A Layoff, a Rebuild, and a First Post

In late August I was laid off. It came out of nowhere for me. My position was eliminated because the company needed the headcount for future sales roles, and just like that, the job was done.

My first reaction was confusion (with a healthy side of shock). The digital enablement work I was doing was having a measurable impact, and I couldn’t quite square that with being the one whose role went away.

The signals I chose to ignore

Looking back, there were signals. I’d be lying if I said there weren’t. I just chose to ignore them, because I believed the lines of communication were open and transparent. If something big was coming, I figured I’d hear about it.

That’s the lesson I’m taking with me. Everyone has their own goals and their own direction, and those don’t always line up with yours, no matter how open the conversations feel. A business has to make the calls that fit where it’s headed. I understand the reasoning behind this one, and I don’t hold it against anyone. I’ll just be paying closer attention to the signals next time.

A blessing in disguise

Once the shock wore off, I started seeing the whole thing as a blessing in disguise.

I genuinely enjoyed building workflow automation that was dragging the company into modern times. But I was also torn about what that work meant for my career. If I’m being honest with myself, I already knew I wasn’t going to be there much longer. My career had stalled out, and with all the disruption and constant change, I was actually falling behind.

I worked with a lot of people who wanted to make positive changes, try new tools and jump on the latest trends. The intent was there. The foundation wasn’t, and at the highest level it wasn’t a priority. That wasn’t incompetence. The business was going through constant change and had much bigger fires to put out than new toys for marketing (and honestly, I get it).

Still, from where I sat, it often felt like being asked to make a gourmet meal with a campfire, a couple pieces of scrap metal and food that’s about to rot.

Getting back to marketing

Now I’m excited to get back into the workforce, and more specifically, back into marketing. It comes naturally to me and it’s what I’m good at.

Being technical and skeptical by nature gives me an advantage there. I’m excited to come up with new ideas and use new tools. I’m excited to work with connected systems, the kind where the pieces actually talk to each other, and to show measurable impact from the work.

Why I rebuilt this site

To start actually using those tools, I decided to rebuild my website with Claude. The prompts I gave it boiled down to one ask: give me a bold site that says more about who I am, rather than my resume in HTML form (no offense to my resume).

This site is going to be a place to share my experiences, my thoughts, my gripes and my interests. I can log my travels and remember them years from now. I can have my cycling story in one succinct page. And I can start diving into more projects without the mental burden of spending days and days building a webpage just to document them properly.

A playground for trying new things

More than anything, this site is a playground. A place to try new things and see what works.

The first experiment is the one you’re reading right now. I built a content repurposing engine in Claude: I write down my raw thoughts, and it helps turn them into a blog post, social posts and the visuals to go with them. I review and edit everything before it goes anywhere. This post is the first one through the engine, which feels about right for a first post.

I’m not asking you to subscribe, smash the like button or become a Patreon supporter (I don’t even have one). But if you’re interested in how the engine works, or how I rebuilt the site, I’d be happy to share it with you. Reach out and ask.

This post was produced with a Claude repurposing agentic workflow I built: I write down my raw thoughts, and AI helps turn them into this post, my social posts and the visuals. I review and edit everything before it goes live. Curious how it works? Ask me how I built it!