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I (among a few others) in my team was laid off this week due to the COVID-19 crisis. That never happened to me before. I have never once fired, laid-off, or fu

I (among a few others) in my team was laid off this week due to the COVID-19 crisis. That never happened to me before. I have never once fired, laid-off, or furloughed. And I don't know how to cope with this. The market has gotten very tight since the beginning of the crisis. Usually, my email would explode within hours whenever I make myself available for hire. Now I'm into the third day of my unemployment and still have no prospects, no interviews, no offers. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was tweeting about how concerned I was about seeing so many developers losing their jobs. I was hoping we'd figure out something, maybe a way to help them. Now I'm looking for a job myself. Fuck this virus. And fuck those politicians who didn't take it seriously. And fuck those people who still support them.

dpau 7y ago
While I totally agree with your last paragraph, just keep in mind that most of those in HN are still really lucky, even if layed-off. Getting angry after only job-hunting for three days seems a little over the top. There are a lot of unemployed service workers who won't be able to afford food or rent, and others who are forced to work in dangerous conditions without PPE. And then there are the nurses and doctors at the front line....
- iLemming 7y ago
  I'm not angry only because it affected me. Besides, I also rent and my rent is high. And I am an immigrant in this country, I have no relatives, nobody to ask for help. I have two kids and a wife who cannot work and we don't have any savings. We literally live from a paycheck to a paycheck. If I don't earn money for two, three weeks in a row - we are basically homeless. So please don't tell me how lucky I am.
  - bradlys 7y ago
    Genuinely curious, are you living in the US? (You seem to be located in SF Bay area) Living paycheck to paycheck isn't something I hear about much. (in regards to people working in tech within the US) It might not help now but I would highly advise you learn how to budget better and grow a sizable emergency fund. I genuinely have a hard time believing someone is living paycheck to paycheck (even in the bay area with two kids - where housing is extremely expensive) on a senior software engineer salary at a startup. ($180k/yr) I know people who manage it. It's not a comfortable life but it's stable and they can still save. I mean, they have to. They're not gonna be able to buy their options when they quit if they didn't save.
    - abiogenesis 7y ago
      The GP hasn't mentioned US, but even then, if they have recently immigrated they might have spent most of their savings.
    - djeikyb 7y ago
      This is maybe a time for you to listen and learn about the experiences of others. Not, as you've done, call a stranger financially incompetent or insinuate they're lying.
    - exolymph 7y ago
      > I would highly advise you learn how to budget better and grow a sizable emergency fund. Genuinely wondering, do you think that this insight simply hasn't occurred to him? The obstacles to someone spending less money are generally more complicated — even when they're within the person's control at all — than simply "start budgeting better." You're being condescending and providing no value. Also, I bet that you know more people living paycheck-to-paycheck than you realize.
      - sumofi 7y ago
        Perhaps that person really never heard that. Nonetheless shouldn't the society tell you something like this?
        danielrpa 7y ago
        Yes, but this is probably not the best time to do it. We don't know anything about their life - maybe their situation is caused by poor financial management, but maybe there are other factors at play, such as a lawsuit, high medical or student debt, helping family back home etc. OP, I'm sorry to hear about your situation. I hope you can find a new position soon. Try to stay positive - this too shall pass.
      - bradlys 7y ago
        If they're living paycheck to paycheck and in tech, I do wonder if basic financial literacy has escaped them. It's not uncommon for people in this field to maximize for one skill only at the cost of all other knowledge. I've met enough people in this field who are completely inept when it comes to anything that doesn't involve typing code.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - dpau 7y ago
    a lot of people are losing their jobs, my wife lost her job and i'm furloughed. but the skills that made you and i so valuable before still make us valuable now and in the future. so i do think we are lucky, despite everything. things will get better!
  - harisund 7y ago
    No, you really are lucky. It's all a matter of perspective. I am sorry I am sounding harsh, and I understand it trivializes your own problem when I say "but look at other's problems", but the reality is, living where you are and working in the field you are, you have access to way more resources in general
    - te_chris 7y ago
      This is a supremely callous comment given the comment you’re replying to. The world, and particularly this poster, doesn’t need you to point this out to them.
      - harisund 7y ago
        Right, I guess people tend to get offended very quickly these days.
    - warlog 7y ago
      Good luck, bad luck...
      - iLemming 7y ago
