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I am happy for you, I really am. It is important to recognize that your experience may not be the experience of others right? While I too had no issue making a

I am happy for you, I really am. It is important to recognize that your experience may not be the experience of others right? While I too had no issue making a good salary through the various tech "crashes" I also know many many people who, for a wide variety of reasons, were not (and are not!) able to. There are a lot of people looking for work right now and their resume is kind of thin. Even with 'big names' in their CV like Google and Meta they are finding it hard to get interviews, much less call backs. Easily a dozen people I've known over the last 5 years have moved "to be with family" which was exactly code for "moving back in with the parents because they can't find gainful employment in an expensive place like the SF Bay Area." When they have asked for my advice I have shared that they are not their "job", they have agency and it is just as meaningful to be in the trades as it is to be in "tech." When I read this story about folks in the trades doing well I thought of those conversations and realized that not everyone has someone to tell them this. Fortunately for you the question hasn't come up, and that is great.

bluGill 2y ago
I hake known many people in the trades who can't always get a job.
dsclough 2y ago
Your advice to people in tech with Google and Meta on their CV who couldn’t snap up new jobs instantly was to go into the trades? Really?
- ChuckMcM 2y ago
  No, my advice to people is always that you are not defined by your job. I had a very memorable experience at Intel when I came to the Bay Area just as the "semiconductor recession" hit. A friend of mine there was a process engineer and getting laid off. He was super depressed and wailing about how there were no jobs for "people like him" any more and how he was going to end up homeless. Two weeks into his job search I asked him, "Why do you have to have a process engineering job?" and he said it was what he studied for, what he knew, so he felt the only thing he was qualified for. We talked about it some more and I suggested he had lots of skills that were transferable to lots of jobs. He spent the next 6 months as a math coach for AP calculus students and then got a job at an early ISP as an installer. He prospered in that job and from then on 'job flexibility' was more of his mantra than 'I'm a <can do this one thing> person.' So my advice to people in tech with Google and Meta on their CV who are struggling to find employment again is to ask themselves if they are defining themselves by the job or by what they can do? I find asking them if they have considered the trades has two positive effects, one it pulls them waaaay outside their self defined box, and it gets them to actually think about how they define themselves.

bluGill 2y ago

I hake known many people in the trades who can't always get a job.

dsclough 2y ago

Your advice to people in tech with Google and Meta on their CV who couldn’t snap up new jobs instantly was to go into the trades? Really?

ChuckMcM 2y ago
No, my advice to people is always that you are not defined by your job. I had a very memorable experience at Intel when I came to the Bay Area just as the "semiconductor recession" hit. A friend of mine there was a process engineer and getting laid off. He was super depressed and wailing about how there were no jobs for "people like him" any more and how he was going to end up homeless. Two weeks into his job search I asked him, "Why do you have to have a process engineering job?" and he said it was what he studied for, what he knew, so he felt the only thing he was qualified for. We talked about it some more and I suggested he had lots of skills that were transferable to lots of jobs. He spent the next 6 months as a math coach for AP calculus students and then got a job at an early ISP as an installer. He prospered in that job and from then on 'job flexibility' was more of his mantra than 'I'm a <can do this one thing> person.' So my advice to people in tech with Google and Meta on their CV who are struggling to find employment again is to ask themselves if they are defining themselves by the job or by what they can do? I find asking them if they have considered the trades has two positive effects, one it pulls them waaaay outside their self defined box, and it gets them to actually think about how they define themselves.