After 6 months without a full-time job, well meaning friends and family often innocuously ask, "what have you been up to?" I often freeze in response. I want to answer with a job title or a project to explain the last half year. But there is no job. There is no project. 

I've been scrolling mindlessly on TikTok, walking hundreds of miles across Oakland and Berkeley, journalling and the myriad other things it takes to survive in a body at this moment.

Recently I’ve been answering, "vibing and beefing with the Canada geese"

My walks around Oakland's Lake Merritt put me in regular contact with birds that call the estuary home. Between the months of June and September, the Canada goose population rises to almost 2,000 birds. And they congregate. I dodge them in my runs and walks. Their dark green poops litter the sidewalks and grass. I'm simultaneously annoyed and afraid of these cobra chickens.

Contrary to what their name implies, these geese do not migrate to Canada (or Mexico). They are likely descendants of the injured birds who were rehabilitated in the Lake Merritt wildlife sanctuary. Without parents to show them how to migrate, they've simply settled in the East Bay. Much to my chagrin, their story mirrors mine.

I was drawn to Oakland in my mid-twenties when I needed a place to heal from the trauma of moving away from Nigeria to a white suburb in Massachusetts. The joyful Lake Merritt shores and the temperate weather led me to stay. And now, a decade later, I’ve made the East Bay my home.

Over time, I’ve tried enough coffee shops to know where to find the best latte in Oakland, Sirene. And I've befriended the people who regularly sit by the Lake. I’ve seen more homeless encampments cleared than I care to admit. As with any home, I know the cruelties and joys intimately.

Like me, the geese also know where the tastiest meals are, in front of the Kaiser building and the northeast grasses of the lake. They know to hiss and flap their wings at hostile humans and dogs. My home is their home. Yet, I don’t want to share.

My beef with the geese is not primarily about their overwhelming presence. It’s a manifestation of my instinct to claim my Oakland sanctuary as mine alone. And their constant presence reminds me that I must make room. Begrudgingly, I give these birds a wide berth because I am not yet a friendly neighbor. My running route has adapted to avoid goose excrement. And my irritation has slightly lessened when I see them on route to my morning yoga class. 

Now that I am no longer actively beefing with the geese, I must rethink my answer to “what are you up to?” And I find myself once again afraid and annoyed as I contemplate returning to the tech industry.

This time, it's with generative artificial intelligence. Like the geese, it's everywhere. AI slop litters my casual scrolls. I overhear AI music on my coffee run. In interviews, I struggle to answer the question, "are you AI native?"

Because truthfully, I am not AI native. I can’t manage a flock of AI agents. My workflows haven’t changed dramatically because of generative AI. I could learn, but a faster product requirement document or prototype doesn’t seem worth the environmental and societal costs. If LinkedIn is to be believed, I am already being left behind. 

Even as I write these sentences, I am afraid I am becoming unhireable. Rather than elide my ethical questions about AI, I return to them often on my walks, in my journal and with my friends. I have no answers. Because what would be a sufficient answer to “what does it mean to be human in an industry whose utopic vision is to replace humans with AI?”

Acknowledgement