9 ms·

Yeah, I make the same adjusted for inflation that I did when I got my last/only promotion 10 years ago. I have grey hair, a disability, and a family that relies

Yeah, I make the same adjusted for inflation that I did when I got my last/only promotion 10 years ago. I have grey hair, a disability, and a family that relies on the health insurance. Switching or being laid off is a risky proposition for me. It sounds like all your examples are young, childless people (who else could take a month off to go vacationing?). Life is much harder for some of us.

andrewlgood 2y ago
I understand the trade offs you mention. I do disagree with your assertion that “Life is much harder for some of us.” You have chosen a different payoff - your family, certainty of health insurance, etc. You get the benefits that children bring and the joy of being a parent. The “young, childless people” have made a different choice - more freedom in employment decisions but no joy from children. Everyone has their own cost/benefit analyses on these issues. That is life.
- margalabargala 2y ago
  Your good health is an invisible crown that can only be seen by those who do not wear it.
  - hakaneskici 2y ago
    Wisdom speaks. Hidden gem of this thread.
  - soulofmischief 2y ago
    What a great saying. I feel this in my very core. Dealing with poverty in my youth, homeless at 16, no parents to help me, debilitating ADHD, tourettic OCD, bipolar type II, CPTSD from 10 years of intense childhood physical/emotional abuse, my full-ride college scholarships illegally stolen from me by a high school who knew I was homeless and had no recourse and allowed a teacher to illegally modify my grades out of pure spite, malnourished, intense, crippling sciatica, fused lumbar discs, possible fibromyalgia, and then developing excruciating daily pains and physical disability which greatly impacted my life and sometimes made me suicidal, which turned out to be an autoimmune disorder that took 10 years for doctors to figure out... an extremely intense case of gout developing since my teens... I just keep pushing on but every day I see people who take so much for granted, and who are so ready to pass judgement without appreciating the basic privilege of good health. I've had to deal with so much struggle that the average person wouldn't even want to take the time to hear all of it much less believe it, once someone momentarily realizes that they'd have it comparatively easy compared to others, they often get defensive as they begin to realize that their life doesn't have nearly as many barriers as they've convinced themselves, and they have to come to terms with not applying themselves harder. It's easier for them to be dismissive and tell me, "all your problems would go away if you worked out more" or tell me to get on a keto diet, or whatever have you, as if I haven't tried every single thing I can think of. And the insane thing is I am still quite privileged compared to some people in war-torn countries, even if they are able to move around without swallowing a truckload of ibuprofen. Reminding myself of that is a source of strength and determination to keep moving forward.
    - nthingtohide 2y ago
      “You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.” ― Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men
  - andrewlgood 2y ago
    How do you know I have good health? What an incredibly smug comment meant to silence someone with no basis in fact.
    - margalabargala 2y ago
      Well, the person you originally replied to mentioned having a disability, and your response was "yeah but you have kids so really you chose this and also I disagree that life is harder for some people." The generous interpretation would be that you have sufficiently good health that you do not have to structure your life around it, and therefore lack understanding of the challenges faced by those who do. The alternate interpretation, that you do understand and choose to ignore and dismiss, would be rather less generous to you.
      - absolutelastone 2y ago
        So you took the generous route in publicly shaming them. I think their quibble was with a different item being used as evidence there (i.e., having a family), not necessarily with all that was said.
        margalabargala 2y ago
        I didn't publicly shame anyone. I pointed out their clear position of privilege to help them learn to apply empathy. I think helping one another to build empathy is a good thing, and even if the person I replied to is unable to do so, it's possible that observing them tell a disabled person that they don't think their life is any harder will help other third parties such as yourself build that empathy. I did not flag their original comment, but it's not for no reason it was flagged to death.
