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> Don’t discount the physical aspect of loneliness either. If you’re like me, work is the primary shaper of your life. Work gives your life rhythm. It is the gr

> Don’t discount the physical aspect of loneliness either. If you’re like me, work is the primary shaper of your life. Work gives your life rhythm. It is the gravitational center around which the other activities in your life revolve. Then, one day, poof—it’s gone. Exhibit A of why not to take your day job too seriously. Be professional — but that’s as far as it goes. > Come up with a more, uh, positive reason for why you’re interviewing instead of disclosing that you were laid off. There’s nothing wrong with being laid off. I was, last week. Saw it coming from a mile away. Told my new employer about it. Here’s the secret for getting a job you’re happy with. Try to have competing offers. I would have had to take over a 60% reduction in salary if I hadn’t had one. But I did, and so it was merely a 37% reduction. I’m very happy with it. This is an area where I have to give tptacek lots of credit. I sort of shuffled from job to job until he posted this nugget of wisdom, and it’s quite true. None of the points in the article applied to me because of a fundamental shift in mindset. It happened around 7 years ago. I think the loneliness aspect is intertwined with the reason why most people don’t try to go interview while you already have a job. You see your job as something more. It’s not just a job; it gives your life rhythm. Maybe so. But in my experience, the way to be happy is not to care so darn much about it. Do a good job. But try to get a better one. And when you’re on the market, try to get multiple. The recent thread about the engineer who got their offer rescinded from two different YC companies is exhibit B. They mentioned that they stopped looking for new jobs after things seemed to be going well during the pre-offer phase. Don’t do this. You should be doing a breadth-first search of all possible opportunities: talk to as many people as possible, and spend your time weighted by expected outcome.

