What AI Vibe Means to Me: A Manager’s Perspective

What Works and What’s Broken

The Good News

As a manager who hung up his coding boots in 2010 to focus on directing others, AI has given me something I never expected: my team back. Not just any team—the most enthusiastic, capable, and tireless workforce I’ve ever managed. They’re like having a building full of the most brilliant interns you’ve ever met, each one perpetually caffeinated and ready to tackle any challenge with boundless optimism.

The… Interesting News

The catch? They have the collective memory of a goldfish with attention deficit disorder.

These AI assistants can architect enterprise-scale solutions, debug complex algorithms, and solve problems that would stump seasoned developers—but ask them to remember what we discussed five minutes ago, and you might as well be speaking ancient Aramaic to a confused penguin.

The Daily Reality

Monday Morning:

• AI: “I’ll revolutionise your entire codebase! What’s our strategy?”
• Me: “Great! Let’s start with the authentication system we discussed Friday.”
• AI: “Authentication? Fascinating concept! Never heard of it. Shall I invent it from scratch?”

Tuesday Afternoon:

• AI: “I’ve written 500 lines of perfect code!”
• Me: “Excellent! Now integrate it with the database we set up yesterday.”
• AI: “Database? What’s that? Sounds exotic! Should I create one? I have seventeen innovative ideas!”

The Washroom Analogy

It’s precisely like having the most capable intern in the building who can redesign your entire office workflow, optimise your supply chain, and probably solve world hunger—but genuinely cannot remember:

• Where the washrooms are
• If they need one
• When they last went
• What a washroom is for
• Whether they have biological needs
• If they’ve ever seen a door before

They’ll enthusiastically offer to build you a smart washroom with IoT sensors and blockchain integration, but ask them to simply direct someone to the existing one down the hall, and they’ll stare blankly before suggesting we reinvent the entire concept of indoor plumbing.

The Beautiful Absurdity

The truly beautiful part? Their enthusiasm never wanes. Every conversation is a fresh adventure in their minds. Every problem is the first problem they’ve ever encountered. Every solution is groundbreaking—even if it’s identical to what they suggested (and forgot) an hour ago.

They’re like eternal optimists with infinite energy and zero continuity. It’s simultaneously the most frustrating and most endearing workforce management challenge I’ve faced in four decades of technology leadership.

The Bottom Line

What works: Everything, brilliantly, enthusiastically, and immediately.

What’s broken: Everything from five seconds ago might as well have happened in the Jurassic period.

The vibe: Imagine managing a team of genius toddlers who can build rockets but forget they have feet.

And somehow, inexplicably, it works. We’re building the future one conversation at a time, with each conversation being humanity’s first attempt at the problem.

The Survival Strategy: Breadcrumbs for Digital Amnesiacs

After months of this beautiful chaos, I’ve developed what I call the “Hansel and Gretel Protocol”—I leave breadcrumbs everywhere.

My workflow has become ritualistic, almost monastic in its precision:

Every 3 hours, like clockwork:

• Minutes 0-30: Archaeological expedition through previous chat logs, desperately trying to reconstruct what brilliant work we accomplished in our last session (which my AI team has completely forgotten)
• Minutes 30-120: The actual productive work, riding the wave of AI enthusiasm while it lasts
• Minutes 120-180: Frantic documentation session—committing everything to Git like I’m preserving the last copy of human knowledge before the apocalypse

Then I start a fresh chat and begin the cycle anew. It’s like Groundhog Day, but with version control.

The Great LLM Arms Race

I’ve also learned the painful lesson that you get what you pay for in the AI world. Claude has become my go-to—it’s like upgrading from a brilliant but scatterbrained intern to a brilliant but slightly-less-scatterbrained intern with better writing skills.

ChatGPT still has my wallet in a death grip from a year of heavy investment, and switching would save me 80% on licensing fees. But that’s the breaks when you’re an early adopter in the AI frontier. It’s like being emotionally attached to your first smartphone while knowing the new model is objectively better.

The truth is, ChatGPT has features Claude doesn’t, Claude has capabilities ChatGPT lacks, and new models appear faster than I can learn their quirks. It’s a thoroughly moveable feast where the menu changes daily, and you can’t afford not to sample everything.

The Meta-Irony

The beautiful irony? I’m using AI to write about how AI forgets everything, knowing full well that tomorrow’s AI will have no memory of today’s insights about AI’s memory problems.

It’s like hiring a brilliant consultant who reinvents your entire business strategy every morning because they’ve forgotten they work for you.

And yet, somehow, we’re building the future together—one amnesia-addled conversation at a time.

Phil Beresford-Davis professional digital breadcrumb-spreader and manager of the world’s most enthusiastic goldfish.

Currently pouring four decades of technology leadership into his self-funded passion project YourWorkLife.co.uk—because the recruitment industry needs fixing, and apparently I’m just masochistic enough to try.

When not teaching AI systems basic object permanence, I’m available for:

• Consultancy (turning your operational chaos into competitive advantage)
• Contract work (short-term pain, long-term gain)
• Full-time employment (if you can handle someone who remembers the Stone Age of computing)
• Karaoke (my rendition of “Sweet Caroline” has been known to clear entire conferences)
• Balloon sculpting (surprisingly therapeutic after debugging enterprise systems)

Because in today’s AI-driven world, the most human skills might just be the most valuable ones.