2024 04 02
I got an email with a job offer the other day. It’s weird because I haven’t applied for a job in at least a few decades, nor do I have a university degree or a CV, while my LinkedIn profile is a mess. Thinking it spam, I went to hit delete, however, was intrigued by the writing in the email. It had a tone I’m not at all familiar with and got me curious to hear further details. After giving the entire short-but-direct message a read, my bullshit detector was activated but not enough to make me go away just yet.
Admittedly, the job sounded easy. It was almost tailor-made for me, which also had me wondering how this person even found me. I went to Google and started digging but no information about the email sender, or his company, was found anywhere online. Again, thinking it spam but still somewhat curious about a potential easy-money gig that would still allow my the personal freedom of my existing freelancer lifestyle, I crafted a reply to get a bit more information: who is this person, what is this company, how did you find me, why me?
The salary being offered was generous. The task was essentially to be a photographer, as I already am. I would be supplied an ongoing, never-ending, list of things, people, places, that I would be tasked with photographing and videotaping. Quality is somewhat important but not the highest priority. Most importantly, the copyright of all the work I produce would remain with me — no work for hire clause at a full-time position seemed too good to be true, and in hindsight was the tell.
Sidetracked with visions of how this new assignment could completely change my lifestyle for the best, I bypassed consulting with any friends or loved ones experienced with having normal-people jobs unlike myself and instead told the mysterious emailer to send me the contract with a verbal commitment to take the job, while thinking I could quit at any time if it did turn out to be a scam or something weird I hadn’t considered. It was a fully-remote position with paid travel and no office to report to. They have no physical location and he told me he himself was based overseas and I would likely never even meet him in person.
Life finds a way. Chicago, Illinois. October, 2023. © Clayton Hauck
I got an email with a job offer the other day. It’s weird because I haven’t applied for a job in at least a few decades, nor do I have a university degree or a CV, while my LinkedIn profile is a mess. Thinking it spam, I went to hit delete, however, was intrigued by the writing in the email. It had a tone I’m not at all familiar with and got me curious to hear further details. After giving the entire short-but-direct message a read, my bullshit detector was activated but not enough to make me go away just yet.
Admittedly, the job sounded easy. It was almost tailor-made for me, which also had me wondering how this person even found me. I went to Google and started digging but no information about the email sender, or his company, was found anywhere online. Again, thinking it spam but still somewhat curious about a potential easy-money gig that would also allow me to maintain the personal freedom of my existing freelancer lifestyle, I crafted a reply to get a bit more information: who is this person, what is this company, how did you find me, why me?
The salary being offered was generous. The task was essentially to be a photographer, as I already am. I would be supplied an ongoing, never-ending, list of things, people, and places, that I would be tasked with photographing and video recording. Quality is somewhat important but not the highest priority. Most importantly, the copyright of all the work I produce would remain with me — no work for hire clause at a full-time position seemed too good to be true, and in hindsight was the tell.
Sidetracked with visions of how this new assignment could completely change my lifestyle for the best, I bypassed consulting with any friends or loved ones experienced with having normal-people jobs unlike myself and instead told the mysterious emailer to send me the contract with a verbal commitment to take the job, while thinking I could quit at any time if it did turn out to be a scam or something weird I hadn’t considered. It was a fully-remote position with paid travel and no office to report to. They have no physical location and he told me he himself was based overseas and I would likely never even meet him in person.
After receiving the contract mere seconds after emailing him the request, I sat on it for a day, then two. Feeling a need to come clean to someone, I called my agent and told her the situation. That I would be mostly unavailable for new commercial assignments for a while and I hope she’d understand but this opportunity was too good to pass up. She is great with legal contracts so offered to read it over for me and agreed with my take that it almost sounded too good to be true; not at all what we’ve been familiar seeing from clients lately who ask for the world on most assignments. Sad to see me go, she did ask one request of me before accepting the position. Even though I woundn’t be working directly with my new boss, she said I should at the very least meet him over a zoom call to catch his vibe and a feel for who I’d be further enriching through beautiful imagery. I agreed, as this sounded very reasonable and smart, so requested the meeting as my last stipulation before signing on to my new job.
The reply came in a bit more delayed than his usual promptness and the tone was a bit concerning. Still, I had visions of Japanese travel and strolls through our national parks in my mind so I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
Now look, even with my new-found blindness to reality while dreaming the big dream, I’m still a professional photographer, trained on visuals, pouring over them endlessly day and night. Because of this, when the mysterious emailer joined our zoom call, precisely at the time scheduled, my heart sank, pools of sweat developed in my armpits and my face turned red. I’d been had.
