The Day I Almost Was That Guy

I was the guy who resolved 86 tickets. One by one. Methodically. Efficiently. And with pride.

It was early in my career. Support was getting flooded with tickets about the same issue. And I solved them. All of them. Carefully. Politely. With thorough responses. My manager praised my productivity.

Until a colleague — less “productive” than me if measured by tickets closed — got promoted before me. I was furious. He closed fewer tickets. Was slower. Sometimes disappeared for hours “investigating things.”

Know what he did during one of those disappearances? He traced the root cause of the 86 tickets I kept solving over and over. Found an upstream configuration bug. Used an automation tool to create a permanent fix. Coordinated with the ops team. Updated the support messaging. And eliminated the problem.

Those 86 tickets? They never came back.

I was putting out fires. He was closing the faucet. I was reactive. He was a pain seeker.

And that distinction — which took me years to understand — is, in my opinion, the most valuable and least taught skill of 2026.

The “Pain Seeker”: Who Is This Profile

Companies exist to solve someone’s pain — customers, investors, market. The average professional wants clear, well-defined, linear tasks. Receive instruction, execute, deliver.

But the professional startups fight to hire — and who rarely makes layoff lists — is the one who says:

“Give me the hardest, messiest, most annoying problem you have. I’ll analyze it until I find the root cause and make sure it never happens again.”

This profile isn’t merely competent. They’re obsessive about resolution. Won’t accept “it’s always been like that” as an answer. Won’t settle for treating symptoms. They go after the disease.

And in 2026, with AI automating repetitive tasks, this profile has become more valuable than ever — because AI does the work of the “ticket resolver.” But AI doesn’t do the work of the pain seeker.

From “Fix-It” to “Solve-It”: The Distinction That Changes Careers

Let’s return to the 86-ticket example. Two profiles, two approaches, two radically different outcomes:

The Reactive resolves the 86 tickets one by one. Efficient. Correct. And the problem returns tomorrow. Result: the professional looks productive, but the company doesn’t improve.

The Pain Seeker identifies the root cause. Uses Claude or GPT to analyze patterns in the logs. Creates a permanent fix. Coordinates with operations. Updates documentation. Result: the problem is eradicated. The company saves time, money, and customer frustration.

The second profile didn’t just “clean up the mess” — they improved the company’s process end to end. They used technology as leverage but applied human judgment to orchestrate the solution. And it’s precisely this judgment that AI doesn’t replace.

Why This Skill Is “Immunized” Against AI

AI is excellent at executing solutions when the problem has already been identified. But AI rarely raises its hand and says: “Hey, I noticed we’re wasting time on this specific process and decided to investigate why.”

As Workato CIO Carter Busse told Computerworld in January 2026: employers don’t just want people who know how to use AI tools. They want people who demonstrate tangible use of AI to solve a problem — and who have the flexibility to keep pace with rapidly changing technologies.

McKinsey research confirms the pattern: AI could automate 30-40% of work tasks by 2030. But the World Economic Forum estimates that despite displacing 92 million jobs, AI will create 170 million — a net gain of 78 million positions. The jobs that remain are those requiring judgment, communication, critical thinking, and complex problem-solving.

Obsession, determination, and a sense of urgency are human traits. AI can write the fix’s code. But only a human has the sheer force of will to break down departmental barriers, convince stakeholders, and ensure the solution reaches production.

Gartner predicts 75% of large organizations will have dedicated AI governance teams by 2026. These roles didn’t exist five years ago. They require understanding capabilities and limitations, thinking about consequences, and navigating the intersection of technology, ethics, and regulation. They’re not execution roles. They’re judgment roles.

The Three Signs of a Pain Seeker

After working with dozens of professionals throughout my career, I’ve identified three signals that distinguish this profile:

First: they ask “why?” more than “how?”. When they receive a problem, they don’t jump straight to the solution. They ask: why does this problem exist? What’s causing it upstream? What changed for this to start? This diagnostic curiosity is rare — and immensely valuable.

Second: they’re bothered by temporary solutions. The average professional is satisfied when the ticket closes. The pain seeker is bothered knowing the same fix will need to be applied again next week. This healthy dissatisfaction is the engine of continuous improvement.

Third: they use AI as leverage, not as a crutch. They know Claude can analyze logs, generate fixes, and write documentation. But they know the real work is in defining the right problem, coordinating implementation, and ensuring adoption. AI does 80% of execution; they do 100% of direction.

My Personal Experience (Revisited)

That colleague who got promoted before me? Today he leads a team. And what impresses me most isn’t his technical competence — it’s his tolerance for discomfort. He genuinely enjoys hard problems. He doesn’t pretend to enjoy them. He does.

It took me a while to develop this. My natural instinct was to want clarity, definition, tasks with a clear beginning and end. But over the years, I learned that professional growth is directly proportional to the amount of discomfort you’re willing to embrace.

In 2026, with AI doing the comfortable work, discomfort is literally what’s left for humans. And those who learn to navigate it with competence and calm become indispensable.

Conclusion: Change Your Focus

If you want to be indispensable in 2026, stop asking “how can I be more productive?” and start asking: “What’s the biggest pain in my company today?”

Go after that pain. Become the expert in it. Solve it at the root. Use AI to accelerate execution, but apply human judgment to set the direction.

Professionals who solve complex problems never run out of work. Because the world will never run out of complex problems. And AI, no matter how powerful, has no appetite for ugly problems. You can.

And that appetite is what makes you irreplaceable.

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AI solves the problem you identify. Identifying the right problem is the skill no AI replaces — and few humans develop.

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