[HN Gopher] The hero's journey of getting laid off
___________________________________________________________________
The hero's journey of getting laid off
Author : georgex7
Score : 75 points
Date : 2022-08-02 16:06 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (backtohumanity.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (backtohumanity.substack.com)
| jesse__ wrote:
| > A monk is more financially independent than a hedge fund
| manager with a Lamborghini addiction
|
| This just tickles me. Great analogy.
| georgex7 wrote:
| Thanks :)
| kache_ wrote:
| Market still seems hot for senior/staff devs. Getting laid off is
| a free lunch + a paid vacation to interview for a better job.
| Thank god I listened to my mom and learned to code.
| colechristensen wrote:
| It's a little stressful but a reminder that real wealth is the
| freedom to not be employed for a little while.
|
| Keep six months expenses on hand to deal with this kind of
| thing and you won't have to be afraid of being laid off. Like
| you say, if you're prepared it's a free vacation and and
| opportunity to be picky with your next job.
| ge96 wrote:
| Yeah I'm looking forward to being free (fire). Right now it's
| like "ugh gotta get through my 9-5 before I can do what I
| want to do".
|
| Still I'm fortunate/could be worse.
| antiverse wrote:
| @dang need the link fixed to this:
| https://backtohumanity.substack.com/p/getting-laid-off
| madengr wrote:
| mysterydip wrote:
| Getting laid off was the "cold water shock" I needed to rewrite
| what had been drilled into me since grade school: if you work
| hard and do your job, you'll always have one and your hard work
| will eventually result in promotions.
|
| I took that experience and changed what kind of jobs I looked
| for, and found one I'm much happier with.
| georgex7 wrote:
| Awesome :)
| abrichr wrote:
| > changed what kind of jobs I looked for,
|
| Can you please clarify? What were you looking for before and
| after?
| mysterydip wrote:
| Used to be pay and upward mobility potential. Now it's
| stability, work life balance, not on call, and other
| intangibles.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I really enjoyed that!
|
| I was laid off my last job. It was totally expected (I saw it
| coming, years ahead), and the "forcing function" for me, was
| encountering the Brick Wall of Silicon Valley Ageism.
|
| It forced me to accept that I was in early retirement; whether or
| not I liked it.
|
| Turns out, it was the best thing that could have happened to me.
|
| _META: He may want to reconsider his choice of thumbnails. I
| think it 's a great one, but Disney has a rather fearsome
| reputation for going after even the smallest misuses of its IP._
| tra3 wrote:
| I'm thankful that the school that I attended forced us to take
| electives outside of Computer Science and Engineering. I took
| some Psychology classes. The list of stressful events was very
| surprising to me. The author alludes to it in the post. I recall
| that typically "happy" events are stressful, too.
|
| Here's the list [0]:
|
| Death of a spouse (or child*): 100
|
| Divorce: 73
|
| Marital separation: 65
|
| Imprisonment: 63
|
| Death of a close family member: 63
|
| Personal injury or illness: 53
|
| Marriage: 50
|
| Dismissal from work: 47
|
| Marital reconciliation: 45
|
| Retirement: 45
|
| I recently went through a layoff, like probably quite a few in
| our industry lately, so it rings very true to me.
|
| [0]: https://paindoctor.com/top-10-stressful-life-events-
| holmes-r...
| bitL wrote:
| One can address the stress of layoffs by switching over to
| becoming a consultant, slowly ramping up premiums, treating
| each job as something that can end the next day, and scheduling
| the life with that in mind (i.e. not putting all your eggs into
| a single basket, talking to other "job-providers" all the time
| etc.).
| tra3 wrote:
| I would love to become a consultant. Any suggestions on how
| to do it? I feel like consulting a skill set different from
| being a developer. I think some folks fall into it, but I
| certainly haven't been able to.
| Cd00d wrote:
| My dad always said the three most stressful things were:
|
| Changing jobs, changing homes, changing relationships
|
| Try not to do all 3 at once :)
|
| But, I think you framed it better - a lot of people interpret
| what my dad said as the negative, but it really is the status
| "change" that matters.
