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Getting Laid Off in Tech: The Myth of Upper Middle Class Security

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Re: Getting Laid Off in Tech: The Myth of Upper Middle Class Security

#151

Post by ericd »

vinceguidry wrote: post #57
wolfspider wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so horribly wrong- I've known upper middle class that get there by not spending hardly anything and owning their own business and operating it (e.g. Gas Station + Auto Repair). No leeching there. No accounting for "Luck" here or proximity to resources and opportunity. Do they actually teach this in schools or what nowadays? starting to seem prevalent. Life is what you make it, tomorrow holds no promises, oppo…

The idea behind talking about classes isn't that there aren't people who don't fit the mold, but to just discuss the broader trends. For every frugal business owner making upper middle class incomes, (and deeply concerned that the economy will continue to support their livelihoods) there's fifty filling up middle management spots in midsize organizations or upper management spots in small organizations, safe in the u…

The problem is that unless I'm interpreting it completely incorrectly, your descriptions are comic book renditions based on common prejudices that don't really map to reality, which makes me question whether this is based on experience and exposure to people in the middle and upper class or just an amalgamation of memes you've been exposed to online and have taken as evidence.

Doctors and lawyers typically work incredibly demanding jobs that require a lot of up-front investment of time and money to make their outsized salaries, and they make up a huge portion of the class you called "leeches". And far from not needing to maintain their network, networking is incredibly important for upper middle and upper classes.

Re: Getting Laid Off in Tech: The Myth of Upper Middle Class Security

#152

Post by joe_the_user »

refurb wrote: post #2

Having been laid off due to downsizing, I think everyone should go through it at least once. Sure, the first time will leave you panic stricken, but you'll come out the other side with a lot more clarity about the employee-employer relationship. You are disposable. Even the CEO is disposable (as I've seen many times). Once you realize that, you'll stop the BS about loyalty to your company. It's a business arrangement…

Having been laid off due to downsizing, I think everyone should go through it at least once.

I think it's mistake to recommend life-changing events like this so glibly. A given person may recover and become wiser and stronger. Another person may never recover in terms of career, relationships or mental health.

It's better to look and learn that the market is a harsh place and you should take steps accordingly. If you have to have that lesson engraved on your body, so be it but remember, each person has only so much productive career-time, some many opportunities to make and keep relationships, etc (fired-to-divorced, etc is a common path just for example).

Re: Getting Laid Off in Tech: The Myth of Upper Middle Class Security

#154

Post by bdcravens »

mywittyname wrote: post #141
toephu2 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even Steve Jobs is disposable. How many here remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard Steve Jobs passed away? Almost like being able to recall where you were when 9/11 happened. When I heard of his death I was shocked, I wondered how Apple would survive, how the world for that matter would move on? But sure enough the next day the sun still rose and and the earth still rotated. Today Apple is…

> Almost like being able to recall where you were when 9/11 happened. Is this sarcasm that I'm not picking up on? I literally can't remember what year SJ died. I can't even remember what generation iPhone was his last.

I remember because I was traveling home from Adobe MAX so I heard the news at the airport. However, I totally get that many assume he's deified by all.

Re: Getting Laid Off in Tech: The Myth of Upper Middle Class Security

#155

Post by bdcravens »

gojomo wrote: post #52

Author is 22 years old, and was not laid off. But, because some peers were – from Snap, a boom-times high-flyer – he's now facing a crisis-of-confidence, first in himself, and then in what feelings of security might be available from reaching "[t]he upper middle-class, the professional class, that venerable example of American wealth and mobility". Well, of course working for a single hot company at 22 doesn't mean y…

> What, did he think he was going to retire at Snap?

In a sense. Probably believed the (almost) fairy tale: work a few years, cash out big, do your own thing.

Re: Getting Laid Off in Tech: The Myth of Upper Middle Class Security

#156

Post by zeveb »

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #105
zeveb wrote: post #3

I'm not certain what he expects: lifetime risk-free employment? Yeah, there's stress involved with risk. But the risk one has as an upper-middle-class American is tech is nothing compared to the risks that others alive today face, and less than nothing compared to the risks that others in the past have faced. Nothing last forever. Not a job — not even one's life. Make the most of it while you can.

> nothing compared to the risks that others in the past have faced citation needed!

> citation needed!

Here are three:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

Re: Getting Laid Off in Tech: The Myth of Upper Middle Class Security

#157

Post by bdcravens »

Rafuino wrote: post #98
replicatorblog wrote: post #30

I'd be curious to ask the author, + Have many of your laid off peers had trouble finding work, post-layoff? + Do you think you'd have a difficult time finding another job if you were laid off? Most people in tech, who are willing to live in one of a half dozen specific cities, have job security prior generations could only have dreamed of. Tech skills are far more portable than a skilled line worker at Ford's River R…

I'd be curious to ask you what "tech skills" means. What's demanded by the companies you refer to is likely shifting constantly. If you're not working in the hot stack, you're not going to have job security "prior generations could only have dreamed of."

There is a lot of code written everyday in .NET and Java. No, it's not necessarily in LA, NYC, or SF, and you may not be working for a hot startup. However, you may be imminently more hirable knowing C# than React, if you're willing to work in sectors like energy or healthcare.

Re: Getting Laid Off in Tech: The Myth of Upper Middle Class Security

#158

Post by dv_dt »

varjag wrote: post #148
dv_dt wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The last big place that I worked could easily cut tech headcount in half and hardly notice. This is sometimes true, but you have to be careful about myths about occupied capacity (of people and machines). If 100% of the people are occupied, it's very likely that the company is very understaffed and can easily get into trouble too. When xx% of the people are idle, you might look next week, or the next phase of a pro…

Not sure it works like that. If there's a surge of work, slackers go on slacking and you have to hire/rent people.

But it consumes time and effort to hire/rent people and creates unnecessary churn to have people all running at 100%. The machine version of this is nicely discussed in a book written by Eli Goldratt called The Goal with a more people & project based take on it called Critical Chain. They're in novel form (there are more serious treatments available of the general Theory of Constraints), but it discusses why running each resource, person or machine, at 100% in an organization isn't actually the most efficient thing to do for an organization.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliyahu_M._Goldratt

Re: Getting Laid Off in Tech: The Myth of Upper Middle Class Security

#159

Post by bdcravens »

Clubber wrote: post #44
qstyk wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears the original author would be better suited in a union shop. It would also appear that they’ve never owned a business.

The thing about owning a business is you never hire someone unless you absolutely, positively need to. This apparently wasn't the case at BigCo. Maybe they're the ones that never owned a business.

Well, it's Snap, so that means they were pumping that sweet VC cash roll into headcount (like any similarly funded startup). Then one day they realize that doesn't deliver the desired growth, and they cut headcount. I've said it before, and I know it sucks, but startup layoffs are often the result of letting go of people that in a normal business probably shouldn't have been there.

Re: Getting Laid Off in Tech: The Myth of Upper Middle Class Security

#160

Post by coldtea »

>And in that sense, I was as trapped as every other person who’s forced to work for an income. My job offered shallow perks and self-affirmation, and that gave me the feeling that somehow I deserved anything I’d achieved: that I was, in any sense of the word, “successful,” and that working at a tech company was something more than just a paycheck. I was nothing, I realized, and in my hopes of actually accomplishing something, I’d deluded myself into thinking I already had.

Well, sort of. At 22, and in IT, still way better off than any single mother, non-college educated, or 40+ yo laid off person, in any other industry.

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