20 ms·

The hero's journey of getting laid off

110 points by georgex7 4y ago

kache_ 4y ago
Market still seems hot for senior/staff devs. Getting laid off is a free lunch + a paid vacation to interview for a better job. Thank god I listened to my mom and learned to code.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  It's a little stressful but a reminder that real wealth is the freedom to not be employed for a little while. Keep six months expenses on hand to deal with this kind of thing and you won't have to be afraid of being laid off. Like you say, if you're prepared it's a free vacation and and opportunity to be picky with your next job.
  - ge96 4y ago
    Yeah I'm looking forward to being free (fire). Right now it's like "ugh gotta get through my 9-5 before I can do what I want to do". Still I'm fortunate/could be worse.
tra3 4y ago
I'm thankful that the school that I attended forced us to take electives outside of Computer Science and Engineering. I took some Psychology classes. The list of stressful events was very surprising to me. The author alludes to it in the post. I recall that typically "happy" events are stressful, too. Here's the list [0]: Death of a spouse (or child*): 100 Divorce: 73 Marital separation: 65 Imprisonment: 63 Death of a close family member: 63 Personal injury or illness: 53 Marriage: 50 Dismissal from work: 47 Marital reconciliation: 45 Retirement: 45 I recently went through a layoff, like probably quite a few in our industry lately, so it rings very true to me. [0]: https://paindoctor.com/top-10-stressful-life-events-holmes-rahe-stress-scale/ https://paindoctor.com/top-10-stressful-life-events-holmes-r...
- troelsSteegin 4y ago
  from [0]: Each event is assigned a “Life Change Unit” score. These are then added together over a year and used to predict your risk of illness. So, it's a scale on a predictor of health impacts, vs say a measure of intensity.
  - ragnot 4y ago
    Funny how retirement and dismissal from work are so similar.
- nus07 4y ago
  What’s my score according to my timeline of events - Late 2016- Layoff Early 2017- moved across country for new job Mid 2018- Got married Mid 2018- Layoff from second company Mid 2018-Mid 2019 - Moved away and back for two jobs Oct 2019 - Started new job Nov 2019 - Birth of child Dec 2019 - Death of father Mar 2020 - Cannot visit mother for 2 years due to Covid I think my score is about 210-290 for the last 4-5 years . And I am supposed to keep a high performance because of health insurance and keeping my visa lol.
  - saperyton 4y ago
    How are you feeling?
- bitL 4y ago
  One can address the stress of layoffs by switching over to becoming a consultant, slowly ramping up premiums, treating each job as something that can end the next day, and scheduling the life with that in mind (i.e. not putting all your eggs into a single basket, talking to other "job-providers" all the time etc.).
  - tra3 4y ago
    I would love to become a consultant. Any suggestions on how to do it? I feel like consulting a skill set different from being a developer. I think some folks fall into it, but I certainly haven't been able to.
OrangeMonkey 4y ago
I'm sorry, but I can't disagree more strongly. Getting laid off is a traumatic event. It is not a hero's journey except in so far as a hero's journey is exciting because it talks about a path through dangerous times where a person can fail. I, and likely many of us, have a family. We are blessed to work in technology where we earn more than we make and can put up savings for rainy days. The average person with a family who gets laid off will not sense adventure - they will have despair. Utter despair and worthlessness and the hope they can get things back together before their family suffers. Heck even us tech workers can feel that way. The most depressed time of my entire life was after I had been laid off. It was bad enough that I was having negative thoughts almost every day nonstop. It was traumatic enough that it fundamentally changed my approach to savings, life, and risk (likely for the worst). I am better now, have a family, a career I enjoy, but I now know how easy it is for the veneer to be ripped away. Its not a hero's journey - its a nightmare.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  It is much less of a nightmare if you're prepared for this kind of predicable eventuality. If you're living paycheck to paycheck it's a nightmare, if you've got months saved up set aside for exactly this kind of thing it's a vacation.
  - OrangeMonkey 4y ago
    Some people may think of it as a vacation. I don't think most people in the world would and not even most people in technology. In my own experience, it was a sense of worthlessness that seeped into me daily. I was newly married, my wife supportive, but it was constantly between us. "How did it go today, did you find anything interesting? No - ok, no worries, I'm sure something will pop up." Deep depression and a sense that you are failing your family, that if you had tried harder maybe it wouldn't have happened, that you arn't successful and that is why noone would want to have you. Funny. I had thought I was over it - its been a long long long time - but I find myself affected even writing this.
    - 4y ago
duxup 4y ago
I got laid off from a company after nearly 20 years of work there. I was very lucky to get a big company layoff type package of ~ 9 months of pay. I decided to take it as opportunity to do new things. It was still a worrying experience, had kids, family to take care of, but I chose to take that money and time and enroll in a coding boot camp and go in a new direction in life after age 40. I figured I wasn't going to see a lump sum of 9 months pay and time to do something with it ever again so I was going to take advantage of it. Years later now I'm very happy with the decision. Starting over was stressful, but I'm much happier with what I do now... and I don't think I would have done it if I hadn't been laid off. It was still traumatic, but I don't think I would be on this side of things had it been easier...
- georgex7 4y ago
  WOW what a story. And what an epic layoff package ;)
  - brightball 4y ago