        absolutelastone 2y ago
        Text is a fairly imprecise form of communication. It's pretty common for multiple people to get triggered by misreading a post the same way if such a misread is possible. In other cases downvoted posts are often the most interesting precisely because they trigger people with points they don't want to consider. I certainly wouldn't cite it as proof of any position.
- giantg2 2y ago
  Haha you must be young. It's entirely possible young people will make the same choices and face the same realities I currently do. They just havent gotten to that stage yet. Even comparing my life now to my life 10 years ago would show the younger me had an easier life. However, having a disability is not a choice, and in general makes life harder than those without a disability. Don't get me wrong - I believe life is hard for almost everyone at at least one point or another in unique ways and to varying degrees.
  - andrewlgood 2y ago
    Actually, I am not young. I just retired and have been thinking about my life, career, etc. I do not have a disability (my wife may disagree) and I agree it makes life more challenging (wouldn’t be called a disability otherwise). I also agree with you that life can be hard, children are born with health challenges, children make poor decisions with terrible consequences, spouse dies, you get cancer, etc. We all need to get through these. That does not change the fact that we all have decisions to make everyday about our careers, our families, our health, our financial situation, and so on. When we look at those who made different decisions, it does not necessarily mean they made better or worse decisions, just different decisions. I have been thinking about this a lot recently. A former boss and good friend who is incredibly smart and effective in the work place asked why the two of us had never gone the PE route and been more successful. While he is very successful by most standards, he sees people flying private jets all the time who do not appear more skillful, yet have been more successful. As I think on this, I feel I simply was never willing to go all in on the risk required to achieve that level of financial success. I tried co-founding a company once when I was 28 while engaged and importantly, before children. I felt I could take the risk and if I failed, could bounce back. I did fail - company did ok but my I ended up disliking working with my senior partner - and I did bounce back, ending up at GE. After that, I did not feel comfortable taking that level of risk until my children were off to college and no longer dependent on me an I had enough money saved that my wife and I would be ok for a long time. The people I know who have been jet-money financially successful took huge risks. They were all in on their venture(s). Frequently this cost them their marriage and/or relationships with the children. This was their choice. Their cost/benefit analysis to optimize their success criteria. Some regret the decisions - they underestimated the effort and impact on those they cared about. However, most have not. They are happy with how things have turned out. Different strokes for different folks.
- fifticon 2y ago
  your argument sounds like "some people choose to do the dishes, some of us choose to let other people do the dishes". Some of the "free choices" you claim people can make, will only be possible if some other people don't make those same choices.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- paulryanrogers 2y ago
  People don't chose the abilities or disabilities they're born with, nor those they receive at the hands of others. Many also don't have the choice to start a family, no matter how badly they want it.
  - andrewlgood 2y ago
    I never said people choose disabilities. I tried to point out there are other life changing issues that can affect a person that they also did not choose. As for starting a family, I agree not all can. My mistake was jumping from their assertion that I must be young to mean I did not have the responsibilities of an older worker such as taking care of a family. The less generous interpretation of that accusation is what? I am stupid? Ignorant of life? Not suffering from the impact of issues that I did not choose?
mykowebhn 2y ago
[flagged]
- giantg2 2y ago
  I didn't ask for your sympathy. I'm merely responding to someone who doesn't understand that others have factors that affect how hard it is to change jobs.
  - WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
    On a side note, I'm getting whiplash by how fast we go from It's your fault for having children [overpop, resource exhaustion] to It's your fault for not having children [low-birthrates] back to It's your fault for having children [whatever this is]