| nus07 wrote:
| What's my score according to my timeline of events - Late 2016-
| Layoff Early 2017- moved across country for new job Mid 2018-
| Got married Mid 2018- Layoff from second company Mid 2018-Mid
| 2019 - Moved away and back for two jobs Oct 2019 - Started new
| job Nov 2019 - Birth of child Dec 2019 - Death of father Mar
| 2020 - Cannot visit mother for 2 years due to Covid
|
| I think my score is about 210-290 for the last 4-5 years . And
| I am supposed to keep a high performance because of health
| insurance and keeping my visa lol.
| troelsSteegin wrote:
| from [0]: Each event is assigned a "Life Change Unit" score.
| These are then added together over a year and used to predict
| your risk of illness.
|
| So, it's a scale on a predictor of health impacts, vs say a
| measure of intensity.
| ragnot wrote:
| Funny how retirement and dismissal from work are so similar.
| OrangeMonkey wrote:
| I'm sorry, but I can't disagree more strongly.
|
| Getting laid off is a traumatic event. It is not a hero's journey
| except in so far as a hero's journey is exciting because it talks
| about a path through dangerous times where a person can fail.
|
| I, and likely many of us, have a family. We are blessed to work
| in technology where we earn more than we make and can put up
| savings for rainy days.
|
| The average person with a family who gets laid off will not sense
| adventure - they will have despair. Utter despair and
| worthlessness and the hope they can get things back together
| before their family suffers.
|
| Heck even us tech workers can feel that way. The most depressed
| time of my entire life was after I had been laid off. It was bad
| enough that I was having negative thoughts almost every day
| nonstop. It was traumatic enough that it fundamentally changed my
| approach to savings, life, and risk (likely for the worst).
|
| I am better now, have a family, a career I enjoy, but I now know
| how easy it is for the veneer to be ripped away. Its not a hero's
| journey - its a nightmare.
| georgex7 wrote:
| > Getting laid off is a traumatic event.
|
| I agree that it is for many, but in my case it wasn't.
|
| > It is not a hero's journey except in so far as a hero's
| journey is exciting because it talks about a path through
| dangerous times where a person can fail.
|
| Difficult events are often found at the beginning on the hero's
| journey... like getting laid off.
|
| > The average person with a family who gets laid off will not
| sense adventure - they will have despair. Utter despair and
| worthlessness and the hope they can get things back together
| before their family suffers.
|
| I totally agree with this. I originally wrote more about this
| but I reduced it to: "Most, unfortunately, will never hear it
| over their newborn's cries or the deafening financial storms
| that suffocate them." This will be terrible for many people,
| and I have endless sympathy for them. But there will be others
| who gain from this.
| colechristensen wrote:
| It is much less of a nightmare if you're prepared for this kind
| of predicable eventuality.
|
| If you're living paycheck to paycheck it's a nightmare, if
| you've got months saved up set aside for exactly this kind of
| thing it's a vacation.
| shortstuffsushi wrote:
| Calling it a "predictable eventuality" implies the victim is
| at fault for not preparing. I have a number of friends (of
| course, not software devs) who are aware that their company
| may at any point dump them (one company goes even so far as
| to say regularly "everyone is replaceable," and I have not
| been able to talk said friend out of leaving...). Due to a
| variety of reasons / excuses, they can't or won't leave these
| companies, and are not financially well off, so when it
| _does_ come, they 're going to be SOL. It's not un-
| preparedness, it's inability to get ahead of it. Yes, some of
| them could be making better fiscal decisions, but others are
| trapped by kids, medical conditions.. etc.
| colechristensen wrote:
| I really am blaming the "victim" of a layoff of an upper
| class engineering job if they suffer the consequences of
| setting up their lives as though they will always be
| employed without gaps.
|
| It is not a lot to ask for someone in the top x% of earners
| to set aside a few months' expenses instead of spending
| every dollar on housing/food/entertainment/etc.