        According to Forbes, over 53 percent of workers in the US alone are extremely unhappy with their jobs. Yes, we are very privileged to get to do what we love and also get paid for it. But that has little to do with the luck. Being a successful software developer is about passion, grit, and determination. It is a hard job. We are expected to know everything related to software: you have to know a bit about graphics design, UI and UX, be a writer, a project manager, site reliability and devops engineer , infosec expert, understand encryption and networking, be a QA specialist, know back-end and front-end, understand hardware, operating systems, databases, distributed systems, know concurrency, be a manager and a lead and a good team player, be an expert of a few and be familiar with a dozen of programming languages, understand different paradigms - OOP, logic and relational, functional, stack-based, etc. You have to be consistently and continuously learning new things. You cannot ever stop. And we love that. Very often you have to pay the price for that love. You get neck and back problems, RSI, myopia, excess body fat, swollen hemorrhoids, gastritis, depression, etc. And you can never expect to hear praise for anything you do. Programming is extremely subjective when it comes to evaluating the quality of work done. It is so easy to criticize. I have seen people criticizing code written by Linus Torvalds, John Carmack, Richard Stallman, Rich Hickey, and others. No one ever said: "look at this piece of code; this is so deep and profound, it should be carved in stone."
  - cpach 7y ago
    That sucks. I hope you will find a new job soon!
exolymph 7y ago
Hey, I'm sorry, that's awful. Best of luck finding a new job.
anus_penis 7y ago
> Usually, my email would explode within hours whenever I make myself available for hire. Seriously? Not that I'm impressed or worry that I couldn't say the same, I just think it's a ridiculous expectation to have. My wife had a leave a management position a couple of years ago (for reasons outside of her control) and spent 6 months looking for a new role. She's one of the most successful people in our social circle and is generally thought of as an A player in her field. Even for her, it was a long and stressful process. Break it down: 1. If you think you're so in demand there's always a good job offer waiting for you -- get over yourself, your chosen profession or your locale. What you do isn't that valuable. It it were, you'd still be employed. 2. If you're freaked out because you're not prepared for the loss of income -- you're stupid. Learn from this and prepare for the next unexpected end of the world. They happen quite regularly, in case you haven't been paying attention. Ask yourself this: If you're so smart, why are you shitting your pants right now?
yellowapple 7y ago
> That never happened to me before. I have never once fired, laid-off, or furloughed. And I don't know how to cope with this. I've been in your shoes multiple times. It sucks, and it's easy to blame yourself (or relatedly, for others - like here in this very thread - to encourage you to blame yourself). Don't fall into that trap. It won't help. The only productive thing to do is to take things one step at a time. 1. Apply for unemployment if you haven't already. It won't be anywhere near what you were getting before, but it's better than nothing, and with a layoff it should be an open-and-shut case for approval (especially in places like California that almost always err on the side of the former employee). 2. Just because you don't have an employer doesn't mean you don't have a job. Your unemployment benefits are contingent on you documenting that you've applied for some number of jobs, which you're hopefully already doing, so keep doing that. 3. Just because you don't have an employer doesn't mean you don't have a job. Open-source contributions, side projects, whatever you can do to further demonstrate your value to prospective future employers (and - preferably - make the world a better place in the process) - now's the time to start cranking on those. 4. Obviously, you'll want to trim expenses as much as possible. The lower your costs, the longer your runway. --- In terms of finding that next job, it's gonna be a brutal affair. It took me months, and I ended up compromising and moving down on my career ladder for a bit. You might have better luck, especially if you were previously getting offers regularly, but I'd say 3 days is a bit too soon to be too disheartened. It seems like your best bet right now is going to be in the medical world (e.g. hospital IT), and in fact that's exactly where I'd be applying right now should my own job go under. As a bonus, if you really do want to "fuck the virus", I can't think of a better way to put your technical skills to use.
- iLemming 7y ago
  Thank you for your support and for taking the time to write a lengthy comment. It seems my original comment looks like I'm complaining about my situation - that wasn't my intent. I wasn't trying to win sympathy or start a controversial thread to get fake gold or virtual likes; it isn't Reddit, Twitter, or Instagram. I just wanted to point out that the market dried up and even industries such as ours (where software engineers are usually in demand) suffering greatly from the economic downturn. > Open-source contributions, side projects, whatever you can do to further demonstrate your value to prospective future employers That's what I was talking about. Why can't we all as a community figure out some platform where we can help those developers who [temporarily] lost their jobs? We all use lots of open-source tools without paying a dime. Wouldn't it be great to have a platform where they can still contribute to open-source projects during a transitional period? Platforms like Patreon and Github Sponsors are aimed to help authors, but not contributors. That was the whole point of my comment. I wasn't asking for an advice and certainly wasn't ready for people telling me how incredibly lucky I am.