    The teleco I used to work for gave people 2 weeks pay for every year a person was with the company when they had post merger layoffs. I don’t know if there’s a standard but that seems to line up pretty close.
    - duxup 4y ago
      Yup that was roughly the number they used / how it worked out.
    - brycewray 4y ago
      In my case, was one week for every year — so 16 weeks for (just short of) 17 years.
  - UncleOxidant 4y ago
    9 months after 20 years doesn't seem particularly great. Heck, I got 6 months severance + 6 months of paid health insurance after being at a large corp for only 2.5 years - it was a buyout, ie. they were asking for volunteers to take severance to leave so they wouldn't need to do an actual involuntary layoff later. Seemed like a great deal and I had another gig 6 months later so it was kind of an extended vacay.
paulcole 4y ago
> Why are the smartest people in the world working on delivery food? They probably aren't. Some of them are really smart. Some of them are pretty dumb. Some are determined and hardworking. Some are lazy. Most are more or less somewhere in the middle. I don't know why anyone would assume the smartest people in the world are working on delivery food (I understand the subtext of the-smartest-people-are-choosing-to-work-on-apps-ad-tech-etc but I just don't buy it)?
- georgex7 4y ago
  A lot of startups are incredibly marginal, and a lot of the smartest, most determined people start those companies. There are so many brilliant people building payroll software and HR data normalization companies. Yes, they have lucrative markets, but are they really what our best and brightest should be working on? And with regards to staffing, these companies do recruit smart CS kids from MIT, Stanford, etc. so there is a misallocation of talent that exists.
  - paulcole 4y ago
    You're doing the same thing as the article writer. Just assuming that these people are "our best and brightest." What is there to tell us that other than they're getting paid a lot of money and they went to a prestigious school? It's a nice story to tell but that's all it is IMO.
- efficax 4y ago
  everyone in this industry loves to think that they're surrounded by (and accordingly one of) the smartest people in the world. Sure, some people in tech are very very smart, but many, maybe most, of the smartest people in the world, don't work in tech at all (they work as researchers, in universities)
  - the_af 4y ago
    Thanks for pointing this out. It's entirely possible, even likely, that the smartest people in the world don't work in tech, or finance, or any of the topics us HN readers find dearest.
jesse__ 4y ago
> A monk is more financially independent than a hedge fund manager with a Lamborghini addiction This just tickles me. Great analogy.
- georgex7 4y ago
  Thanks :)
mysterydip 4y ago
Getting laid off was the "cold water shock" I needed to rewrite what had been drilled into me since grade school: if you work hard and do your job, you'll always have one and your hard work will eventually result in promotions. I took that experience and changed what kind of jobs I looked for, and found one I'm much happier with.
- georgex7 4y ago
  Awesome :)
- abrichr 4y ago
  > changed what kind of jobs I looked for, Can you please clarify? What were you looking for before and after?
  - mysterydip 4y ago
    Used to be pay and upward mobility potential. Now it's stability, work life balance, not on call, and other intangibles.
willcipriano 4y ago
Any tips for being the guy who gets laid off? I'd like to have an excuse to take a few months break but when layoffs happen they never pick me.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Slowly reduce your output relative to others. Stop picking up extra work just because you can do it. Start working less hard (spend a few hours a day on hacker news, for example). Sadly, the above often results in more promotions and being considered more important, for some reason. I can't explain it.
  - MerelyMortal 4y ago
    Maybe 'They're so busy, they can't do it any faster / can't take on any more work.' ?
    - astrange 4y ago
      Also, much work is either useless or actively bad - making any change can break something. Only doing the highest priority changes is the right way to do some jobs.
- lianna-vba 4y ago
  You can tactfully tell your manager that in a 1:1. I've had co-workers do that - the volunteering employee gets severance and the manager doesn't have to stress about a name for the list. Success depends on your relationship with your manager and if they actually have control over who gets let go.
- jedberg 4y ago
  Volunteer when you hear layoffs are coming. Just tell your boss you'd like to be on the list. They will usually oblige you because you are solving a problem for them (meeting their cut headcount requirements) and they know that if you stay you might leave anyway and if you don't you'll be unhappy. Heck, if they layoff is a surprise, ask your boss if you can swap with someone else. They often have the flexibility to do that.
madengr 4y ago
davidw 4y ago
You don't have to abide by everything the guy says, but I like a lot of the ideas over at https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ in terms of living frugally. The ultimate form of freedom is being able to decide what you want to do with your time. One way of accomplishing that is making a ridiculous amount of money via a successful exit. Another way is to structure your life so that you're ok with less. Sure, I think most would prefer the 'have lots of money' option, but 1) even there it's easy to get sucked into spending more, as this article mentions, and 2) we have a lot more control over living frugally while earning well (most software engineers earn pretty good money) than we do over a wildly successful exit from a startup.
- georgex7 4y ago
  Yeah he takes a super rational view of it. Shows the power of emotions, social pressure, etc that so few people do.
cardanome 4y ago
