I've been surrounded by people like you for decades no matter which coast I lived on or somewhere in the middle. Employment anxiety is an infectious culture, no

I've been surrounded by people like you for decades no matter which coast I lived on or somewhere in the middle. Employment anxiety is an infectious culture, not a sensemaking operation. I'd suggest ignoring the cultural imperative and instead just go directly for what you want by following a seemingly non-existent path through old-fashioned touchpoints that can only be discovered by talking to others via beer, coffee, and multisyllabic small talk. My experience has been that the best gigs come from those birds-of-a-feather experiences and not whiteboard stunt monkey meetings. The corporation is just a different jungle and I'd suggest you don't really want to star in The Corporation anyhow and look for University, R&D labs, startups, design studios, etc. There are still some good gigs out there; they're just doing what pointy-haired bosses do, trading one set of workers for another, 10K at a time. Good luck finding your tribe no matter who, what, or where they are!