|
| There are situations where employers do mistreat employees,
| but failing to guarantee perpetual employment is not one of
| them.
| Clubber wrote:
| It depends. I got laid off during the dot bomb (contract
| not renewed) and I had 4 months of money saved up. I was
| out of work for 6 and had to move to a new city. The dot
| bomb + 9/11 was pretty devastating for the area I had
| worked in. I had only been in the biz for a few years and
| didn't make that much as a tech person. It was also a
| techie college town, so there was lots of labor supply.
|
| I got laid off again about 3 years ago. It was nice. I
| got an immediate offer from someone I had worked with
| before. I wished I could have taken more time off. I
| currently have several years of expenses available to me.
|
| It really depends on where you are in your career. Money
| really is freedom in the US, try not to spend it
| carelessly.
| bombcar wrote:
| People treat being laid off like they treat death - it's
| something they intellectually know can happen, and does
| happen to others, but they're always entirely surprised
| when it happens to them.
|
| Many people (myself included!) have a hard time saving
| against potential outcomes and find it convenient to
| explain away why I don't (as I spend money on non-
| necessities).
| cableshaft wrote:
| I've been laid off six times. It was a surprise once, the
| first time, an early job at Wal-mart. The other five
| times I could see it coming (and three of those times I
| had already started actively interviewing elsewhere).
| Three of those jobs were small businesses in the video
| game industry, where layoffs after a game is finished and
| released are pretty common.
|
| I was actually more surprised that I somehow didn't get
| laid off at a previous corporation that had multiple
| rounds of deep layoffs, especially considering how often
| I had been laid off in the past.
|
| In fact I found out when the department head put in his
| notice that I was on the list of one of those layoffs,
| but so many people quit in the meantime that they didn't
| need to lay off as many people, so he was able to take me
| off the list. I stayed there a little too long, through
| inertia and also I had so many 1 to 1.5 year job "hops"
| from all those previous layoffs I felt I should stick
| around a bit longer to show I am able to stick with a
| company when they let me.
|
| It would have been a blessing if they had laid me off,
| though, it would have forced me to find a much better job
| much earlier.
| bombcar wrote:
| This strikes at the heart of the matter - you want the 6
| mo or 1 yr "nest egg" so you don't have to _wait_ for the
| company to tell you it 's time to move on - you can jump
| ship earlier once you start noticing the signs.
|
| Few do, however.
| shortstuffsushi wrote:
| Definitely, and I don't mean it to sound like these
| people couldn't be making better choices, but once you've
| dug your hole deep enough, it's hard to ever get to a
| point where you can be "safe" from this sort of thing.
| Even if they knew, for example, that the company was
| shutting down for a month starting in six months, the
| likelihood of being able to stow away ~ two paychecks
| during that window is quite small.
| ghaff wrote:
| >but they're always entirely surprised when it happens to
| them.
|
| Not always. When I was laid off I wasn't surprised in the
| slightest. There had already been layoffs and the company
| eventually effectively shut down.
| OrangeMonkey wrote:
| Some people may think of it as a vacation. I don't think most
| people in the world would and not even most people in
| technology.
|
| In my own experience, it was a sense of worthlessness that
| seeped into me daily. I was newly married, my wife
| supportive, but it was constantly between us. "How did it go
| today, did you find anything interesting? No - ok, no
| worries, I'm sure something will pop up."
|
| Deep depression and a sense that you are failing your family,
| that if you had tried harder maybe it wouldn't have happened,
| that you arn't successful and that is why noone would want to
| have you.
|
| Funny. I had thought I was over it - its been a long long
| long time - but I find myself affected even writing this.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Contrast it with my experience where my wife was 100%
| supportive of me taking multiple months of not working at
| all and not really looking to recover from my time at my
| previous employer.
|
| I think you're presupposing that your experience is
| universal. I felt refreshed and reinvigorated when I
| started my new job, not panicked and depressed, because I
| had created for myself a solid support structure for such
| eventualities (financially and socially).
