4 ms·

Fear of the unknown? Atrophy of key interviewing skills? Comfort with their position? There are a lot of reasons that people stay, even when a position or compa

Fear of the unknown? Atrophy of key interviewing skills? Comfort with their position? There are a lot of reasons that people stay, even when a position or company is not optimal.

ryandrake 11y ago
Maybe it's the weak job market? It's not like it's 1999 out there.
eggy 11y ago
Fear guides all of us in some way, and striving to live means taking chances. The myth of the 'stable big company' that you can work at, and get your kid a job at after college, is past history. The U.S. changed directions when they closed a lot of the vocational schools, and the luxury afforded by being the first world economy, drove low to mid-level wages up. Dinosaurs like IBM cannot feed the machine. Manufacturing, though a different industry from IBM, disappeared, although it is making somewhat of a small team, or maker comeback. I've always struck out on my own. Getting laid off sucks, but I think most of them are just unhappy about the compensation, and most people I know who have 'overstayed' their usefulness at big corporations, usually own up and admit they weren't happy there, and they were not producing. I've been on both ends, and it never feels right, but change drives the world and life. The myth of stasis is one most humans embrace illogically. This dialogue will manifest itself in the reincarnation of xenophobia - 'Foreigners taking U.S. jobs!' - wait for Trump to chime in...
- toyg 11y ago
  Sure, sure, but mortgages and kids' needs tend to get in the way of philosophical and strategic thinking.
  - im_down_w_otp 11y ago
    People with mortgages and kids don't move to new places where there's more, or at least more immediate, economic opportunity? Why not? Kids are mobile. Mortgages can be covered by tenants or by selling the property (usually). I only have kid (singular) and lack a mortgage, but I'd definitely move my family to a place with more opportunity if the well ran dry where we're at now. I wouldn't even hesitate or think twice about it. The temporary pain of transition is going to be a lot easier than the long-tail of fruitless toiling and economic decay.
    - paganel 11y ago
      > Kids are mobile I was a spoiled kid, I admit, but I remember that back when I was 9 or 10 and my parents asked me if I'd be ok with us moving 4 or 5 blocks down the street, in a better area, my answer was a loud "no way!", because that meant losing my play-mates and God knows what else. We ended up not moving. I know it's anecdotal, but looking at what Hollywood is feeding us (with the latest example being the excellent animation "Inside Out") I get the feeling that is actually hard for kids being "mobile". Parents ignore that at their own risk.
    - SolaceQuantum 11y ago
      Kids are hardly mobile. Remember that they're kids and may not be capable of coping fully with losing their friends and familiar surroundings to a different place with no guarantee of things being better for them. Minor anecdote, when I moved from Canada to USA in my childhood, my little brother who was 12 at the time tried to run away to avoid losing all his friends he had made.
      - im_down_w_otp 11y ago
        A kid living in a household where neither parent can adequately provide for them because the economic opportunities are shrinking and offering no signs of ever improving, which often results in other toxic environmental conditions (stress about money, substance abuse, divorce, etc.), seems to me to be almost always worse than relocating to a new place in the long-term.
        taylodl 11y ago
        That's an adult view of things, not a kid's view. Most kids would rather stay and be a little poorer. What kids don't know is how bad things could get. They have no idea yet what it's like to live without safety nets.
        im_down_w_otp 11y ago
        Yes, and I'm an adult making decisions as an adult, not making decisions like a child would. Otherwise my family would just burn through all our money and assets to pay for eating ice cream three meals a day. And we'd end up diabetic, broke, and probably soon dead once we exhausted our resources. When you're dealing with difficult economic realities that include supporting your family and paying your mortgage, do you deal with them by thinking like a kid? What would be the point of that? It's important to have the necessary empathy to make the disruption as minimal as possible, but also to have the maturity and forsight to make the decision to move out of whatever soon-to-be ghost town you're living in. Or so I would think.
  - pjlegato 11y ago
    Satisfying mortgage/kid constraints actually works better if planned and executed in light of the truth of the situation; the lack of stasis. Skipping the philosophy leads to pleasant fantasies and irrational decisionmaking and planning that only hinders the ability to fulfill them.
Terr_ 11y ago
Also: Social-anxiety, insecurity/impostor-syndrome.

