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This essay just makes me feel so hopeless about our society. I don’t feel it’s right that employment has such weight in people’s lives that the search causes ps

This essay just makes me feel so hopeless about our society. I don’t feel it’s right that employment has such weight in people’s lives that the search causes psychological damage.

afpx 1y ago
It's tough to watch the change when not too long ago a software developer with decent skills could literally submit 5 resumes and end up with 3 good offers.
- fuzzfactor 1y ago
  The only way for anybody to have any good jobs at all is for millions to have none, and/or have nothing resembling formerly respectable pay. And it's got to last years or there will be no recovery for shareholders from what they've already suffered with a stagnant economy. In the 1970's it ended up 10x this bad or worse, in most technical fields at the time as well as non-tech. There was nothing else that could be done except recognize it was a crap shoot. There will be plenty of millions who do not lose their jobs, some will not even lose much momentum. There will be nowhere else for the "new normal" to coalesce around, after nothing else resembles the old normal for so long. As before, only the relatively unscathed will write the economic history of these years, and many less-fortunate millions are slated to be forgotten. The only other alternative is for everybody to take a steep pay cut, and all upwardly-mobile climbers to halt all momentum. What are the odds that could happen this time? And that still wouldn't allow hiring as many early-career professionals as there will be available for quite some time to come. Don't worry, employment is not where all the negative outcomes will affect future generations . . .
- dakiol 1y ago
  I'm not sure, but that's still happening. At least it happened to me this year. I consider myself a decent developer (in every job I have landed, I was always considered the "best" in the team after not much time in the job). I'm not faang-silicon-valley level, though. I haven't written a compiler or an OS, or contributed to the linux kernel. I have read all the popular tech books out there, I do more or less know what companies (and interviewers) want to hear, and I'm easy to work with. I'm in western europe. I think the situation in the US is way different, though. Also, for juniors (or people with less than 8-10 years of experience) is much harder, that's true.
creata 1y ago
Life used to be even worse than this, though. I know it's going to be deeply unpopular -- it always is -- but I never understood how reasonable people don't find bringing children into this world to be an act of abject cruelty.
- r_lee 1y ago
  I mean, if it's so cruel, then why wouldn't you just commit suicide? The reason why it's not cruel (IMO) is that there's hope for a better future, if you don't have kids, you will never be able to know. That's choosing to just not play the game, total darkness. There isn't an alternative universe to choose from.
  - creata 1y ago
    > then why wouldn't you just commit suicide? I'm trying not to upset the people around me.
    - mschild 1y ago
      Please, and I say this with love, seek psychological help. If that's the only thing from stopping you, you need to talk to someone.
      - r_lee 1y ago
        Agreed, but I would say talking to someone isn't a magical fix here. OP, I would be interested in knowing if that's the case, why are you posting here on HN, getting up in the morning, doing the things you do etc? Are you depressed (if so) in a physiological or psychological kind of way (because of something external?) I will say I am not doing too well, but still, if I look at things objectively right now, I'd still rather wait and see what happens in this world rather than choosing nothingness. My rock bottom is someone's heaven
      - vkou 1y ago
        This is good advice, but needs to be bookended with through research about your rights, and the consequences of discussing this with a medical professional, and all the various ways in which you can be fucked over. Because there are some incredibly serious consequences to it.
OgsyedIE 1y ago
It's just an abstracted and bureaucratic repackaging of the difficulty with searching for prey and forage during a succession of harsh seasons that some of our unluckier ancestors experienced, such as those who lived at the time of the Pleistocene Toba eruption. To the brainstem, employment is the process of hunting for food. No employment means there's no hunting going on.
someone7x 1y ago
In the recent UAP hearing, whistleblower Borland talked about how financial ruin is the real fear holding whistleblowers back: > Are you scared for your safety? > … I am not scared for my physical safety in the sense of an agency or company coming to kill me, but I have no job. My career has been tarnished. I'm unemployed. Living off of unemployment for the next three, four weeks until that's gone. So it's a complicated question. https://www.rev.com/transcripts/house-uap-whistleblower-hearing https://www.rev.com/transcripts/house-uap-whistleblower-hear...
pizzathyme 1y ago
There is something fundamentally broken about this entire user journey and industry. There are lots of jobs to fill. But hiring managers don't find people reading through resumes submitted in a form. People don't get jobs by submitting resumes into a form. The opportunities happen from talking on the phone, meeting someone for coffee. I feel like this entire resume submission industry should just be deleted.
- grogers 1y ago
  3 out of 3 jobs that I've had after college have been from submitting resumes into a form... It's not perfect but it can work
  - lurking_swe 1y ago
    agreed. And guess what? I was able to get a job without a network, right out of college in 2015! My last search was in late 2022 and I got a job with my (great) employer via an online form as well.
marginalia_nu 1y ago
I think a lot of people simply don't know what to do with themselves when they don't have a job. There are many psychological needs that jobs often provide for you that you have to sort out yourself when you don't have traditional employement. This is a problem you face through unemployement, but also self-employment and early retirement. At least in part, it's not so much not having a job as not having daily structure, not having a social context, and lacking a sense of belonging. Lacking these factors will absolutely ruin your mental well-being. These aren't things that are impossible to find when unemployed (or otherwise not working), but if you've spent most of your life being told what to do, first in school and then at work, you've got some figuring out to do.
- throwawayoldie 1y ago
  > I think a lot of people simply don't know what to do with themselves when they don't have a job. I would be perfectly happy without a job. It's the income I'm concerned about.
  - 3D30497420 1y ago
    Agreed. I have can think of about a dozen things I'd love to do if I didn't have a full-time job. Unfortunately, most cost at least some amount of money (not to mention food, a roof over my head, etc.).
    - throwawayoldie 1y ago
      As a friend of mine put it, "I don't know if UBI would take people out of the workforce, but it would probably take me out of the workforce."
      - atemerev 1y ago
        UBI sadly is purely a fantasy. We don't have money even for retirement funding, which shows cracks in every country. And UBI is basically a lifetime pension.
the_real_cher 1y ago
It's less the employment and more the eating and shelter that the employment provides.