    - samuelson 2y ago
      FWIW: https://www.usaforunfpa.org/are-we-overpopulated-are-birth-rates-falling-too-fast-debunking-alarmist-population-myths/ https://www.usaforunfpa.org/are-we-overpopulated-are-birth-r... I think a lot of the "low-birthrate" fearmongering is just a way to distract people. Overpopulation was projected to be an issue, but we actually addressed it pretty well over the last 50-75 years and global average birth rates are in a pretty good place now.
- dasil003 2y ago
  That's a pretty weird and heartless thing to say. Having children is not a vice that deserves to be judged anymore than not having kids is. I could enumerate why fewer kids is bad for our collective future as a whole, but I won't, because the decision to have kids is a personal choice. Also, having kids is generally not the difference between having to work or not—most people have to work for a living regardless of family status. It's just that the stakes are higher when you have dependents.
  - mykowebhn 2y ago
tocs3 2y ago
Not passing any judgements on any life choices here, but occasional months off sounds like a good thing. I would not necessarily need to go anywhere to enjoy (make use of) the time. The notion of getting a month off with pay sounds good.
- giantg2 2y ago
  That sounds good, so long as there is similar employment at the end of it. As a sabbatical it sounds great. As a layoff, the uncertainty sounds crushing. It could take months to find a new position, especially with the disadvantages I have, I would likely need to start looking immediately and wouldn't be able to enjoy it.
  - bb88 2y ago
    Yeah, it's the same problem I have when the 20 somethings use the term "funemployment". If you're single and have no responsibilities, sure. The second you have a mortgage, medical conditions that need health insurance, or need money because you had a family emergency and had to dip into savings, it's not "funemployment" at all.
    - ghaff 2y ago
      There was a period in tech when a lot of people had a certain sentiment that they could drop a few emails and have a well-paying job the next week. That's never been the norm for professional work. During dot-bomb I was relatively lucky if not necessarily super-well compensated but I knew a lot of people who basically dropped out of the professional labor market.
  - tocs3 2y ago
    Just to be clear, I mean time off and returning to the same job. Shouldn't we be aiming for a future where we do not have to work like dogs to earn enough to struggle at home?
    - bb88 2y ago
suzzer99 2y ago
Yeah, the prospect of layoffs hits a little different when you're in your 50s. I have some non-techie friends in their 50s (sales, project management) who have been looking for a job for years. I've even heard third-hand about some good programmers in their 50s in LA in the same boat, although I don't know them personally. The last time I was looking for a job at age 48, I interviewed at a bunch of startups and only got a second interview from one. It was clear that most of them were never going with someone my age unless I'd written a book or had patents or something (or was ex-FAANG), even if they didn't consciously realize that.
- giantg2 2y ago
  Yep. The subliminal message I'm getting from my current managers is that I should just be a good little disabled person and work as a Walmart greeter. It's turning into harassment at this point. Just all sorts of BS. Like telling me they are doing so much for me, when my ADA accommodation is weekly 1-on-1s with the manager and my tech lead. Is that really a lot? There are people without disabilities getting weekly 1-on-1s with their managers. Maybe the weekly tech lead meeting is more than others get, but it doesn't seem that hard. I got told my productivity looked bad. I asked if he ran the numbers - he didn't. He didn't even look at my productivity before telling me it looked bad. I ran the numbers and I was in line with my peers. I would think that's the definition of bias... nobody gives a fuck. I didn't get my accommodation for 6 months last year and then they gave me a bad rating based on opinon and not metrics. They said me not getting the accommodations wasn't a factor in my performance (how?).
  - int_19h 2y ago
    A weekly or bi-weekly 1:1 with your manager has been the standard arrangement in my last two jobs.
    - giantg2 2y ago
      It's supposed to be bi-weekly here. But according to HR "that's not policy, just recommended". I had about 5-6 months were I only got 2 1-on-1s, and the feedback then was good. They completely dropped the ball and blamed it on the disabled guy.