Fear of the unknown? Atrophy of key interviewing skills? Comfort with their position? There are a lot of reasons that people stay, even when a position or company is not optimal.

ryandrake 11y ago

Maybe it's the weak job market? It's not like it's 1999 out there.

eggy 11y ago

Fear guides all of us in some way, and striving to live means taking chances. The myth of the 'stable big company' that you can work at, and get your kid a job at after college, is past history. The U.S. changed directions when they closed a lot of the vocational schools, and the luxury afforded by being the first world economy, drove low to mid-level wages up. Dinosaurs like IBM cannot feed the machine. Manufacturing, though a different industry from IBM, disappeared, although it is making somewhat of a small team, or maker comeback. I've always struck out on my own. Getting laid off sucks, but I think most of them are just unhappy about the compensation, and most people I know who have 'overstayed' their usefulness at big corporations, usually own up and admit they weren't happy there, and they were not producing. I've been on both ends, and it never feels right, but change drives the world and life. The myth of stasis is one most humans embrace illogically. This dialogue will manifest itself in the reincarnation of xenophobia - 'Foreigners taking U.S. jobs!' - wait for Trump to chime in...

toyg 11y ago
Sure, sure, but mortgages and kids' needs tend to get in the way of philosophical and strategic thinking.
- im_down_w_otp 11y ago
  People with mortgages and kids don't move to new places where there's more, or at least more immediate, economic opportunity? Why not? Kids are mobile. Mortgages can be covered by tenants or by selling the property (usually). I only have kid (singular) and lack a mortgage, but I'd definitely move my family to a place with more opportunity if the well ran dry where we're at now. I wouldn't even hesitate or think twice about it. The temporary pain of transition is going to be a lot easier than the long-tail of fruitless toiling and economic decay.
  - paganel 11y ago
    > Kids are mobile I was a spoiled kid, I admit, but I remember that back when I was 9 or 10 and my parents asked me if I'd be ok with us moving 4 or 5 blocks down the street, in a better area, my answer was a loud "no way!", because that meant losing my play-mates and God knows what else. We ended up not moving. I know it's anecdotal, but looking at what Hollywood is feeding us (with the latest example being the excellent animation "Inside Out") I get the feeling that is actually hard for kids being "mobile". Parents ignore that at their own risk.
  - SolaceQuantum 11y ago
    Kids are hardly mobile. Remember that they're kids and may not be capable of coping fully with losing their friends and familiar surroundings to a different place with no guarantee of things being better for them. Minor anecdote, when I moved from Canada to USA in my childhood, my little brother who was 12 at the time tried to run away to avoid losing all his friends he had made.
    - im_down_w_otp 11y ago
      A kid living in a household where neither parent can adequately provide for them because the economic opportunities are shrinking and offering no signs of ever improving, which often results in other toxic environmental conditions (stress about money, substance abuse, divorce, etc.), seems to me to be almost always worse than relocating to a new place in the long-term.
      - taylodl 11y ago
        That's an adult view of things, not a kid's view. Most kids would rather stay and be a little poorer. What kids don't know is how bad things could get. They have no idea yet what it's like to live without safety nets.
        im_down_w_otp 11y ago
        Yes, and I'm an adult making decisions as an adult, not making decisions like a child would. Otherwise my family would just burn through all our money and assets to pay for eating ice cream three meals a day. And we'd end up diabetic, broke, and probably soon dead once we exhausted our resources. When you're dealing with difficult economic realities that include supporting your family and paying your mortgage, do you deal with them by thinking like a kid? What would be the point of that? It's important to have the necessary empathy to make the disruption as minimal as possible, but also to have the maturity and forsight to make the decision to move out of whatever soon-to-be ghost town you're living in. Or so I would think.
- pjlegato 11y ago
  Satisfying mortgage/kid constraints actually works better if planned and executed in light of the truth of the situation; the lack of stasis. Skipping the philosophy leads to pleasant fantasies and irrational decisionmaking and planning that only hinders the ability to fulfill them.

Terr_ 11y ago

Also: Social-anxiety, insecurity/impostor-syndrome.