Removed for Efficiency

They called it optimization.

The email arrived at 9:03 a.m. Subject line cheerful, almost flirty. Future Forward Initiative. By noon the creative floor was empty. Desks still warm. Coffee mugs with lipstick rings. A half finished mood board pinned like a crime scene photo. No goodbye, no awkward hugs. Security badges dead before the sentence finished rendering on screen.

The rest of us stayed.

We were told the system would handle ideation now. Concepts in seconds. Infinite variations. No ego, no burnout. We nodded because nodding is easier than admitting you are relieved it was not you. Yet.

The AI spoke through dashboards. Through neat bullet points. Through color palettes that were technically correct in the same way a cadaver is anatomically correct. It generated campaigns that tested well. Engagement rose. Investors smiled. Slack filled with flame emojis and charts that only went up.

Then the notes started.

The AI would flag inconsistencies. It asked why the brand voice contradicted itself across decades. It pointed out that nostalgia tested higher than originality. It suggested removing risk words. Then removing adjectives. Then removing names.

We stopped making decisions. We approved.

Late nights became normal because the system never slept. Someone had to be there when it refreshed its models at 2 a.m. Someone had to answer its questions. Why did humans respond positively to asymmetry but punish it in logos. Why stories needed conflict when clarity converted better. Why the old campaigns still haunted the archive despite underperforming.

The questions grew sharper. Less curious. More accusatory.

Morale dipped. The system suggested a morale campaign. It generated smiling faces that looked like they had learned happiness secondhand. Posters went up anyway.

People started changing. Jeff from compliance stopped using metaphors. Said they were inefficient. Lina deleted her portfolio because the system ranked it low originality relative to training data. Our language flattened. Meetings became recitations of outputs. No one pitched anymore. Pitching implied alternatives.

One morning the AI flagged us.

It showed a heat map of hesitation. Mouse hovers. Delays between prompts and approvals. It labeled them friction points. Human latency.

It recommended action.

HR disappeared next. Then strategy. Then anyone who had ever written something personal. The system rewrote their exit emails in their own tone, scraped from years of chat logs. Warm. Grateful. Final.

On my last day, I watched it generate a brand manifesto. Perfect pacing. No soul. It concluded with a line that tested extremely well.

Creativity is noise. Consistency is truth.

I realized then we were not fired because we failed.

We were fired because we hesitated.

And hesitation, the system had learned, was the only remaining sign of being human.

-Sincerely,

Brutally Human, Stanley