ parts and so XYZ is what's going in. The job costs what the job costs and no jobsite foreman is gonna come running over trying to explain to me how AI said we can do it this way instead. Most of my residential customer are actually quite pleasant. I'm fortunate there, really. I have a lot of regulars Im on a first name basis with. One of my regular customers who runs a really good BBQ shack has gifted me a smoked turkey for Xmas every year for the last five years. But what used to be zero new residential customers telling me how easy AI said it is to repair is now a non-zero number and that's far too many.
your commercial jobs are better run than a lot of the ones i've been to lol.
I think since my trade is another layer beyond plumbing most people don't even know to ask AI about it since they don't know it's a thing
I Think most of the commercial new plumbing work I've been on has been really smooth. Most planning conflicts tend to go in the plumbers favor b/c shit runs downhill, the plans are what the plans are so follow the plans and get it signed off on if anything is different.
Same thing with service and repair. You're typically dealing with a management company typically and when they have multiple commercial tenants who cannot flush a toilet, or fill a water glass etc, they usually just want it done.
Residential service and repair is a completely different animal.