|
| I would argue that the real key here is preparation; if you
| can set yourself up not to be harmed by something _like_ a
| lay off, you will be much more likely to go through it in a
| positive way than if you leave it up to fate to decide how
| and when you experience such a potentially negative event.
| diob wrote:
| The majority of folks are forced to live paycheck to
| paycheck, not of their own volition. I'd be fine for quite
| some time, heck I could probably semi retire so to speak.
| aetherson wrote:
| The majority of which folks? People in the world?
| Certainly. People in history? Even more certainly. People
| in the United States of America? ...I mean, probably not
| actually a majority, but certainly lots of people in the US
| would have difficulty putting away months' worth of savings
| without really rigorous amounts of financial discipline.
|
| The majority of _people who read Hacker News_? Uh. No.
| diob wrote:
| It's nearly impossible for folks outside our industry (or
| some comparable industry in terms of pay).
|
| Car trouble? Savings gone. Any sort of medical issue?
| Savings gone.
|
| I actually think those folks are more financially
| disciplined than us, given they somehow make it work
| despite their low pay.
| aetherson wrote:
| Median household income in the US is about $67k, and of
| course median cost of living the US is much lower than in
| the SF Bay area. It is thoroughly possible to put away
| enough money to pay for car troubles or many kinds of
| medical problems without superhuman financial discipline
| for most households in the US.
|
| Now:
|
| 1. Is there a substantial minority who genuinely can only
| really live hand-to-mouth in the US? Yes.
|
| 2. Is it obviously much easier for those of us who have
| tech-job incomes to put away substantial savings than it
| is for the median family? Also yes.
|
| 3. Am I personally some kind of paragon of financial
| discipline? No.
|
| 4. Is it understandable why many people live closer to
| paycheck-to-paycheck than they could? Yes.
|
| But I don't think that hyperbole serves anyone here.
| diob wrote:
| I think actual numbers are hard to come by, but I would
| say it's like a "go do it then" sort of thing. It's easy
| for well off folks to offer thoughts / advice.
|
| Go accept a $67k job (which is actually higher than each
| of my non tech friends, but whatever), and then go live
| somewhere on that (renting too!). After a few years, show
| me how much you've saved. I have zero doubt you'll find
| it's been eaten up by emergencies, etc. Then get laid
| off! Hopefully you don't have family to take care of
| either. I don't even want to think about what happens to
| your health in that time (fitness, nutrition, etc.).
|
| That's why I have major respect for folks who do it. I
| don't think I'd have the resolve.
|
| That's also why I fight for better pay / social safety
| net for all. They shouldn't have to live like that.
| aetherson wrote:
| I think actual numbers aren't at all hard to come by,
| this is extremely well-studied and easily available to
| anyone by Googling. But I see that now we're going to go,
| "Well, the anecdotes of my friends trump actual data."
| diob wrote:
| As I said, go do it! Most studies I've seen state that
| it's hard to know because paycheck to paycheck is such a
| loaded word. And it's easy to access that the majority of
| Americans end up in medical debt in their lifetime.
| aetherson wrote:
| Sure, yes, I'll upend my life for multiple years in order
| to satisfy the demands of a random HN poster. That seems
| highly reasonable. Quick question: how many times have
| you completely changed your entire life because someone
| on the internet told you that you weren't allowed to have
| a comment before you did that?
| sleepdreamy wrote:
| Actually - over half the country is living pay-check to
| paycheck. We are lucky to do what we do, don't forget
| that.
|
| I worked a ton of awful jobs before breaking into the
| industry. A lot of people don't know what it's like to be
| stepped on in STEM fields but its a constant thing for
| lower echelons of our society. Cold World
| colechristensen wrote:
| Forced? No.
|
| The majority of Americans who live paycheck to paycheck
| choose to live paycheck to paycheck and act like every
| expense is an obligation.
|
| I, to be fair, have been one of them for significant
| amounts of time, but I chose it and the consequences which
| were of my own making.