Never do anything your love for money. If you are intrinsically motivated to do something bringing external factors like money into it might ruin you motivation and love for the thing you had. High chance of burn out. Find work that has great synergy with your hobbies/interest but is not exactly the same. Either requiring similar skill or being the the same or related field. That way they will fuel each other. And most importantly, don't try to find meaning in your work (except maybe if you work in non-market driven employments like education/health care but sill beware). That is something a simple farmer that directly interacts with his produce might have experienced but modern capitalism it way too alienating for that to work. Most of the time you wont be even able to tell if you individual output makes any difference and if so for better for worse. Find meaning outside work.
- georgex7 4y ago
  I think people should strive to find meaning in work, even if it's difficult. If they can't, then at least they gave it a shot. And of course, you should find meaning outside of work as well.
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
I really enjoyed that! I was laid off my last job. It was totally expected (I saw it coming, years ahead), and the "forcing function" for me, was encountering the Brick Wall of Silicon Valley Ageism. It forced me to accept that I was in early retirement; whether or not I liked it. Turns out, it was the best thing that could have happened to me. META: He may want to reconsider his choice of thumbnails. I think it's a great one, but Disney has a rather fearsome reputation for going after even the smallest misuses of its IP.
UncleOxidant 4y ago
Over the coming months, tens (if not hundreds) of thousands will be laid off. This event will be the call to adventure for those that were disillusioned but hadn’t considered changing their professions. (Or even just changing their job/company within the same profession.) The layoffs in tech have started. It won't be as bad as the 2001-2004 dot com debacle. Possibly not as bad as the 2008-2012 period was (which wasn't as bad for tech vs the previous downturn, but was just bad overall). If you've prepared then this will be the pause that refreshes. The break you've been needing for a few years now. A time to regroup, learn new things, rethink your priorities. Recessions need not be fearsome things if you've got a good emergency fund and you can live frugally for a while. I used the '01-'04 downturn to go back to school and get a Masters degree. I view that time positively.
- r_hoods_ghost 4y ago
  I suspect it will be much, much worse, for USAians anyway. So many companies have now moved almost fully remote and are looking at their payroll thinking - "Why am I paying an American dev $100,000+ when I can pay a European $50,000, or someone from the developing world $25,000?" Great for devs in the rest of the world of course.
  - dvngnt_ 4y ago
    outsourcing isn't new. it just doesn't work often requiring rework
  - Salgat 4y ago
    CEOs have been clamoring to outsource devs since the 90s. I'll let you guess how that's worked so far.
  - snapetom 4y ago
    You're going to be shocked at prices these days. Paying some poor soul from some poverty stricken developing country, and expect them to be grateful for just a job, is an archaic notion. In Latin America, the price is near US levels thanks to companies like Amazon heavily investing there these past 5 years or so. Salary at intermediate and above prices are nearly on par with US skill levels, but you do save on employment taxes so there's that.
antiverse 4y ago
@dang need the link fixed to this: https://backtohumanity.substack.com/p/getting-laid-off https://backtohumanity.substack.com/p/getting-laid-off
- georgex7 4y ago
  fml thanks for this though
throwkeepno 4y ago
Honestly I've been fired 6 times. And I'm thankful for each one for the same reason as the author. Grateful even. Life is huge - humongous even and you owe it to yourself to explore. The world is a very large place. You can succeed in very different ways as long as your provide value. In a lot of situations and places that bar of value is lower than what you are accustomed to. I've known Billionaire founders who know little about business or code, software engineers who made more money selling shoes online. W.r.t decisions: People seem to need these "Walls" that they need to run into to be forced to make a decision about their lives - layoffs, firings, family care issues, health issues etc. Don't fight it- go with the flow. Use those to do what you really want to do or at least to give it a brief try. A low cost of living is the only thing that really gives you a robust form of freedom.
nickd2001 4y ago
A former employer very kindly laid me off one May (after April financial results had revealed various cock-ups, and sales hadn't been as predicted etc). This was in the UK, and I got the legal minimum payout, having been there a few years. That was tax free of course, and enough to buy a few things like new big Ikea wardrobe, couple new double-glazed windows, extra week on a static caravan holiday. Deliberately didn't apply for jobs straightaway, to avoid people trying to get me to start too soon ;) Eventually got the first job I applied for that I really wanted, with a few other interview offers. Managed to swing it so it didn't start until September. So had the whole summer off, which was particularly good as our daughter, who's very young for her year, was about to start full-time school that September. So lots of nice time with her before that. Sorted out a huge mess of cr*p in the garage, and various other jobs neglected due to having small children and full time work. To this day I think that employer feels a bit bad about this, but I feel grateful. ;) Having met up with ex colleagues, its a common story, a few of us got kicked out over the years, and generally ended up having a whale of a time, learning new skills, and getting a pay-rise out of it too. ;). When else do you get paid not to go to work? ;). Hasten to add, I'm actually a hard worker, and take pride in my work. But not gonna turn down opportunity of a nice long holiday and extra cash. Had this happened in a bad job market, would have been a different story of course. Same thing happened to a friend in his 50s. He initially feared his age would be a problem. But his problem turned out to be, having to reply to so many calls from recruiters.

