Graphic designer says AI displaced them from job, now works at grocery store: ‘Anyone else going through something similar?’
Employee working in an office environment.
A post on Reddit’s r/recruitinghell talked about how a graphic designer doing package design and photography for a large company, but AI displaced them from the role. They now work at a grocery store. The pay is significantly lower, the financial decisions that once felt now require days of deliberation. But they have a roof, food, and their medication covered.
“I’m not complaining because I have a roof over my head, food in the fridge, and my medicine covered,” they wrote. “But it has been a huge life adjustment, learning to live with less. Anyone else going through something similar?”
The post’s tone drew a thread of responses that paints a picture of what is happening to a generation of qualified professionals in the current economy.
What Reddit said
The responses confirmed the original poster’s experience is far from isolated.
One commenter who apparently had a master’s degree in business analytics is currently working at Hollister. “I definitely relate to the shock of such a huge income drop but at least I have some income coming in post-layoff,” they wrote.
Another described joining the military in 2020 specifically to ride out what was then considered a terrible job market. Six years later, degree completed, they are out of the military and the job market is, by their assessment, still terrible.
An IT Manager who could not relocate when their role was moved described being over a year into a job search with interviews but no offers, now working at a local grocery store. “It is what it is,” they wrote.
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Another shared how adaptation is simply the best way to survive: “You gotta do what you gotta do.”
The original poster’s genuine gratitude for what they have, honest acknowledgement of what they lost, is, under the circumstances, quietly remarkable. However, it doesn’t erase the reality of how far the job market has fallen over the past few years.
Read related: Associates degree, hundreds of applications, zero offers: Netizen's honest assessment of a two-year job hunt
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