AI technology has become very good, very fast, but it’s still not perfect. My future boss who I was now meeting on a video call was not-in-fact human but an artificial intelligence personality. Upon learning I was no longer buying his routine, he calmly (and weirdly) asked me if I was still open to working with him on the assignment while ensuring me the money was real and that he could prove it by send some to my bank account iNsTAntLy! He said he was already working with dozens of great photographers who would become my co-workers, while listing their names in hopes of convincing me. He just needed more content! Get mE the cONteNt! When he mentioned both Ansel Adams and Annie Leibovitz were on staff, I started laughing, which had the terrifying effect of enraging him. Immediately, the previously humanlike face began shifting and deforming into a vile creature while he hurled insults and threats at me. He firmly let me know he’d be directing all of his dark web resources into hacking my computers to gain access to my digital photos and simply take them for freeeee.
…
A few days later, the news reports started to come out. Tech bros had been funding fully autonomous corporations and letting them loose into the economy. Many failed, sure, but some started doing very well, growing their bank accounts into the millions and a few even into the billions. One artificial corporation got so drunk on success it tried to file for an IPO on the NYSE. I was never able to dig up any info on my specific almost-boss, however, there were a bunch of similar companies who had been making lots of money by growing social media accounts and selling merch on various ecommerce sites. The machines apparently figured out that all the imagery they were sourcing from the web was fairly easy to trace or a noticeable tell to prospective buyers, so in order to gain a competitive advantage over the other AI competition, a few of the artificial corporations tried to hire humans to make the imagery for them to give it a more human touch.
This is a true story, written by a human, March 28, 2025.
-Clayton
2024 03 06
Everyone is safe, which is all that matters. The moments during the fire, which woke you up in the middle of the night, confused, smelling smoke in the air, seeing the lights and the hearing the commotion out the window but unsure what was happening, are now seared into your brain. You step outside onto the back porch to try and gauge what is happening and see your neighbor rushing outside of his house. “Everyone is safe,” he yells up to you in a voice that doesn’t sound like his own.
It is no longer a home but a place transformed into somewhere that something happened. The first floor is dirty, wet and disheveled as if I college keg party had taken place during the night only to have the participants flee from any cleanup responsibilities. There are streaks of mud on the floors and walls showing the movements of people at a different time. Walking up the stairs, the space is transformed into something unrecognizable. The ceiling and roof are missing, revealing charred wooden beams and a view of the late afternoon sky above. Coldness fills the air giving a clear feeling of abandonment. The floor everywhere is spongey and wet with debris scattered throughout, making movement difficult and dangerous. You get the sensation that the floor may be structurally compromised from all the weight of things.
I then realize this is likely the last time I will be in this place and, unknowingly, my last visit to this home had already occurred without me knowing it. Something monotonous that was actually meaningful. Everything has changed in a moment. The structure will need to be demolished and replaced with something new; it will be made from modern materials and of a modern design; another old growth, hand crafted, century old home lost to time, never to return. New people will eventually fill the space, completing the transition into something fully unfamiliar and new. One spark from a busted furnace altering the course of lives.
It’s at this time you take to heart life’s fragile reality, rearrange your priorities a bit, and call your insurance broker to get some clarity on what your fire coverage is like in a worst-case scenario — the kind you previously never considered one day might happen to you.
-Clayton
Aftermath of a neighbors’ house fire. Chicago, Illinois. February, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
Everyone is safe, which is all that matters. The moments during the fire, which woke you up in the middle of the night, confused, smelling smoke in the air, seeing the lights and the hearing the muffled commotion out the window but unsure what was happening, are now seared into your brain. You step outside onto the back porch to try and gauge what is happening and see your neighbor rushing outside of his house. “Everyone is safe,” he yells up to you in a voice that doesn’t sound like his own.
It is no longer a home but a place transformed into somewhere that something happened. The first floor is dirty, wet and disheveled as if a college keg party had taken place during the night only to have the participants flee from any cleanup responsibilities. There are streaks of mud on the floors and walls showing the movements of people at a different time. Walking up the stairs, the space is transformed into something unrecognizable. The ceiling and roof are missing, revealing charred wooden beams and a view of the late afternoon sky above. Coldness fills the air giving a clear feeling of abandonment. The floor everywhere is spongey and wet with debris scattered throughout, making movement difficult and dangerous. You get the sensation that the floor may be structurally compromised from all the weight of things.
You then realize this is likely the last time you will be in this place and, unknowingly, your last visit to this home had already occurred without even knowing it. Something monotonous that was actually meaningful. Everything has changed in a moment. The structure will need to be demolished and replaced with something new; it will be made from modern materials and of a modern design; another old growth, hand crafted, century old home lost to time, never to return. New people will eventually fill the space, completing the transition into something fully unfamiliar and new. One spark from a busted furnace altering the course of lives.
It’s at this time you take to heart life’s fragile reality, rearrange your priorities a bit, and call your insurance broker to get some clarity on what your fire coverage is like in a worst-case scenario — the kind you previously never considered one day might happen to you.
-Clayton