110 points by georgex7 4y ago

Market still seems hot for senior/staff devs. Getting laid off is a free lunch + a paid vacation to interview for a better job. Thank god I listened to my mom and learned to code.

colechristensen 4y ago
It's a little stressful but a reminder that real wealth is the freedom to not be employed for a little while. Keep six months expenses on hand to deal with this kind of thing and you won't have to be afraid of being laid off. Like you say, if you're prepared it's a free vacation and and opportunity to be picky with your next job.
- ge96 4y ago
  Yeah I'm looking forward to being free (fire). Right now it's like "ugh gotta get through my 9-5 before I can do what I want to do". Still I'm fortunate/could be worse.

tra3 4y ago

I'm thankful that the school that I attended forced us to take electives outside of Computer Science and Engineering. I took some Psychology classes. The list of stressful events was very surprising to me. The author alludes to it in the post. I recall that typically "happy" events are stressful, too. Here's the list [0]: Death of a spouse (or child*): 100 Divorce: 73 Marital separation: 65 Imprisonment: 63 Death of a close family member: 63 Personal injury or illness: 53 Marriage: 50 Dismissal from work: 47 Marital reconciliation: 45 Retirement: 45 I recently went through a layoff, like probably quite a few in our industry lately, so it rings very true to me. [0]: https://paindoctor.com/top-10-stressful-life-events-holmes-rahe-stress-scale/ https://paindoctor.com/top-10-stressful-life-events-holmes-r...

troelsSteegin 4y ago
from [0]: Each event is assigned a “Life Change Unit” score. These are then added together over a year and used to predict your risk of illness. So, it's a scale on a predictor of health impacts, vs say a measure of intensity.
- ragnot 4y ago
  Funny how retirement and dismissal from work are so similar.
nus07 4y ago
What’s my score according to my timeline of events - Late 2016- Layoff Early 2017- moved across country for new job Mid 2018- Got married Mid 2018- Layoff from second company Mid 2018-Mid 2019 - Moved away and back for two jobs Oct 2019 - Started new job Nov 2019 - Birth of child Dec 2019 - Death of father Mar 2020 - Cannot visit mother for 2 years due to Covid I think my score is about 210-290 for the last 4-5 years . And I am supposed to keep a high performance because of health insurance and keeping my visa lol.
- saperyton 4y ago
  How are you feeling?
bitL 4y ago
One can address the stress of layoffs by switching over to becoming a consultant, slowly ramping up premiums, treating each job as something that can end the next day, and scheduling the life with that in mind (i.e. not putting all your eggs into a single basket, talking to other "job-providers" all the time etc.).
- tra3 4y ago
  I would love to become a consultant. Any suggestions on how to do it? I feel like consulting a skill set different from being a developer. I think some folks fall into it, but I certainly haven't been able to.