librish 4y ago
> Exhibit A of why not to take your day job too seriously. Be professional — but that’s as far as it goes. People spend 8 hours + lunch and commuting every weekday on their job. It's almost 50% of the time you spend conscious during a week. Most people want more out of that than just a chore that needs to be done.
- dj_mc_merlin 4y ago
  Embrace distributed WFH and you can spend 4 hours in the morning, have a nice picnic, play some basketball, have a couple beers, then retire to your room to do another 4hrs. Or just fuck off some days and counterbalance it by doing hyper focused 12hrs days some other time. Also: unless you're genuinely curing cancer or flying food to starving African villages or something, 95% of software companies are pretty damn useless and any impact a SWE imagines is basically just a mental fantasy that helps one keep working. No one is genuinely happier because another API is created or some rich person has a better way of managing which products he's selling to other rich people. It's all basically useless and just a way to make money.
  - benjaminwootton 4y ago
    That wasn’t an option until a few years ago, and it being an option coincided with the crescendo of a 14 year bull market. Having a few beers before your afternoon shift isn’t likely to viable for long.
    - gabereiser 4y ago
      Exactly. They wonder why there are layoffs and they are one of them. Or like in the article, they think they’ll land another gig in 3 months or less.
      - satvikpendem 4y ago
        Harsh words, but likely unfounded. You don't know their reason for being laid off, it could be that their company didn't product a profit (since in a bull run they don't need to), it could be that a competitor caught up to them, it could be that their division was no longer needed, and so on. Poor performance attributable to WFH necessarily is not very high on the list of why people are laid off, generally speaking.
      - Volundr 4y ago
        Heh TBH in most cases I doubt an individual has much if any control over a) if there are layoffs, and b) if they are part of one. I've had the "privilege" of seeing the internals of a few large layoffs, and being caught in one, and from my experience they are usually tied to business decisions outside of the control of your average IC (currently interests rates are putting a major pinch on companies that hold a lot of debt for example) and performance is rarely an actual factor in who goes. In most the large layoffs I've seen the list of who is going is handed down from C or VP level execs with none of management below having any say (which explains why so many take out key resources). Only in one case have I actually seen managers select who to keep. The whole "layoffs happen because employees are lazy, and affect lazy employees" is a nice narrative of your a business owner to keep the rank and file "motivated", but it's rarely an accurate portrayal of the situation.
anon50118810 4y ago
Being spoiled for choice with offers is great if you can manage it, but not very useful if you're OP who couldn't find something for a year. Also, having a job gives you a basic social identity to use to interact with people, and positive cash flow lets you be expansive and outgoing. It's very easy to take this for granted, or assume focusing on work is ultra-materialist, if you don't have a lot of experience going without. I agree that it's healthy to not worry so much about the day-to-day minutiae of a specific job, but this is a lot different from the inevitable decline that comes with not having any job at all.
- bumby 4y ago
  >a job gives you a basic social identity Just because this is a norm doesn't make it healthy. When your identity is rooted in something that can easily go away, it makes for a weak foundation. Lot of examples of jobs that are relatively short-lived (athletes, military, etc.) can show how difficult transitioning is when your identity is tied to your job.
  - anon50118810 4y ago
    We need to distinguish between being at some particular job and being in a profession or similarly in any job at all. I think it's unhealthy to have your identity tied to your specific employer, job title and tasks that you do for them. You as a person should not be defined by the tickets in your current sprint. However not having a profession or any job is much different and worse. Unless you're older and retired, or independently wealthy, then it means you're going to cut back on everything. You won't socialize with other people society deems successful, you won't date, you won't grow a family, you won't travel or do anything other than continue to exist. All parts of your situation will shrink and decline. You are running out the clock toward total destitution. I'm making this point because it's easy for people who are having a successful career to say, oh, of course I'm not my job, while missing entirely that they see themselves as a person who has a good job and will likely get another good job if their current job ends. They don't mean that they see themselves equally as a software developer or a dishwasher or on the street and it's all the same to them, so sharing the perspective that you are not your job in a discussion about extended unemployment is maybe not very appropriate. Whether this latter reality is healthy or not, I don't know, but people have identified themselves as successful based on their trade or other social categorization for thousands of years, so at least we can say it's not new.
p1esk 4y ago
it was merely a 37% reduction. I’m very happy with it. You took 37% paycut and you’re happy with it? Why?
- highwaylights 4y ago
  OP didn't take a pay cut. OP's pay was zero. OP took a job that would provide an income that happened to be 37% less than the one OP had before.
  - ulfw 4y ago
    By that argument he could have taken a job at McDonald's flipping burgers and would be better off than 'zero'. He did take a pay cut. 37% can be felt by anyone earning an income. It's often the decider if you have money left over after living expenses or not. Let's say you earn 200K. 100k goes away for taxes et al (I am simplifying here), leaving you 100K for expenses. If your living expenses are 60K for rent, food, transportation, fun, family, you can save 40K a year for retirement. Let's say you earn 37% less. That's 126K. 60k goes away for taxes et al (I am simplifying here), leaving you 66K for expenses. If your living expenses are 60K for rent, food, transportation, fun, family, you can save 6K a year for retirement. Your savings just dropped by 85%, putting your retirement in danger. Not saying OP shouldn't have accepted the offer. But let's not pretend this wasn't a significant pay cut.
    - sillysaurusx 4y ago
      It was $400k to $250k. Significant, but given the recession, it’s a nice position to be in. There’s a fella on TikTok named Frank Niu. He made $500k at Netflix, and his job was basically to run around fixing things when they broke. It was a nice reminder that the good times can be very good, and the bad times are worth scaling back one’s expectations appropriately. I doubt he’d still be in the $500k bracket if he were still working, but you never know. Also, don’t scale your living expenses! It’s tempting, but my current employer almost didn’t make me an offer because they assumed I was living at a $400k lifestyle. In reality we were just paying off our house and driving the same old car.
silvestrov 4y ago
> Exhibit A of why not to take your day job too seriously. This can be more difficult when you have been part of transforming a company for 20 years instead of job-hopping every few years. When you have advocated for changes and they have been implemented, there are parts of "you" in the company. Also the CV looks very empty in this case, even when having implemented many interesting things.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
gpgn 4y ago
> This is an area where I have to give tptacek lots of credit. Any specific thread that might be particularly enlightening/interesting?
ufmace 4y ago
> Exhibit A of why not to take your day job too seriously. Be professional — but that’s as far as it goes. +1 on this. His #1 is exactly why you should not let work, and especially work social events, become the "primary shaper of your life" - they can and will get rid of you anytime they think it might be convenient for them. It may not have anything to do with your skills or productivity, it may be just what someone high above you felt like doing for reasons that have nothing to do with you.
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
> Exhibit A of why not to take your day job too seriously. Be professional — but that’s as far as it goes. I think that’s the wrong message to take away from this. The author’s problems wouldn’t have been solved by remaining more distant from his job and coworkers - he’d just be lonely all of the time! The real answer is that you need to cultivate relationships and a life outside of work, too. By all means, become friendly with and get to know your coworkers, but don’t let work be your only source of relationships.