This essay just makes me feel so hopeless about our society. I don’t feel it’s right that employment has such weight in people’s lives that the search causes psychological damage.

afpx 1y ago

It's tough to watch the change when not too long ago a software developer with decent skills could literally submit 5 resumes and end up with 3 good offers.

fuzzfactor 1y ago
The only way for anybody to have any good jobs at all is for millions to have none, and/or have nothing resembling formerly respectable pay. And it's got to last years or there will be no recovery for shareholders from what they've already suffered with a stagnant economy. In the 1970's it ended up 10x this bad or worse, in most technical fields at the time as well as non-tech. There was nothing else that could be done except recognize it was a crap shoot. There will be plenty of millions who do not lose their jobs, some will not even lose much momentum. There will be nowhere else for the "new normal" to coalesce around, after nothing else resembles the old normal for so long. As before, only the relatively unscathed will write the economic history of these years, and many less-fortunate millions are slated to be forgotten. The only other alternative is for everybody to take a steep pay cut, and all upwardly-mobile climbers to halt all momentum. What are the odds that could happen this time? And that still wouldn't allow hiring as many early-career professionals as there will be available for quite some time to come. Don't worry, employment is not where all the negative outcomes will affect future generations . . .
dakiol 1y ago
I'm not sure, but that's still happening. At least it happened to me this year. I consider myself a decent developer (in every job I have landed, I was always considered the "best" in the team after not much time in the job). I'm not faang-silicon-valley level, though. I haven't written a compiler or an OS, or contributed to the linux kernel. I have read all the popular tech books out there, I do more or less know what companies (and interviewers) want to hear, and I'm easy to work with. I'm in western europe. I think the situation in the US is way different, though. Also, for juniors (or people with less than 8-10 years of experience) is much harder, that's true.

creata 1y ago

Life used to be even worse than this, though. I know it's going to be deeply unpopular -- it always is -- but I never understood how reasonable people don't find bringing children into this world to be an act of abject cruelty.