OrangeMonkey 4y ago

I'm sorry, but I can't disagree more strongly. Getting laid off is a traumatic event. It is not a hero's journey except in so far as a hero's journey is exciting because it talks about a path through dangerous times where a person can fail. I, and likely many of us, have a family. We are blessed to work in technology where we earn more than we make and can put up savings for rainy days. The average person with a family who gets laid off will not sense adventure - they will have despair. Utter despair and worthlessness and the hope they can get things back together before their family suffers. Heck even us tech workers can feel that way. The most depressed time of my entire life was after I had been laid off. It was bad enough that I was having negative thoughts almost every day nonstop. It was traumatic enough that it fundamentally changed my approach to savings, life, and risk (likely for the worst). I am better now, have a family, a career I enjoy, but I now know how easy it is for the veneer to be ripped away. Its not a hero's journey - its a nightmare.

colechristensen 4y ago
It is much less of a nightmare if you're prepared for this kind of predicable eventuality. If you're living paycheck to paycheck it's a nightmare, if you've got months saved up set aside for exactly this kind of thing it's a vacation.
- OrangeMonkey 4y ago
  Some people may think of it as a vacation. I don't think most people in the world would and not even most people in technology. In my own experience, it was a sense of worthlessness that seeped into me daily. I was newly married, my wife supportive, but it was constantly between us. "How did it go today, did you find anything interesting? No - ok, no worries, I'm sure something will pop up." Deep depression and a sense that you are failing your family, that if you had tried harder maybe it wouldn't have happened, that you arn't successful and that is why noone would want to have you. Funny. I had thought I was over it - its been a long long long time - but I find myself affected even writing this.
  - 4y ago

duxup 4y ago

I got laid off from a company after nearly 20 years of work there. I was very lucky to get a big company layoff type package of ~ 9 months of pay. I decided to take it as opportunity to do new things. It was still a worrying experience, had kids, family to take care of, but I chose to take that money and time and enroll in a coding boot camp and go in a new direction in life after age 40. I figured I wasn't going to see a lump sum of 9 months pay and time to do something with it ever again so I was going to take advantage of it. Years later now I'm very happy with the decision. Starting over was stressful, but I'm much happier with what I do now... and I don't think I would have done it if I hadn't been laid off. It was still traumatic, but I don't think I would be on this side of things had it been easier...

georgex7 4y ago
WOW what a story. And what an epic layoff package ;)
- brightball 4y ago
  The teleco I used to work for gave people 2 weeks pay for every year a person was with the company when they had post merger layoffs. I don’t know if there’s a standard but that seems to line up pretty close.
  - duxup 4y ago
    Yup that was roughly the number they used / how it worked out.
  - brycewray 4y ago
    In my case, was one week for every year — so 16 weeks for (just short of) 17 years.
- UncleOxidant 4y ago
  9 months after 20 years doesn't seem particularly great. Heck, I got 6 months severance + 6 months of paid health insurance after being at a large corp for only 2.5 years - it was a buyout, ie. they were asking for volunteers to take severance to leave so they wouldn't need to do an actual involuntary layoff later. Seemed like a great deal and I had another gig 6 months later so it was kind of an extended vacay.

paulcole 4y ago

> Why are the smartest people in the world working on delivery food? They probably aren't. Some of them are really smart. Some of them are pretty dumb. Some are determined and hardworking. Some are lazy. Most are more or less somewhere in the middle. I don't know why anyone would assume the smartest people in the world are working on delivery food (I understand the subtext of the-smartest-people-are-choosing-to-work-on-apps-ad-tech-etc but I just don't buy it)?