librish 4y ago

> Exhibit A of why not to take your day job too seriously. Be professional — but that’s as far as it goes. People spend 8 hours + lunch and commuting every weekday on their job. It's almost 50% of the time you spend conscious during a week. Most people want more out of that than just a chore that needs to be done.

dj_mc_merlin 4y ago
Embrace distributed WFH and you can spend 4 hours in the morning, have a nice picnic, play some basketball, have a couple beers, then retire to your room to do another 4hrs. Or just fuck off some days and counterbalance it by doing hyper focused 12hrs days some other time. Also: unless you're genuinely curing cancer or flying food to starving African villages or something, 95% of software companies are pretty damn useless and any impact a SWE imagines is basically just a mental fantasy that helps one keep working. No one is genuinely happier because another API is created or some rich person has a better way of managing which products he's selling to other rich people. It's all basically useless and just a way to make money.
- benjaminwootton 4y ago
  That wasn’t an option until a few years ago, and it being an option coincided with the crescendo of a 14 year bull market. Having a few beers before your afternoon shift isn’t likely to viable for long.
  - gabereiser 4y ago
    Exactly. They wonder why there are layoffs and they are one of them. Or like in the article, they think they’ll land another gig in 3 months or less.
    - satvikpendem 4y ago
      Harsh words, but likely unfounded. You don't know their reason for being laid off, it could be that their company didn't product a profit (since in a bull run they don't need to), it could be that a competitor caught up to them, it could be that their division was no longer needed, and so on. Poor performance attributable to WFH necessarily is not very high on the list of why people are laid off, generally speaking.
    - Volundr 4y ago
      Heh TBH in most cases I doubt an individual has much if any control over a) if there are layoffs, and b) if they are part of one. I've had the "privilege" of seeing the internals of a few large layoffs, and being caught in one, and from my experience they are usually tied to business decisions outside of the control of your average IC (currently interests rates are putting a major pinch on companies that hold a lot of debt for example) and performance is rarely an actual factor in who goes. In most the large layoffs I've seen the list of who is going is handed down from C or VP level execs with none of management below having any say (which explains why so many take out key resources). Only in one case have I actually seen managers select who to keep. The whole "layoffs happen because employees are lazy, and affect lazy employees" is a nice narrative of your a business owner to keep the rank and file "motivated", but it's rarely an accurate portrayal of the situation.

anon50118810 4y ago

Being spoiled for choice with offers is great if you can manage it, but not very useful if you're OP who couldn't find something for a year. Also, having a job gives you a basic social identity to use to interact with people, and positive cash flow lets you be expansive and outgoing. It's very easy to take this for granted, or assume focusing on work is ultra-materialist, if you don't have a lot of experience going without. I agree that it's healthy to not worry so much about the day-to-day minutiae of a specific job, but this is a lot different from the inevitable decline that comes with not having any job at all.