andrewlgood 2y ago

I understand the trade offs you mention. I do disagree with your assertion that “Life is much harder for some of us.” You have chosen a different payoff - your family, certainty of health insurance, etc. You get the benefits that children bring and the joy of being a parent. The “young, childless people” have made a different choice - more freedom in employment decisions but no joy from children. Everyone has their own cost/benefit analyses on these issues. That is life.

margalabargala 2y ago
Your good health is an invisible crown that can only be seen by those who do not wear it.
- hakaneskici 2y ago
  Wisdom speaks. Hidden gem of this thread.
- soulofmischief 2y ago
  What a great saying. I feel this in my very core. Dealing with poverty in my youth, homeless at 16, no parents to help me, debilitating ADHD, tourettic OCD, bipolar type II, CPTSD from 10 years of intense childhood physical/emotional abuse, my full-ride college scholarships illegally stolen from me by a high school who knew I was homeless and had no recourse and allowed a teacher to illegally modify my grades out of pure spite, malnourished, intense, crippling sciatica, fused lumbar discs, possible fibromyalgia, and then developing excruciating daily pains and physical disability which greatly impacted my life and sometimes made me suicidal, which turned out to be an autoimmune disorder that took 10 years for doctors to figure out... an extremely intense case of gout developing since my teens... I just keep pushing on but every day I see people who take so much for granted, and who are so ready to pass judgement without appreciating the basic privilege of good health. I've had to deal with so much struggle that the average person wouldn't even want to take the time to hear all of it much less believe it, once someone momentarily realizes that they'd have it comparatively easy compared to others, they often get defensive as they begin to realize that their life doesn't have nearly as many barriers as they've convinced themselves, and they have to come to terms with not applying themselves harder. It's easier for them to be dismissive and tell me, "all your problems would go away if you worked out more" or tell me to get on a keto diet, or whatever have you, as if I haven't tried every single thing I can think of. And the insane thing is I am still quite privileged compared to some people in war-torn countries, even if they are able to move around without swallowing a truckload of ibuprofen. Reminding myself of that is a source of strength and determination to keep moving forward.
  - nthingtohide 2y ago
    “You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.” ― Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men
- andrewlgood 2y ago
  How do you know I have good health? What an incredibly smug comment meant to silence someone with no basis in fact.
  - margalabargala 2y ago
    Well, the person you originally replied to mentioned having a disability, and your response was "yeah but you have kids so really you chose this and also I disagree that life is harder for some people." The generous interpretation would be that you have sufficiently good health that you do not have to structure your life around it, and therefore lack understanding of the challenges faced by those who do. The alternate interpretation, that you do understand and choose to ignore and dismiss, would be rather less generous to you.
    - absolutelastone 2y ago
      So you took the generous route in publicly shaming them. I think their quibble was with a different item being used as evidence there (i.e., having a family), not necessarily with all that was said.
      - margalabargala 2y ago
        I didn't publicly shame anyone. I pointed out their clear position of privilege to help them learn to apply empathy. I think helping one another to build empathy is a good thing, and even if the person I replied to is unable to do so, it's possible that observing them tell a disabled person that they don't think their life is any harder will help other third parties such as yourself build that empathy. I did not flag their original comment, but it's not for no reason it was flagged to death.
        absolutelastone 2y ago
        Text is a fairly imprecise form of communication. It's pretty common for multiple people to get triggered by misreading a post the same way if such a misread is possible. In other cases downvoted posts are often the most interesting precisely because they trigger people with points they don't want to consider. I certainly wouldn't cite it as proof of any position.
giantg2 2y ago
Haha you must be young. It's entirely possible young people will make the same choices and face the same realities I currently do. They just havent gotten to that stage yet. Even comparing my life now to my life 10 years ago would show the younger me had an easier life. However, having a disability is not a choice, and in general makes life harder than those without a disability. Don't get me wrong - I believe life is hard for almost everyone at at least one point or another in unique ways and to varying degrees.
- andrewlgood 2y ago
  Actually, I am not young. I just retired and have been thinking about my life, career, etc. I do not have a disability (my wife may disagree) and I agree it makes life more challenging (wouldn’t be called a disability otherwise). I also agree with you that life can be hard, children are born with health challenges, children make poor decisions with terrible consequences, spouse dies, you get cancer, etc. We all need to get through these. That does not change the fact that we all have decisions to make everyday about our careers, our families, our health, our financial situation, and so on. When we look at those who made different decisions, it does not necessarily mean they made better or worse decisions, just different decisions. I have been thinking about this a lot recently. A former boss and good friend who is incredibly smart and effective in the work place asked why the two of us had never gone the PE route and been more successful. While he is very successful by most standards, he sees people flying private jets all the time who do not appear more skillful, yet have been more successful. As I think on this, I feel I simply was never willing to go all in on the risk required to achieve that level of financial success. I tried co-founding a company once when I was 28 while engaged and importantly, before children. I felt I could take the risk and if I failed, could bounce back. I did fail - company did ok but my I ended up disliking working with my senior partner - and I did bounce back, ending up at GE. After that, I did not feel comfortable taking that level of risk until my children were off to college and no longer dependent on me an I had enough money saved that my wife and I would be ok for a long time. The people I know who have been jet-money financially successful took huge risks. They were all in on their venture(s). Frequently this cost them their marriage and/or relationships with the children. This was their choice. Their cost/benefit analysis to optimize their success criteria. Some regret the decisions - they underestimated the effort and impact on those they cared about. However, most have not. They are happy with how things have turned out. Different strokes for different folks.
fifticon 2y ago
your argument sounds like "some people choose to do the dishes, some of us choose to let other people do the dishes". Some of the "free choices" you claim people can make, will only be possible if some other people don't make those same choices.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
paulryanrogers 2y ago
People don't chose the abilities or disabilities they're born with, nor those they receive at the hands of others. Many also don't have the choice to start a family, no matter how badly they want it.
- andrewlgood 2y ago
  I never said people choose disabilities. I tried to point out there are other life changing issues that can affect a person that they also did not choose. As for starting a family, I agree not all can. My mistake was jumping from their assertion that I must be young to mean I did not have the responsibilities of an older worker such as taking care of a family. The less generous interpretation of that accusation is what? I am stupid? Ignorant of life? Not suffering from the impact of issues that I did not choose?

