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I guess you'd say I don't switch much: I'm on my 3rd professional job. For the first I was just starting out, so no sense buying a place, and within a week I co

by tropo 10y ago

I guess you'd say I don't switch much: I'm on my 3rd professional job. For the first I was just starting out, so no sense buying a place, and within a week I could tell that the second place had little long-term potential. That's 3 in 16 years, with 11 years for the only one where buying looked sensible. 2008 would've been bad if you had to sell. I still think you ought to have been able to cover the loss in most places. There were places around here that dropped by 70%, which is horrid. You ought to be able to cover a large portion of that, and certainly anything outside 2008. That year was special. I guess I don't see the complaint about tech hiring. Except for the time sink and the fact that you might really really need a job, it's kind of fun. You get flown out somewhere, see the place, and talk about nerdy stuff. What is not to like? Being in tech, you're probably 2x the local median income. If you can tolerate a normal house, the situation isn't bad. You could be looking at 2x your income. You can get that paid off in less than 5 years.

logfromblammo 10y ago
It seems like 5 years is a possibility, if I turned my family into a Dickens novel. I just found out this week that my current employer is being sold. Again. That's 6 times in 16 years, and 4 of those times resulted in layoffs for me and my least-connected co-workers. 2 of those layoffs resulted in changing cities, mostly due to the need to keep paying the mortgage or risk losing all the equity. That's a grand total of 12 different corporate overlords over 16 years, for 7 different jobs. Not one of them lasted more than 3 years, even for the few I wanted to stick with until retirement. So I'll be dusting off the resume again, just in case. I just can't wait to immerse myself in the sheer idiocy that is the tech hiring ordeal once again.~ And this time, I'm even older and less "culturally fitting" than all the previous rounds. The two times I bought houses during that time burned me badly. I lost all the equity anyway, even after keeping up the payments while trying to sell, and paying rent in a different city. Tyler Durden might have a better opinion of the credit/banking industry than I do. I'm only bitter and pessimistic because the real world is an awful place that doesn't care whether I live or die, so long as the checks continue to clear. There are few people on this planet that can take a $100k kick in the teeth and laugh it off. We're not ruined, no, but I don't exactly appreciate the setback to the college and retirement funds, either.

by tropo 10y ago

logfromblammo 10y ago

It seems like 5 years is a possibility, if I turned my family into a Dickens novel. I just found out this week that my current employer is being sold. Again. That's 6 times in 16 years, and 4 of those times resulted in layoffs for me and my least-connected co-workers. 2 of those layoffs resulted in changing cities, mostly due to the need to keep paying the mortgage or risk losing all the equity. That's a grand total of 12 different corporate overlords over 16 years, for 7 different jobs. Not one of them lasted more than 3 years, even for the few I wanted to stick with until retirement. So I'll be dusting off the resume again, just in case. I just can't wait to immerse myself in the sheer idiocy that is the tech hiring ordeal once again.~ And this time, I'm even older and less "culturally fitting" than all the previous rounds. The two times I bought houses during that time burned me badly. I lost all the equity anyway, even after keeping up the payments while trying to sell, and paying rent in a different city. Tyler Durden might have a better opinion of the credit/banking industry than I do. I'm only bitter and pessimistic because the real world is an awful place that doesn't care whether I live or die, so long as the checks continue to clear. There are few people on this planet that can take a $100k kick in the teeth and laugh it off. We're not ruined, no, but I don't exactly appreciate the setback to the college and retirement funds, either.