| badpun wrote:
| People have very different paychecks, very different family
| sizes and essential needs (such as necessary medication
| etc.). And yet, majority of people have to spend exactly
| their entire paycheck? I don't buy that. Sounds more like,
| for a lot of people, the lifestyle is inflated to as much
| as the paycheck allows.
| ghaff wrote:
| It very much depends on a lot of things including the
| economic conditions at the time.
|
| I was laid off almost immediately after 9/11 in the midst of
| dot-bomb. As it turned out, I almost immediately landed a new
| job with someone I knew. It was a pay cut and that company
| barely made it through the dot-bomb aftermath itself. But it
| was a comparatively good landing considering. I wasn't about
| to starve but you didn't want to be cashing in stock at the
| time. And I definitely knew, especially older, people who
| lost their jobs in that period and never really recovered in
| terms of financial position or career.
|
| Under those circumstances, unless you have a lot of cash
| tucked away, you probably shouldn't be treating it as a
| vacation. I wouldn't say it was traumatic for me--I pretty
| much knew it was coming and I lucked out--but it could have
| been quite bad as I didn't have so much as a nibble from
| anyone else I talked to.
| kache_ wrote:
| The hero's journey is about facing a nightmare and emerging
| successful. So that sense, it is a hero's journey. Not everyone
| succeeds, but if you emerge, you are better for it.
|
| Being so dependent on your employer that it would ruin your
| life if they terminated your contract is probably not a good
| thing. A hero's journey is about remediating that deficiency.
| For some people, being laid off may have been a good thing.
| CraigJPerry wrote:
| I never found the capitalist answer to this problem to be
| realistic - if you can't find a new job then relocate. The
| advice is sound from an economic point of view but it's
| unrealistic from a human perspective for most people. There are
| small numbers of people who naturally thrive moving location to
| location but most of us have family or just feel a sense of
| belonging to a particular place or don't want to go through the
| hassle of being treated as an immigrant somewhere else -
| another aspect that humans have historically been bad at is
| adapting to people arriving from elsewhere.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Not to mention the overwhelming feeling of failure when you
| have to tell your kids they are moving away from their
| friends and everything they know because you lost your job.
| diob wrote:
| Not only that, but moving is not free! You need money to
| move, often a good chunk of it. Throw in family (not a single
| person), and you've got a nightmare of coordination.
| cardanome wrote:
| Never do anything your love for money. If you are intrinsically
| motivated to do something bringing external factors like money
| into it might ruin you motivation and love for the thing you had.
| High chance of burn out.
|
| Find work that has great synergy with your hobbies/interest but
| is not exactly the same. Either requiring similar skill or being
| the the same or related field. That way they will fuel each
| other.
|
| And most importantly, don't try to find meaning in your work
| (except maybe if you work in non-market driven employments like
| education/health care but sill beware). That is something a
| simple farmer that directly interacts with his produce might have
| experienced but modern capitalism it way too alienating for that
| to work. Most of the time you wont be even able to tell if you
| individual output makes any difference and if so for better for
| worse.
|
| Find meaning outside work.
| georgex7 wrote:
| I think people should strive to find meaning in work, even if
| it's difficult. If they can't, then at least they gave it a
| shot. And of course, you should find meaning outside of work as
| well.
| throwkeepno wrote:
| Honestly I've been fired 6 times. And I'm thankful for each one
| for the same reason as the author. Grateful even.
|
| Life is huge - humongous even and you owe it to yourself to
| explore.
|
| The world is a very large place. You can succeed in very
| different ways as long as your provide value. In a lot of
| situations and places that bar of value is lower than what you
| are accustomed to.
|
| I've known Billionaire founders who know little about business or
| code, software engineers who made more money selling shoes
| online.
|
| W.r.t decisions:
|
| People seem to need these "Walls" that they need to run into to
| be forced to make a decision about their lives - layoffs,
| firings, family care issues, health issues etc.
|
| Don't fight it- go with the flow. Use those to do what you really
| want to do or at least to give it a brief try.