mykowebhn 2y ago

[flagged]

giantg2 2y ago
I didn't ask for your sympathy. I'm merely responding to someone who doesn't understand that others have factors that affect how hard it is to change jobs.
- WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
  On a side note, I'm getting whiplash by how fast we go from It's your fault for having children [overpop, resource exhaustion] to It's your fault for not having children [low-birthrates] back to It's your fault for having children [whatever this is]
  - samuelson 2y ago
    FWIW: https://www.usaforunfpa.org/are-we-overpopulated-are-birth-rates-falling-too-fast-debunking-alarmist-population-myths/ https://www.usaforunfpa.org/are-we-overpopulated-are-birth-r... I think a lot of the "low-birthrate" fearmongering is just a way to distract people. Overpopulation was projected to be an issue, but we actually addressed it pretty well over the last 50-75 years and global average birth rates are in a pretty good place now.
dasil003 2y ago
That's a pretty weird and heartless thing to say. Having children is not a vice that deserves to be judged anymore than not having kids is. I could enumerate why fewer kids is bad for our collective future as a whole, but I won't, because the decision to have kids is a personal choice. Also, having kids is generally not the difference between having to work or not—most people have to work for a living regardless of family status. It's just that the stakes are higher when you have dependents.
- mykowebhn 2y ago

tocs3 2y ago

Not passing any judgements on any life choices here, but occasional months off sounds like a good thing. I would not necessarily need to go anywhere to enjoy (make use of) the time. The notion of getting a month off with pay sounds good.

giantg2 2y ago
That sounds good, so long as there is similar employment at the end of it. As a sabbatical it sounds great. As a layoff, the uncertainty sounds crushing. It could take months to find a new position, especially with the disadvantages I have, I would likely need to start looking immediately and wouldn't be able to enjoy it.
- bb88 2y ago
  Yeah, it's the same problem I have when the 20 somethings use the term "funemployment". If you're single and have no responsibilities, sure. The second you have a mortgage, medical conditions that need health insurance, or need money because you had a family emergency and had to dip into savings, it's not "funemployment" at all.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    There was a period in tech when a lot of people had a certain sentiment that they could drop a few emails and have a well-paying job the next week. That's never been the norm for professional work. During dot-bomb I was relatively lucky if not necessarily super-well compensated but I knew a lot of people who basically dropped out of the professional labor market.
- tocs3 2y ago
  Just to be clear, I mean time off and returning to the same job. Shouldn't we be aiming for a future where we do not have to work like dogs to earn enough to struggle at home?
  - bb88 2y ago

suzzer99 2y ago

Yeah, the prospect of layoffs hits a little different when you're in your 50s. I have some non-techie friends in their 50s (sales, project management) who have been looking for a job for years. I've even heard third-hand about some good programmers in their 50s in LA in the same boat, although I don't know them personally. The last time I was looking for a job at age 48, I interviewed at a bunch of startups and only got a second interview from one. It was clear that most of them were never going with someone my age unless I'd written a book or had patents or something (or was ex-FAANG), even if they didn't consciously realize that.

giantg2 2y ago
Yep. The subliminal message I'm getting from my current managers is that I should just be a good little disabled person and work as a Walmart greeter. It's turning into harassment at this point. Just all sorts of BS. Like telling me they are doing so much for me, when my ADA accommodation is weekly 1-on-1s with the manager and my tech lead. Is that really a lot? There are people without disabilities getting weekly 1-on-1s with their managers. Maybe the weekly tech lead meeting is more than others get, but it doesn't seem that hard. I got told my productivity looked bad. I asked if he ran the numbers - he didn't. He didn't even look at my productivity before telling me it looked bad. I ran the numbers and I was in line with my peers. I would think that's the definition of bias... nobody gives a fuck. I didn't get my accommodation for 6 months last year and then they gave me a bad rating based on opinon and not metrics. They said me not getting the accommodations wasn't a factor in my performance (how?).
- int_19h 2y ago
  A weekly or bi-weekly 1:1 with your manager has been the standard arrangement in my last two jobs.
  - giantg2 2y ago
    It's supposed to be bi-weekly here. But according to HR "that's not policy, just recommended". I had about 5-6 months were I only got 2 1-on-1s, and the feedback then was good. They completely dropped the ball and blamed it on the disabled guy.