georgex7 4y ago
A lot of startups are incredibly marginal, and a lot of the smartest, most determined people start those companies. There are so many brilliant people building payroll software and HR data normalization companies. Yes, they have lucrative markets, but are they really what our best and brightest should be working on? And with regards to staffing, these companies do recruit smart CS kids from MIT, Stanford, etc. so there is a misallocation of talent that exists.
- paulcole 4y ago
  You're doing the same thing as the article writer. Just assuming that these people are "our best and brightest." What is there to tell us that other than they're getting paid a lot of money and they went to a prestigious school? It's a nice story to tell but that's all it is IMO.
efficax 4y ago
everyone in this industry loves to think that they're surrounded by (and accordingly one of) the smartest people in the world. Sure, some people in tech are very very smart, but many, maybe most, of the smartest people in the world, don't work in tech at all (they work as researchers, in universities)
- the_af 4y ago
  Thanks for pointing this out. It's entirely possible, even likely, that the smartest people in the world don't work in tech, or finance, or any of the topics us HN readers find dearest.

jesse__ 4y ago

> A monk is more financially independent than a hedge fund manager with a Lamborghini addiction This just tickles me. Great analogy.

georgex7 4y ago
Thanks :)

mysterydip 4y ago

Getting laid off was the "cold water shock" I needed to rewrite what had been drilled into me since grade school: if you work hard and do your job, you'll always have one and your hard work will eventually result in promotions. I took that experience and changed what kind of jobs I looked for, and found one I'm much happier with.

georgex7 4y ago
Awesome :)
abrichr 4y ago
> changed what kind of jobs I looked for, Can you please clarify? What were you looking for before and after?
- mysterydip 4y ago
  Used to be pay and upward mobility potential. Now it's stability, work life balance, not on call, and other intangibles.

willcipriano 4y ago

Any tips for being the guy who gets laid off? I'd like to have an excuse to take a few months break but when layoffs happen they never pick me.

bombcar 4y ago
Slowly reduce your output relative to others. Stop picking up extra work just because you can do it. Start working less hard (spend a few hours a day on hacker news, for example). Sadly, the above often results in more promotions and being considered more important, for some reason. I can't explain it.
- MerelyMortal 4y ago
  Maybe 'They're so busy, they can't do it any faster / can't take on any more work.' ?
  - astrange 4y ago
    Also, much work is either useless or actively bad - making any change can break something. Only doing the highest priority changes is the right way to do some jobs.
lianna-vba 4y ago
You can tactfully tell your manager that in a 1:1. I've had co-workers do that - the volunteering employee gets severance and the manager doesn't have to stress about a name for the list. Success depends on your relationship with your manager and if they actually have control over who gets let go.
jedberg 4y ago
Volunteer when you hear layoffs are coming. Just tell your boss you'd like to be on the list. They will usually oblige you because you are solving a problem for them (meeting their cut headcount requirements) and they know that if you stay you might leave anyway and if you don't you'll be unhappy. Heck, if they layoff is a surprise, ask your boss if you can swap with someone else. They often have the flexibility to do that.

madengr 4y ago

davidw 4y ago

You don't have to abide by everything the guy says, but I like a lot of the ideas over at https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ in terms of living frugally. The ultimate form of freedom is being able to decide what you want to do with your time. One way of accomplishing that is making a ridiculous amount of money via a successful exit. Another way is to structure your life so that you're ok with less. Sure, I think most would prefer the 'have lots of money' option, but 1) even there it's easy to get sucked into spending more, as this article mentions, and 2) we have a lot more control over living frugally while earning well (most software engineers earn pretty good money) than we do over a wildly successful exit from a startup.

georgex7 4y ago
Yeah he takes a super rational view of it. Shows the power of emotions, social pressure, etc that so few people do.

cardanome 4y ago

Never do anything your love for money. If you are intrinsically motivated to do something bringing external factors like money into it might ruin you motivation and love for the thing you had. High chance of burn out. Find work that has great synergy with your hobbies/interest but is not exactly the same. Either requiring similar skill or being the the same or related field. That way they will fuel each other. And most importantly, don't try to find meaning in your work (except maybe if you work in non-market driven employments like education/health care but sill beware). That is something a simple farmer that directly interacts with his produce might have experienced but modern capitalism it way too alienating for that to work. Most of the time you wont be even able to tell if you individual output makes any difference and if so for better for worse. Find meaning outside work.

georgex7 4y ago
I think people should strive to find meaning in work, even if it's difficult. If they can't, then at least they gave it a shot. And of course, you should find meaning outside of work as well.