dpau 7y ago

While I totally agree with your last paragraph, just keep in mind that most of those in HN are still really lucky, even if layed-off. Getting angry after only job-hunting for three days seems a little over the top. There are a lot of unemployed service workers who won't be able to afford food or rent, and others who are forced to work in dangerous conditions without PPE. And then there are the nurses and doctors at the front line....

iLemming 7y ago
I'm not angry only because it affected me. Besides, I also rent and my rent is high. And I am an immigrant in this country, I have no relatives, nobody to ask for help. I have two kids and a wife who cannot work and we don't have any savings. We literally live from a paycheck to a paycheck. If I don't earn money for two, three weeks in a row - we are basically homeless. So please don't tell me how lucky I am.
- bradlys 7y ago
  Genuinely curious, are you living in the US? (You seem to be located in SF Bay area) Living paycheck to paycheck isn't something I hear about much. (in regards to people working in tech within the US) It might not help now but I would highly advise you learn how to budget better and grow a sizable emergency fund. I genuinely have a hard time believing someone is living paycheck to paycheck (even in the bay area with two kids - where housing is extremely expensive) on a senior software engineer salary at a startup. ($180k/yr) I know people who manage it. It's not a comfortable life but it's stable and they can still save. I mean, they have to. They're not gonna be able to buy their options when they quit if they didn't save.
  - abiogenesis 7y ago
    The GP hasn't mentioned US, but even then, if they have recently immigrated they might have spent most of their savings.
  - djeikyb 7y ago
    This is maybe a time for you to listen and learn about the experiences of others. Not, as you've done, call a stranger financially incompetent or insinuate they're lying.
  - exolymph 7y ago
    > I would highly advise you learn how to budget better and grow a sizable emergency fund. Genuinely wondering, do you think that this insight simply hasn't occurred to him? The obstacles to someone spending less money are generally more complicated — even when they're within the person's control at all — than simply "start budgeting better." You're being condescending and providing no value. Also, I bet that you know more people living paycheck-to-paycheck than you realize.
    - sumofi 7y ago
      Perhaps that person really never heard that. Nonetheless shouldn't the society tell you something like this?
      - danielrpa 7y ago
        Yes, but this is probably not the best time to do it. We don't know anything about their life - maybe their situation is caused by poor financial management, but maybe there are other factors at play, such as a lawsuit, high medical or student debt, helping family back home etc. OP, I'm sorry to hear about your situation. I hope you can find a new position soon. Try to stay positive - this too shall pass.
    - bradlys 7y ago
      If they're living paycheck to paycheck and in tech, I do wonder if basic financial literacy has escaped them. It's not uncommon for people in this field to maximize for one skill only at the cost of all other knowledge. I've met enough people in this field who are completely inept when it comes to anything that doesn't involve typing code.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- dpau 7y ago
  a lot of people are losing their jobs, my wife lost her job and i'm furloughed. but the skills that made you and i so valuable before still make us valuable now and in the future. so i do think we are lucky, despite everything. things will get better!
- harisund 7y ago
  No, you really are lucky. It's all a matter of perspective. I am sorry I am sounding harsh, and I understand it trivializes your own problem when I say "but look at other's problems", but the reality is, living where you are and working in the field you are, you have access to way more resources in general
  - te_chris 7y ago
    This is a supremely callous comment given the comment you’re replying to. The world, and particularly this poster, doesn’t need you to point this out to them.
    - harisund 7y ago
      Right, I guess people tend to get offended very quickly these days.
  - warlog 7y ago
    Good luck, bad luck...
    - iLemming 7y ago
      According to Forbes, over 53 percent of workers in the US alone are extremely unhappy with their jobs. Yes, we are very privileged to get to do what we love and also get paid for it. But that has little to do with the luck. Being a successful software developer is about passion, grit, and determination. It is a hard job. We are expected to know everything related to software: you have to know a bit about graphics design, UI and UX, be a writer, a project manager, site reliability and devops engineer , infosec expert, understand encryption and networking, be a QA specialist, know back-end and front-end, understand hardware, operating systems, databases, distributed systems, know concurrency, be a manager and a lead and a good team player, be an expert of a few and be familiar with a dozen of programming languages, understand different paradigms - OOP, logic and relational, functional, stack-based, etc. You have to be consistently and continuously learning new things. You cannot ever stop. And we love that. Very often you have to pay the price for that love. You get neck and back problems, RSI, myopia, excess body fat, swollen hemorrhoids, gastritis, depression, etc. And you can never expect to hear praise for anything you do. Programming is extremely subjective when it comes to evaluating the quality of work done. It is so easy to criticize. I have seen people criticizing code written by Linus Torvalds, John Carmack, Richard Stallman, Rich Hickey, and others. No one ever said: "look at this piece of code; this is so deep and profound, it should be carved in stone."
- cpach 7y ago
  That sucks. I hope you will find a new job soon!

