I've always loved the show Undercover Boss. There's something hilarious about watching a CEO who runs a massive company try to operate a forklift or keep up during a busy restaurant shift. These are clearly smart, accomplished people, but take them out of the office and put them on the front lines, and things can get pretty entertaining.

I've occasionally wondered how I'd do in that situation.

Well, after spending the last couple of weeks building the new Knowledge Center for CH2's website, I'm happy to report that I can still do actual work! And apparently, I really enjoy it.

I've spent more than 25 years in technology, working closely with software engineers and product teams. But these days, my work is mostly about running a company, working with clients, and making decisions. All important things, of course, but it's been a long time since I've had something tangible to show for my day.

When we decided to add a Knowledge Center to our website, I thought I'd see how far I could get using Framer's AI tools and a little help from ChatGPT. I assumed I'd get things started, hash through the structure, and eventually hand it over to our team.

That didn't exactly happen.

Before I knew it, I was building CMS collections, creating page layouts, figuring out dynamic content, and working through all the details of making a website function properly. ChatGPT helped me think through the structure and troubleshoot problems, while Framer's AI did much of the implementation. I was having so much fun that I completely lost track of time.

I also blew through all our Framer AI credits. So I asked the team for more. And then I used those too.

At some point, I started feeling like a kid at an arcade asking for more quarters. Just a few more, I promise. I'm almost done.

I was never almost done.

What made this even funnier was realizing that our actual designer doesn't need nearly as many AI credits as I do. Apparently, when you know what you're doing, you can just do it.

He asked, "Aren't you just doing this natively?" Given I had NO idea how to DO that, I said, "I guess not. I just need a few (many) more tokens." He was polite enough to indulge me and enable my new addiction.

Fortunately, he'd already built a design system for our website, with established components, styles, and a structure to follow. I wasn't starting from scratch. I can barely match my socks; I know my limitations. Having that foundation made ALL the difference.

Meanwhile, I was burning through credits asking AI to move things around, fix things I'd broken, and occasionally undo whatever it had just done.

I'd sit down planning to spend 30 minutes making a few changes, and three hours later I'd still be there. There was always another page to improve or something that didn't look quite right.

Of course, it wasn't all smooth sailing. I'd explain an issue to the AI, it would confidently tell me it had fixed it, and I'd look at the screen and realize absolutely nothing had changed. Or worse, something else was now broken.

I spent an embarrassingly long time trying to fix a navigation link that should have taken about 30 seconds. At one point, I was pretty sure the AI and I were just taking turns confusing each other.

A few times I caught myself thinking, "I really wish I were an engineer right now."

I have a whole new appreciation for the frustration engineers must feel when they're chasing down a stubborn bug. Especially when someone like me is standing nearby asking how much longer it's going to take.

What surprised me most was how much I'd missed actually producing something.

As CEO, I spend most of my time working with clients, making decisions, setting priorities, and helping other people get things done. I love that work, but it's different from having something tangible to show for your day.

With the Knowledge Center, I could make a change and immediately see the result. If I didn't like it, I'd try something else. No meetings, no backlog, no waiting for someone to have time to implement my idea.

And I was still using the experience I'd gained over 25 years in technology. I knew how I wanted the content organized, what would be useful to our clients, and how the site should work. AI helped me execute those decisions, but it didn't make them for me.

That's what I find exciting about these tools. They let people like me get back into the process of building something, even if we don't have all the technical skills to do it ourselves.

When I finally finished the Knowledge Center, I was so excited that I went straight to the team to announce that it was ready. I was pretty pleased with myself.

Then I realized I'd forgotten one small detail. I'd never deployed all my changes from staging to production.

So while I was enthusiastically telling everyone to go look at what I'd created, they couldn't actually see it.

I'm fairly certain one of our engineers would have remembered that step.

Once I got that sorted out, the Knowledge Center was finally live. I'm proud of how it turned out, and I learned quite a bit in the process. More importantly, I had a genuinely good time building it.

I'm not planning to give up my day job, and I suspect our engineers are relieved to hear that. But I may need to find another project soon.

So if Undercover Boss ever comes calling, I think I'll be okay.

Just don't ask me to operate a forklift or keep up with the lunch rush.

Give me a laptop, some AI credits, and something to build.

Apparently, I'm still useful.