r_lee 1y ago
I mean, if it's so cruel, then why wouldn't you just commit suicide? The reason why it's not cruel (IMO) is that there's hope for a better future, if you don't have kids, you will never be able to know. That's choosing to just not play the game, total darkness. There isn't an alternative universe to choose from.
- creata 1y ago
  > then why wouldn't you just commit suicide? I'm trying not to upset the people around me.
  - mschild 1y ago
    Please, and I say this with love, seek psychological help. If that's the only thing from stopping you, you need to talk to someone.
    - r_lee 1y ago
      Agreed, but I would say talking to someone isn't a magical fix here. OP, I would be interested in knowing if that's the case, why are you posting here on HN, getting up in the morning, doing the things you do etc? Are you depressed (if so) in a physiological or psychological kind of way (because of something external?) I will say I am not doing too well, but still, if I look at things objectively right now, I'd still rather wait and see what happens in this world rather than choosing nothingness. My rock bottom is someone's heaven
    - vkou 1y ago
      This is good advice, but needs to be bookended with through research about your rights, and the consequences of discussing this with a medical professional, and all the various ways in which you can be fucked over. Because there are some incredibly serious consequences to it.

OgsyedIE 1y ago

It's just an abstracted and bureaucratic repackaging of the difficulty with searching for prey and forage during a succession of harsh seasons that some of our unluckier ancestors experienced, such as those who lived at the time of the Pleistocene Toba eruption. To the brainstem, employment is the process of hunting for food. No employment means there's no hunting going on.

someone7x 1y ago

In the recent UAP hearing, whistleblower Borland talked about how financial ruin is the real fear holding whistleblowers back: > Are you scared for your safety? > … I am not scared for my physical safety in the sense of an agency or company coming to kill me, but I have no job. My career has been tarnished. I'm unemployed. Living off of unemployment for the next three, four weeks until that's gone. So it's a complicated question. https://www.rev.com/transcripts/house-uap-whistleblower-hearing https://www.rev.com/transcripts/house-uap-whistleblower-hear...

pizzathyme 1y ago

There is something fundamentally broken about this entire user journey and industry. There are lots of jobs to fill. But hiring managers don't find people reading through resumes submitted in a form. People don't get jobs by submitting resumes into a form. The opportunities happen from talking on the phone, meeting someone for coffee. I feel like this entire resume submission industry should just be deleted.

grogers 1y ago
3 out of 3 jobs that I've had after college have been from submitting resumes into a form... It's not perfect but it can work
- lurking_swe 1y ago
  agreed. And guess what? I was able to get a job without a network, right out of college in 2015! My last search was in late 2022 and I got a job with my (great) employer via an online form as well.

marginalia_nu 1y ago

I think a lot of people simply don't know what to do with themselves when they don't have a job. There are many psychological needs that jobs often provide for you that you have to sort out yourself when you don't have traditional employement. This is a problem you face through unemployement, but also self-employment and early retirement. At least in part, it's not so much not having a job as not having daily structure, not having a social context, and lacking a sense of belonging. Lacking these factors will absolutely ruin your mental well-being. These aren't things that are impossible to find when unemployed (or otherwise not working), but if you've spent most of your life being told what to do, first in school and then at work, you've got some figuring out to do.

throwawayoldie 1y ago
> I think a lot of people simply don't know what to do with themselves when they don't have a job. I would be perfectly happy without a job. It's the income I'm concerned about.
- 3D30497420 1y ago
  Agreed. I have can think of about a dozen things I'd love to do if I didn't have a full-time job. Unfortunately, most cost at least some amount of money (not to mention food, a roof over my head, etc.).
  - throwawayoldie 1y ago
    As a friend of mine put it, "I don't know if UBI would take people out of the workforce, but it would probably take me out of the workforce."
    - atemerev 1y ago
      UBI sadly is purely a fantasy. We don't have money even for retirement funding, which shows cracks in every country. And UBI is basically a lifetime pension.

the_real_cher 1y ago

It's less the employment and more the eating and shelter that the employment provides.