exolymph 7y ago

Hey, I'm sorry, that's awful. Best of luck finding a new job.

anus_penis 7y ago

> Usually, my email would explode within hours whenever I make myself available for hire. Seriously? Not that I'm impressed or worry that I couldn't say the same, I just think it's a ridiculous expectation to have. My wife had a leave a management position a couple of years ago (for reasons outside of her control) and spent 6 months looking for a new role. She's one of the most successful people in our social circle and is generally thought of as an A player in her field. Even for her, it was a long and stressful process. Break it down: 1. If you think you're so in demand there's always a good job offer waiting for you -- get over yourself, your chosen profession or your locale. What you do isn't that valuable. It it were, you'd still be employed. 2. If you're freaked out because you're not prepared for the loss of income -- you're stupid. Learn from this and prepare for the next unexpected end of the world. They happen quite regularly, in case you haven't been paying attention. Ask yourself this: If you're so smart, why are you shitting your pants right now?

yellowapple 7y ago

> That never happened to me before. I have never once fired, laid-off, or furloughed. And I don't know how to cope with this. I've been in your shoes multiple times. It sucks, and it's easy to blame yourself (or relatedly, for others - like here in this very thread - to encourage you to blame yourself). Don't fall into that trap. It won't help. The only productive thing to do is to take things one step at a time. 1. Apply for unemployment if you haven't already. It won't be anywhere near what you were getting before, but it's better than nothing, and with a layoff it should be an open-and-shut case for approval (especially in places like California that almost always err on the side of the former employee). 2. Just because you don't have an employer doesn't mean you don't have a job. Your unemployment benefits are contingent on you documenting that you've applied for some number of jobs, which you're hopefully already doing, so keep doing that. 3. Just because you don't have an employer doesn't mean you don't have a job. Open-source contributions, side projects, whatever you can do to further demonstrate your value to prospective future employers (and - preferably - make the world a better place in the process) - now's the time to start cranking on those. 4. Obviously, you'll want to trim expenses as much as possible. The lower your costs, the longer your runway. --- In terms of finding that next job, it's gonna be a brutal affair. It took me months, and I ended up compromising and moving down on my career ladder for a bit. You might have better luck, especially if you were previously getting offers regularly, but I'd say 3 days is a bit too soon to be too disheartened. It seems like your best bet right now is going to be in the medical world (e.g. hospital IT), and in fact that's exactly where I'd be applying right now should my own job go under. As a bonus, if you really do want to "fuck the virus", I can't think of a better way to put your technical skills to use.

iLemming 7y ago
Thank you for your support and for taking the time to write a lengthy comment. It seems my original comment looks like I'm complaining about my situation - that wasn't my intent. I wasn't trying to win sympathy or start a controversial thread to get fake gold or virtual likes; it isn't Reddit, Twitter, or Instagram. I just wanted to point out that the market dried up and even industries such as ours (where software engineers are usually in demand) suffering greatly from the economic downturn. > Open-source contributions, side projects, whatever you can do to further demonstrate your value to prospective future employers That's what I was talking about. Why can't we all as a community figure out some platform where we can help those developers who [temporarily] lost their jobs? We all use lots of open-source tools without paying a dime. Wouldn't it be great to have a platform where they can still contribute to open-source projects during a transitional period? Platforms like Patreon and Github Sponsors are aimed to help authors, but not contributors. That was the whole point of my comment. I wasn't asking for an advice and certainly wasn't ready for people telling me how incredibly lucky I am.