“Prove Melanie wrong,” Effie said. “You’re a great writer, Stella. Prove it.”
Stella’s eyes welled up again, and Kira rolled her eyes, handing her another tissue.
“Okay, okay,” Stella said. “You’re right. I can do this. I’m going to do this.”
“Good, because we didn’t have a backup plan,” Chelsea said.
Stella laughed. “Yeah, I figured. Now, respectfully, please leave. I have to work.”
“Wow, you see how you help someone and then they just dismiss you?” Kira said. “Disrespectful.”
“Wait,” Stella said, reaching for them all. “Group hug.”
“She’s so sappy,” Kira said to Effie with another eye roll, but they all moved in anyway.
In probably the most awkward hug, as they bounced around a bit on Stella’s bed, Stella held her friends close before finally letting them go.
“Thank you,” she said. “I love you.”
“We know,” Chelsea said. “Now get to work, bitch.”
And as soon as they left her room, Stella did.
Why I’m Leaving Yellow Sparks
By Stella Renee Johnson
Truthfully, when I first started at Yellow Sparks, I didn’t think I’d be there long. I’d been looking for a full-time job after college, like so many other people, and Yellow Sparks was hiring for their next editorial fellowship season, and I thought why not?
Fast-forward a few years, and now I’m a quiz writer for the company, or rather, I was. After this post goes live, I’ll be going into the office to formally resign.
Quitting my full-time job without giving two weeks’ notice is not something I ever thought I’d do. I like the security and benefits that come with having a full-time job, and while I always wished Yellow Sparks paid more, with the help of my friends and family, I was able to make it work. Leaving Yellow Sparks feels like I’m taking a step into the unknown, and that’s a bit scary, but it’s a step I feel I have to take because I’ve realized now that Yellow Sparks, despite being founded on its lists and quizzes, no longer sees that form of content as something that requires the writing of actual human beings.
But let me backtrack. A few weeks ago, our CEO, Miles Williams, informed us that a new AI was being added to our content management system that would “help” us create lists and quizzes. The AI, provided by the company AIX, which is run by Miles’ brother, Max, was called “Sparky,” and we were told that all we had to dowas input our ideas and Sparky would do the rest. For example, if I wanted to make a quiz like “What Your Favorite Color Says About You,” I could drop in that title and then click the “Write with Sparky?” option and the rest of the quiz would auto-populate.
Of course, it wouldn’t be perfect. There’d be typos, and the answers could be strange, because the system pulls in information from random places on the internet, so we’d have to edit it to make it sound more authentic and more like our own voices. But Miles’ idea was that by having Sparky do most of the work for us, we’d be able to churn out content much quicker and bring in even more traffic to the site.
The majority of writers didn’t like this at all and refused to use Sparky. We feared that this was just the first step toward Miles eventually getting rid of us entirely and replacing us with this AI, although Miles and the AIX team continued to swear up and down that that was not the plan. Still, we resisted, so Miles decided to provide an incentive to make us use it.
About three or four times a year, the content team has what’s called “Sprint Week,” during which everyone is required to make twenty posts within a week and whoever gets the most traffic wins. The prize is typically just a viral cowboy hat that passes from winner to winner and a gift card. This year, however, Miles upped the stakes, offering $10,000 to the winner as well as $5,000 to the second-place winner and $1,000 to the third-place winner. The catch was that the only way you could win was if you used Sparky forallof your posts.
Despite our team’s former resolve, many people decided to participate in the hopes of winning the $10,000, and I didn’t blame them. That was an insane amount of money, and while some of us asked the questions, if our CEO had $16,000 to spare for this, why weren’t we making more money or why didn’t we get a holiday gift the previous year like we did every year prior to that, it was still difficult to resist that kind of money. And Miles knew it would be.
At first, I, too, was going to use Sparky, but then I decided against it. I genuinely didn’t think I had a chance at winning. I’d never even come close to winning before, so I figured if I was going to lose anyway, I might as well lose with my own work rather than give in to Miles’ little game.
Well, imagine my surprise when I not only won, but I won by about 400,000 more views than the second-place winner. I was shocked. Everyone was. But in the same email that announced the winners, which included a fourth-place winner, only the second, third, and fourth places were invited to go to Miles’ office and claim their prize money. Thus, it was clear to everyone that although I’d outperformed everyone else, I was not going to be getting anything simply because I didn’t use Sparky to make my content.
Truthfully, there was a part of me that wondered if I was allowed to be upset. I didn’t follow the rules, and I knew that was a risk, even if I thought it was a small one. Still, not getting $10,000 was one thing, but to not be givenanythingfelt wrong, especially considering I literally brought the site the most traffic that week. I know what that traffic is worth. It’s ad revenue for the company. And yet, insteadof being rewarded, I was being punished for writing content completely on my own, and it was infuriating.
Thankfully, my coworkers agreed and encouraged me to speak up, so I spoke to my boss. She told me that I’d “embarrassed” Miles by outperforming my coworkers who’d used the AI. Despite this, I asked if I could at least be switched to the Spark News team, something I’d asked her about before but never gotten anywhere with. She literally laughed at me and told me that just because I could write successful lists and quizzes, that didn’t mean I was qualified to write Spark News articles and essays.
To say I was stunned was an understatement. I know there’s a difference between the writing Spark News does versus the writing I did as a quiz writer. I’d been allowed to do a couple of long-form pieces before, and they’d done pretty well. But that didn’t mean the writing Spark News does is any more valuable than the work we do on the content team. I’m not a bad writer just because I know how to write funny lists and quizzes that resonate with people. That actually makes me a good writer. Do you know how hard it is to hold people’s attention these days? That takes effort and skill.
But it became clear to me that my boss didn’t feel that way, and I had a feeling that Miles didn’t either. And so I left. I will not let a company convince me that I am not good at what I do or that my work isn’t worth something when I know it is. I deserve better, as do all the other writers on our team, who I hope receive better treatment and support than I did. Unfortunately, I’ve lost all faith in Yellow Sparks. So, I quit.
Forty-One
Max had barely sat back down at his desk when Rashid came walking through his door.
