Google Imagines AI Exists in a Values-neutral World, Promises Great Things as Long as Bad Things Never Happen

Last week, Google published a white paper entitled AI Opportunity Agenda, outlining what the company sees as essential steps to ensure that AI…

Peter Banks

Nov 25, 2023

A Man Does Little Work for Little Pay

When I walked out of my secretary job, I knew that I had something else potentially lined up. I had two potential jobs. One job was with a man who worked at the law firm, who wanted me to work as a real estate legal documents processor. I didn’t take that one. He…

Peter Banks

Nov 8, 2023

Remote Work Nonsense

Even after years of remote work, employers don’t understand why people like working from home. In a recent New York Times article, authors give varying grades to the practice and the productivity of workers in those situations. The authors of the article emphasize a decline in productivity…

Peter Banks

Sep 25, 2023

A Man Works as a Secretary

Upon my return to Washington, DC after the events of 9/11, I immediately took a job working as a secretary at a small law firm. The position had been held by a friend of my mother’s who had gone on to take a position with the Department of Justice. I didn’t care about the job…

Peter Banks

Aug 9, 2023

A Man Writes A Novel

In 2001, I went away to write a novel. I stopped writing one book to start writing another because I believed that the first book would work itself out. It did work out, but only because I put the whole thing together and pushed for it to get published nearly three years later. Anyway…

Peter Banks

Apr 12, 2023

A Young Man Works in Public Relations (First PR Job)

This job was part-time. I worked for a company that primarily did public relations for pharmaceutical companies. After college, after about eight months of skating by not working, well, focusing on the book I wrote with my father, I went…

Peter Banks

Apr 6, 2023

A Word about Careers and College Education

As a kid, I heard the word career quite a bit. Find something to do for work that earns you money, and do that for the rest of your life. Finding a career path was important even as work changed in the 1980s. Will you be a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, or…

Peter Banks

Mar 22, 2023

A Young Man Co-Writes a Book

If a new writer suggests writing a book for fame and fortune, they’re either joking or delusional. No one, even well-known authors, save Stephen King, can guarantee they will write a best seller. Most books go unnoticed. Sometimes a book isn’t good enough to get attention. Other…

A Young Man Performs Office Tasks

I’ve described my previous work experiences from a kid’s perspective, even though most of these work experiences took place in my teen or young adult years. I used the term kid because that’s what I was like during those experiences, even if my age was not that of a…

Peter Banks

Mar 2, 2023

A Kid Works at Summer Camp

Working at Jewish Summer camp was one of the best experiences of my life. I learned an incredible amount about myself, working with others, how to deal with, and not deal with, others in difficult situations, the need for flexibility and creativity in the workplace, and, also, how…