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

I really enjoyed that! I was laid off my last job. It was totally expected (I saw it coming, years ahead), and the "forcing function" for me, was encountering the Brick Wall of Silicon Valley Ageism. It forced me to accept that I was in early retirement; whether or not I liked it. Turns out, it was the best thing that could have happened to me. META: He may want to reconsider his choice of thumbnails. I think it's a great one, but Disney has a rather fearsome reputation for going after even the smallest misuses of its IP.

UncleOxidant 4y ago

Over the coming months, tens (if not hundreds) of thousands will be laid off. This event will be the call to adventure for those that were disillusioned but hadn’t considered changing their professions. (Or even just changing their job/company within the same profession.) The layoffs in tech have started. It won't be as bad as the 2001-2004 dot com debacle. Possibly not as bad as the 2008-2012 period was (which wasn't as bad for tech vs the previous downturn, but was just bad overall). If you've prepared then this will be the pause that refreshes. The break you've been needing for a few years now. A time to regroup, learn new things, rethink your priorities. Recessions need not be fearsome things if you've got a good emergency fund and you can live frugally for a while. I used the '01-'04 downturn to go back to school and get a Masters degree. I view that time positively.

r_hoods_ghost 4y ago
I suspect it will be much, much worse, for USAians anyway. So many companies have now moved almost fully remote and are looking at their payroll thinking - "Why am I paying an American dev $100,000+ when I can pay a European $50,000, or someone from the developing world $25,000?" Great for devs in the rest of the world of course.
- dvngnt_ 4y ago
  outsourcing isn't new. it just doesn't work often requiring rework
- Salgat 4y ago
  CEOs have been clamoring to outsource devs since the 90s. I'll let you guess how that's worked so far.
- snapetom 4y ago
  You're going to be shocked at prices these days. Paying some poor soul from some poverty stricken developing country, and expect them to be grateful for just a job, is an archaic notion. In Latin America, the price is near US levels thanks to companies like Amazon heavily investing there these past 5 years or so. Salary at intermediate and above prices are nearly on par with US skill levels, but you do save on employment taxes so there's that.

antiverse 4y ago

@dang need the link fixed to this: https://backtohumanity.substack.com/p/getting-laid-off https://backtohumanity.substack.com/p/getting-laid-off

georgex7 4y ago
fml thanks for this though

throwkeepno 4y ago

Honestly I've been fired 6 times. And I'm thankful for each one for the same reason as the author. Grateful even. Life is huge - humongous even and you owe it to yourself to explore. The world is a very large place. You can succeed in very different ways as long as your provide value. In a lot of situations and places that bar of value is lower than what you are accustomed to. I've known Billionaire founders who know little about business or code, software engineers who made more money selling shoes online. W.r.t decisions: People seem to need these "Walls" that they need to run into to be forced to make a decision about their lives - layoffs, firings, family care issues, health issues etc. Don't fight it- go with the flow. Use those to do what you really want to do or at least to give it a brief try. A low cost of living is the only thing that really gives you a robust form of freedom.

nickd2001 4y ago

A former employer very kindly laid me off one May (after April financial results had revealed various cock-ups, and sales hadn't been as predicted etc). This was in the UK, and I got the legal minimum payout, having been there a few years. That was tax free of course, and enough to buy a few things like new big Ikea wardrobe, couple new double-glazed windows, extra week on a static caravan holiday. Deliberately didn't apply for jobs straightaway, to avoid people trying to get me to start too soon ;) Eventually got the first job I applied for that I really wanted, with a few other interview offers. Managed to swing it so it didn't start until September. So had the whole summer off, which was particularly good as our daughter, who's very young for her year, was about to start full-time school that September. So lots of nice time with her before that. Sorted out a huge mess of cr*p in the garage, and various other jobs neglected due to having small children and full time work. To this day I think that employer feels a bit bad about this, but I feel grateful. ;) Having met up with ex colleagues, its a common story, a few of us got kicked out over the years, and generally ended up having a whale of a time, learning new skills, and getting a pay-rise out of it too. ;). When else do you get paid not to go to work? ;). Hasten to add, I'm actually a hard worker, and take pride in my work. But not gonna turn down opportunity of a nice long holiday and extra cash. Had this happened in a bad job market, would have been a different story of course. Same thing happened to a friend in his 50s. He initially feared his age would be a problem. But his problem turned out to be, having to reply to so many calls from recruiters.