|
| A low cost of living is the only thing that really gives you a
| robust form of freedom.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Any tips for being the guy who gets laid off? I'd like to have an
| excuse to take a few months break but when layoffs happen they
| never pick me.
| lianna-vba wrote:
| You can tactfully tell your manager that in a 1:1. I've had co-
| workers do that - the volunteering employee gets severance and
| the manager doesn't have to stress about a name for the list.
|
| Success depends on your relationship with your manager and if
| they actually have control over who gets let go.
| jedberg wrote:
| Volunteer when you hear layoffs are coming. Just tell your boss
| you'd like to be on the list.
|
| They will usually oblige you because you are solving a problem
| for them (meeting their cut headcount requirements) and they
| know that if you stay you might leave anyway and if you don't
| you'll be unhappy.
|
| Heck, if they layoff is a surprise, ask your boss if you can
| swap with someone else. They often have the flexibility to do
| that.
| bombcar wrote:
| Slowly reduce your output relative to others.
|
| Stop picking up extra work just because you can do it.
|
| Start working less hard (spend a few hours a day on hacker
| news, for example).
|
| Sadly, the above often results in _more_ promotions and being
| considered more important, for some reason. I can 't explain
| it.
| MerelyMortal wrote:
| Maybe ' _They 're so busy, they can't do it any faster /
| can't take on any more work._' ?
| duxup wrote:
| I got laid off from a company after nearly 20 years of work
| there. I was very lucky to get a big company layoff type package
| of ~ 9 months of pay. I decided to take it as opportunity to do
| new things.
|
| It was still a worrying experience, had kids, family to take care
| of, but I chose to take that money and time and enroll in a
| coding boot camp and go in a new direction in life after age 40.
| I figured I wasn't going to see a lump sum of 9 months pay and
| time to do something with it ever again so I was going to take
| advantage of it.
|
| Years later now I'm very happy with the decision. Starting over
| was stressful, but I'm much happier with what I do now... and I
| don't think I would have done it if I hadn't been laid off.
|
| It was still traumatic, but I don't think I would be on this side
| of things had it been easier...
| cm2012 wrote:
| Similar story here. I was laid off after 4 years with a
| company, got 3 months severance. I used it to try freelancing
| while looking for full time jobs - it ended out working out
| really well and I am more fulfilled and make much more money
| now. I wouldn't have taken the leap without the layoff.
| the_af wrote:
| Awesome that it worked out for you! That said, 9 months of pay
| as severance for _20 years_ of work seems a bit disappointing.
|
| In my country it's currently one month of pay _per year worked_
| for layoffs where the employee was not at fault.
| scarby2 wrote:
| where is this? I've lived a few places and never heard of
| something so generous.
|
| It's normally closer to 1-2 weeks per year. Also in the UK,
| ireland and france they put a very low cap on the weekly pay.
| the_af wrote:
| Argentina.
|
| The downsides of living here are discussed elsewhere, of
| course. But let's not get sidetracked :)
| christkv wrote:
| In Spain it's 22 days per year worked up to 24 months I
| think. But the pay is also exempt from income tax.
| blibble wrote:
| in the UK the cap is for the statutory redundancy
|
| if the employer wishes to give you more they are perfectly
| free to (and it's very, very common to)
| [deleted]
| georgex7 wrote:
| WOW what a story. And what an epic layoff package ;)
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| 9 months after 20 years doesn't seem particularly great.
| Heck, I got 6 months severance + 6 months of paid health
| insurance after being at a large corp for only 2.5 years - it
| was a buyout, ie. they were asking for volunteers to take
| severance to leave so they wouldn't need to do an actual
| involuntary layoff later. Seemed like a great deal and I had
| another gig 6 months later so it was kind of an extended
| vacay.
| cableshaft wrote:
| At my last corporation, they had severance set at 1 week of
| pay per year worked, up to a max of 4 weeks for 4 years
| worked.
|
| It all depends on the corporation.