bumby 4y ago
>a job gives you a basic social identity Just because this is a norm doesn't make it healthy. When your identity is rooted in something that can easily go away, it makes for a weak foundation. Lot of examples of jobs that are relatively short-lived (athletes, military, etc.) can show how difficult transitioning is when your identity is tied to your job.
- anon50118810 4y ago
  We need to distinguish between being at some particular job and being in a profession or similarly in any job at all. I think it's unhealthy to have your identity tied to your specific employer, job title and tasks that you do for them. You as a person should not be defined by the tickets in your current sprint. However not having a profession or any job is much different and worse. Unless you're older and retired, or independently wealthy, then it means you're going to cut back on everything. You won't socialize with other people society deems successful, you won't date, you won't grow a family, you won't travel or do anything other than continue to exist. All parts of your situation will shrink and decline. You are running out the clock toward total destitution. I'm making this point because it's easy for people who are having a successful career to say, oh, of course I'm not my job, while missing entirely that they see themselves as a person who has a good job and will likely get another good job if their current job ends. They don't mean that they see themselves equally as a software developer or a dishwasher or on the street and it's all the same to them, so sharing the perspective that you are not your job in a discussion about extended unemployment is maybe not very appropriate. Whether this latter reality is healthy or not, I don't know, but people have identified themselves as successful based on their trade or other social categorization for thousands of years, so at least we can say it's not new.

p1esk 4y ago

it was merely a 37% reduction. I’m very happy with it. You took 37% paycut and you’re happy with it? Why?

highwaylights 4y ago
OP didn't take a pay cut. OP's pay was zero. OP took a job that would provide an income that happened to be 37% less than the one OP had before.
- ulfw 4y ago
  By that argument he could have taken a job at McDonald's flipping burgers and would be better off than 'zero'. He did take a pay cut. 37% can be felt by anyone earning an income. It's often the decider if you have money left over after living expenses or not. Let's say you earn 200K. 100k goes away for taxes et al (I am simplifying here), leaving you 100K for expenses. If your living expenses are 60K for rent, food, transportation, fun, family, you can save 40K a year for retirement. Let's say you earn 37% less. That's 126K. 60k goes away for taxes et al (I am simplifying here), leaving you 66K for expenses. If your living expenses are 60K for rent, food, transportation, fun, family, you can save 6K a year for retirement. Your savings just dropped by 85%, putting your retirement in danger. Not saying OP shouldn't have accepted the offer. But let's not pretend this wasn't a significant pay cut.
  - sillysaurusx 4y ago
    It was $400k to $250k. Significant, but given the recession, it’s a nice position to be in. There’s a fella on TikTok named Frank Niu. He made $500k at Netflix, and his job was basically to run around fixing things when they broke. It was a nice reminder that the good times can be very good, and the bad times are worth scaling back one’s expectations appropriately. I doubt he’d still be in the $500k bracket if he were still working, but you never know. Also, don’t scale your living expenses! It’s tempting, but my current employer almost didn’t make me an offer because they assumed I was living at a $400k lifestyle. In reality we were just paying off our house and driving the same old car.

silvestrov 4y ago

> Exhibit A of why not to take your day job too seriously. This can be more difficult when you have been part of transforming a company for 20 years instead of job-hopping every few years. When you have advocated for changes and they have been implemented, there are parts of "you" in the company. Also the CV looks very empty in this case, even when having implemented many interesting things.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

gpgn 4y ago

> This is an area where I have to give tptacek lots of credit. Any specific thread that might be particularly enlightening/interesting?

ufmace 4y ago

> Exhibit A of why not to take your day job too seriously. Be professional — but that’s as far as it goes. +1 on this. His #1 is exactly why you should not let work, and especially work social events, become the "primary shaper of your life" - they can and will get rid of you anytime they think it might be convenient for them. It may not have anything to do with your skills or productivity, it may be just what someone high above you felt like doing for reasons that have nothing to do with you.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

> Exhibit A of why not to take your day job too seriously. Be professional — but that’s as far as it goes. I think that’s the wrong message to take away from this. The author’s problems wouldn’t have been solved by remaining more distant from his job and coworkers - he’d just be lonely all of the time! The real answer is that you need to cultivate relationships and a life outside of work, too. By all means, become friendly with and get to know your coworkers, but don’t let work be your only source of relationships.