Paul Welty, PhD AI, WORK, AND STAYING HUMAN

Bookmark: 3 ‘Workplace Paradoxes’ To Secretly Boost Your Career—By A Psychologist

Unlock career growth by mastering three key workplace paradoxes that enhance influence, confidence, and long-term success.

Balancing career opportunities is crucial as too many options can lead to missed long-term growth. Subtle influence is often more persuasive than loud proclamations, as gaining trust quietly establishes true influence. Taking on challenging tasks can increase confidence and proficiency, making difficult accomplishments more rewarding.

Success in your career is often messy, complicated and full of contradictions—but that’s not necessarily bad. The contradictions are not the issue; the real challenge lies in finding ways to resolve them.

3 ‘Workplace Paradoxes’ To Secretly Boost Your Career—By A Psychologist


Featured writing

Why customer tools are organized wrong

This article reveals a fundamental flaw in how customer support tools are designed—organizing by interaction type instead of by customer—and explains why this fragmentation wastes time and obscures the full picture you need to help users effectively.

Infrastructure shapes thought

The tools you build determine what kinds of thinking become possible. On infrastructure, friction, and building deliberately for thought rather than just throughput.

Server-Side Dashboard Architecture: Why Moving Data Fetching Off the Browser Changes Everything

How choosing server-side rendering solved security, CORS, and credential management problems I didn't know I had.

Books

The Work of Being (in progress)

A book on AI, judgment, and staying human at work.

The Practice of Work (in progress)

Practical essays on how work actually gets done.

Recent writing

We always panic about new tools (and we're always wrong)

Every time a new tool emerges for making or manipulating symbols, we panic. The pattern is so consistent it's almost embarrassing. Here's what happened each time.

Dev reflection - February 03, 2026

I've been thinking about constraints today. Not the kind that block you—the kind that clarify. There's a difference, and most people miss it.

When execution becomes cheap, ideas become expensive

This article reveals a fundamental shift in how organizations operate: as AI makes execution nearly instantaneous, the bottleneck has moved from implementation to decision-making. Understanding this transition is critical for anyone leading teams or making strategic choices in an AI-enabled world.

Notes and related thinking

Bookmark: Workplace Loneliness Isn’t Getting Better [New Data]

Discover new data revealing the rise of workplace loneliness and its impact on mental health. Explore effective solutions to foster connection at work.

Gen Z's job-hopping: smart strategy for growth

Discover why Gen Z's job-hopping is a strategic move for career growth and learn how employers can adapt to retain top talent in a rapidly evolving job market.

Bookmark: The Next Wave of Automation: Will AI Disrupt More High-Skill Jobs?

Explore how AI is reshaping high-skill jobs, driving the need for new skills and offering opportunities in a rapidly evolving job market.