| brightball wrote:
| The teleco I used to work for gave people 2 weeks pay for
| every year a person was with the company when they had post
| merger layoffs. I don't know if there's a standard but that
| seems to line up pretty close.
| brycewray wrote:
| In my case, was one week for every year -- so 16 weeks for
| (just short of) 17 years.
| duxup wrote:
| Yup that was roughly the number they used / how it worked
| out.
| paulcole wrote:
| > Why are the smartest people in the world working on delivery
| food?
|
| They probably aren't. Some of them are really smart. Some of them
| are pretty dumb. Some are determined and hardworking. Some are
| lazy. Most are more or less somewhere in the middle.
|
| I don't know why anyone would assume the smartest people in the
| world are working on delivery food (I understand the subtext of
| the-smartest-people-are-choosing-to-work-on-apps-ad-tech-etc but
| I just don't buy it)?
| bombcar wrote:
| People assume "highest paid" = "smartest" because the
| assumption is if you're smart you'll go where the money is.
|
| This is not always true. And smarts/talent aren't completely
| interchangeable, either.
| georgex7 wrote:
| A lot of startups are incredibly marginal, and a lot of the
| smartest, most determined people start those companies. There
| are so many brilliant people building payroll software and HR
| data normalization companies. Yes, they have lucrative markets,
| but are they really what our best and brightest should be
| working on? And with regards to staffing, these companies do
| recruit smart CS kids from MIT, Stanford, etc. so there is a
| misallocation of talent that exists.
| paulcole wrote:
| You're doing the same thing as the article writer. Just
| assuming that these people are "our best and brightest." What
| is there to tell us that other than they're getting paid a
| lot of money and they went to a prestigious school? It's a
| nice story to tell but that's all it is IMO.
| efficax wrote:
| everyone in this industry loves to think that they're
| surrounded by (and accordingly one of) the smartest people in
| the world. Sure, some people in tech are very very smart, but
| many, maybe most, of the smartest people in the world, don't
| work in tech at all (they work as researchers, in universities)
| the_af wrote:
| Thanks for pointing this out. It's entirely possible, even
| likely, that the smartest people in the world don't work in
| tech, or finance, or any of the topics us HN readers find
| dearest.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| _Over the coming months, tens (if not hundreds) of thousands will
| be laid off. This event will be the call to adventure for those
| that were disillusioned but hadn't considered changing their
| professions._
|
| (Or even just changing their job/company within the same
| profession.)
|
| The layoffs in tech have started. It won't be as bad as the
| 2001-2004 dot com debacle. Possibly not as bad as the 2008-2012
| period was (which wasn't as bad for tech vs the previous
| downturn, but was just bad overall). If you've prepared then this
| will be the pause that refreshes. The break you've been needing
| for a few years now. A time to regroup, learn new things, rethink
| your priorities. Recessions need not be fearsome things if you've
| got a good emergency fund and you can live frugally for a while.
| I used the '01-'04 downturn to go back to school and get a
| Masters degree. I view that time positively.
| r_hoods_ghost wrote:
| I suspect it will be much, much worse, for USAians anyway. So
| many companies have now moved almost fully remote and are
| looking at their payroll thinking - "Why am I paying an
| American dev $100,000+ when I can pay a European $50,000, or
| someone from the developing world $25,000?" Great for devs in
| the rest of the world of course.
| snapetom wrote:
| You're going to be shocked at prices these days. Paying some
| poor soul from some poverty stricken developing country, and
| expect them to be grateful for just a job, is an archaic
| notion. In Latin America, the price is near US levels thanks
| to companies like Amazon heavily investing there these past 5
| years or so. Salary at intermediate and above prices are
| nearly on par with US skill levels, but you do save on
| employment taxes so there's that.
| r_hoods_ghost wrote:
| Uh huh... This is just wrong. So the median Brazilian dev
| salary is 58000 BRL or about $22000 USD [1]
|
| The median US dev salary is $73900 using the same search
| criteria on the same site.
|
| In the UK it is $37000. I'm in the UK and this passes the
| sniff test as a median base salary.
|
| Obviously it's more if you're in certain industries or work
| for certain companies (faangs).
|
| US software developers are massively overpayed compared to
| devs internationally. Devs in the Bay Area are massively
| overpayed compared to devs in the rest of the USA. You all
| just haven't realised this yet.
|
| [1]https://www.payscale.com/research/BR/Job=Software_Develo
| per/...
| snapetom wrote:
| You're leveraging historically bad pound/dollar
| conversion rates to get that figure. In general, US
| salaries are higher because of the lack of social
| services. $37k for a UK dev, I don't buy. I worked with
| Belgian devs, intermediate to senior, ten years ago and
| they were at $60k/year.
|
| Regardless, that site has some very problematic data.
| Maybe Brazil does have a lower cost compared to other
| South American countries, but that site is also claiming
| Argentinian devs making 3700 USD per year, which is
| ludicrous. We can't attract even junior ones for any less
| than 5k per month.
| r_hoods_ghost wrote:
| And you're not showing any data at all. Please show some
| that shows devs in the USA aren't over compensated
| relative to the rest of the world. Until you do I will
| assume you are just using anecdata because you want to
| pretend that what? US devs don't get paid more than devs
| in the rest of the world? Why?
| snapetom wrote:
| > And you're not showing any data at all.
|
| And your payscale site is so far off, it can't be called
| data.
|
| > US devs don't get paid more than devs in the rest of
| the world?
|
| How in the world did you come to that conclusion? My only
| point is that your claim of cheap foreign labor comes
| from Western privilege.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Time zones are going to be an issue, unless companies start
| doing nocturnal hours to stay in sync with staff in Eurasia.
| nickd2001 wrote:
| A former employer very kindly laid me off one May (after April
| financial results had revealed various cock-ups, and sales hadn't
| been as predicted etc). This was in the UK, and I got the legal
| minimum payout, having been there a few years. That was tax free
| of course, and enough to buy a few things like new big Ikea
| wardrobe, couple new double-glazed windows, extra week on a
| static caravan holiday. Deliberately didn't apply for jobs
| straightaway, to avoid people trying to get me to start too soon
| ;) Eventually got the first job I applied for that I really
| wanted, with a few other interview offers. Managed to swing it so
| it didn't start until September. So had the whole summer off,
| which was particularly good as our daughter, who's very young for
| her year, was about to start full-time school that September. So
| lots of nice time with her before that. Sorted out a huge mess of
| cr*p in the garage, and various other jobs neglected due to
| having small children and full time work. To this day I think
| that employer feels a bit bad about this, but I feel grateful. ;)
| Having met up with ex colleagues, its a common story, a few of us
| got kicked out over the years, and generally ended up having a
| whale of a time, learning new skills, and getting a pay-rise out
| of it too. ;). When else do you get paid not to go to work? ;).
| Hasten to add, I'm actually a hard worker, and take pride in my
| work. But not gonna turn down opportunity of a nice long holiday
| and extra cash. Had this happened in a bad job market, would have
| been a different story of course. Same thing happened to a friend
| in his 50s. He initially feared his age would be a problem. But
| his problem turned out to be, having to reply to so many calls
| from recruiters.
| davidw wrote:
| You don't have to abide by everything the guy says, but I like a
| lot of the ideas over at https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ in
| terms of living frugally.
|
| The ultimate form of freedom is being able to decide what you
| want to do with your time. One way of accomplishing that is
| making a ridiculous amount of money via a successful exit.
| Another way is to structure your life so that you're ok with
| less. Sure, I think most would prefer the 'have lots of money'
| option, but 1) even there it's easy to get sucked into spending
| more, as this article mentions, and 2) we have a lot more control
| over living frugally while earning well (most software engineers
| earn pretty good money) than we do over a wildly successful exit
| from a startup.
| georgex7 wrote:
| Yeah he takes a super rational view of it. Shows the power of
| emotions, social pressure, etc that so few people do.
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