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“Great resignation” wave coming for companies

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Re: “Great resignation” wave coming for companies

#41

Post by aphextron »

dreen wrote: post #7

Im quitting and not looking for another job. Gonna use the savings to take a gap year, or a couple, work on some stuff I want maybe. Maybe more involvement in OSS is coming too? I've never had a gap year, it was all school, then immigration, work, university, more work. Any holiday time you fly back home. I kept hearing its not unusual for people in the west to take gap years, so thats what Im doing. edit: thank you…

>Im quitting and not looking for another job. Gonna use the savings to take a gap year, or a couple, work on some stuff I want maybe. Maybe more involvement in OSS is coming too?

Unless you have some serious FU money saved up, I'd strongly reconsider. A "gap year" as an adult can make you radioactive to potential employers. And that cash goes quick when there's none coming in. Trust me I know. It's alluring to just walk away. But trying to get a job when you're unemployed is literally 10x harder than while employed, regardless of the actual circumstances of your departure.

Just try taking a few weeks off first. And if that's not enough, ask for a sabbatical. At the very least have something lined up for a few months after you leave. Don't fall for the "I can have another job in two weeks" meme. It's rarely true in reality for all but the very top of the market.

Re: “Great resignation” wave coming for companies

#42

Post by ramraj07 »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #30
dreen wrote: post #7

Im quitting and not looking for another job. Gonna use the savings to take a gap year, or a couple, work on some stuff I want maybe. Maybe more involvement in OSS is coming too? I've never had a gap year, it was all school, then immigration, work, university, more work. Any holiday time you fly back home. I kept hearing its not unusual for people in the west to take gap years, so thats what Im doing. edit: thank you…

>I kept hearing its not unusual for people in the west to take gap years, so thats what Im doing. You hear a heck of a lot more about it on HN than happens in reality. Maybe I don't hang out with the trust fund crowd enough but I don't know ANYONE who's taken a "gap year" where they weren't doing something for ~40hr/wk in order to make a buck. I know a few people who didn't jump right into career stuff after college…

A good fraction of people I’ve come across in uni in the US have taken gap years (or just take forever to finish college). This is not normal for regular immigrants these days. I did not have saturdays off from when I was 15 till I turned 32. Even then I was in a tech job which had great vacation but still not months at a time. It’s literally alien for folks like us to have an entire year where we don’t need to report to anything at all. I wish the OP the best, I’m still waiting for the day I can do the same but that’s at least years away.

Re: “Great resignation” wave coming for companies

#43

Post by bronzeage »

elevenoh wrote: post #12

An anecdote: a handful engineers I've worked with (and they're all high quality) have resigned from traditional bigtech to work in open source finance within crypto. It's as though pandemic solitude gave many the mind-time to ponder their authentic values hierarchy. I'm glad more bright minds will be spending less time working directly or indirectly on ads. It's hard to watch.

You prefer those minds working on a Ponzi scheme instead?

Re: “Great resignation” wave coming for companies

#44

Post by sokoloff »

elevenoh wrote: post #12

An anecdote: a handful engineers I've worked with (and they're all high quality) have resigned from traditional bigtech to work in open source finance within crypto. It's as though pandemic solitude gave many the mind-time to ponder their authentic values hierarchy. I'm glad more bright minds will be spending less time working directly or indirectly on ads. It's hard to watch.

I’m not passionately anti-crypto, but moving some of our best minds from ads to crypto[currencies/tokens] is not an obvious triumph to me.

Re: “Great resignation” wave coming for companies

#45

Post by riccardomc »

anecdotally, I can confirm this happening in a few companies I know... I left my job at the beginning of 2020 to work for myself. A lot of ex-colleagues took a similar path.

I guess the "focus on the mission" companies are trying to foster among their ranks is also useful to distract oneself from what your own mission actually is.

This hiatus on company focus might have been the best thing that happened to a lot of engineers I know.

Including, alas, myself.

Re: “Great resignation” wave coming for companies

#46

Post by ChrisRR »

markh wrote: post #20
koheripbal wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless rent and mortgage payments somehow evaporate, there won't be some massive wave of resignations.

And health insurance.

Damn, America really needs to get their act together.

Being from England, I hadn't even considered that healthcare is something that has to be factored into whether someone could take time off

Re: “Great resignation” wave coming for companies

#47

Post by elevenoh »

EMM_386 wrote: post #39

I've worked remotely for over 8 years as a senior software engineer, and I'm not going back anytime soon. This will get interesting for both salaries and global movement. Being a digital nomad certainly won't be as "hip" when everyone else can do the same thing. And now people are going to be competing with a lot of low-cost employees with equal skills. This has already been the issue with offshoring, but now you can…

>In the long-term, this might get people out of packed cities and horrific commutes and help become a rebirth of small-town America (or small-town Chile and everywhere else).

Perhaps. I think the shift will be to more healthy-livable cities, whether thats big or small.

Vast majority of humans seem love the benefits of high population density more than they dislike the costs, remote work or not.

Re: “Great resignation” wave coming for companies

#48

Post by toyg »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #30
dreen wrote: post #7

Im quitting and not looking for another job. Gonna use the savings to take a gap year, or a couple, work on some stuff I want maybe. Maybe more involvement in OSS is coming too? I've never had a gap year, it was all school, then immigration, work, university, more work. Any holiday time you fly back home. I kept hearing its not unusual for people in the west to take gap years, so thats what Im doing. edit: thank you…

>I kept hearing its not unusual for people in the west to take gap years, so thats what Im doing. You hear a heck of a lot more about it on HN than happens in reality. Maybe I don't hang out with the trust fund crowd enough but I don't know ANYONE who's taken a "gap year" where they weren't doing something for ~40hr/wk in order to make a buck. I know a few people who didn't jump right into career stuff after college…

I learnt of this sort of thing only after I moved to the UK, where it's traditional for wealthy and middle-upper-class kids to take a long break between college and university - a habit that probably comes from the times of the "grand tours" of continental Europe in XVIII and XIX century.

I've met people who do it on a 6-months basis - 6 months travelling, 6 months earning. They don't make much, their career is somewhat stalled, it would have probably ended when/if they had a kid, but they did it. They were conscious that they were sacrificing something (money, comforts) in exchange for this lifestyle.

Re: “Great resignation” wave coming for companies

#49

Post by siva7 »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #30
dreen wrote: post #7

Im quitting and not looking for another job. Gonna use the savings to take a gap year, or a couple, work on some stuff I want maybe. Maybe more involvement in OSS is coming too? I've never had a gap year, it was all school, then immigration, work, university, more work. Any holiday time you fly back home. I kept hearing its not unusual for people in the west to take gap years, so thats what Im doing. edit: thank you…

>I kept hearing its not unusual for people in the west to take gap years, so thats what Im doing. You hear a heck of a lot more about it on HN than happens in reality. Maybe I don't hang out with the trust fund crowd enough but I don't know ANYONE who's taken a "gap year" where they weren't doing something for ~40hr/wk in order to make a buck. I know a few people who didn't jump right into career stuff after college…

well, it's not usual for first-gen immigrants doing a gap year unless rich, so i applaud parent for living his dream. it's pretty usual in western europe for middle-class children doing this.

Re: “Great resignation” wave coming for companies

#50

Post by sfeng »

aphextron wrote: post #41
dreen wrote: post #7

Im quitting and not looking for another job. Gonna use the savings to take a gap year, or a couple, work on some stuff I want maybe. Maybe more involvement in OSS is coming too? I've never had a gap year, it was all school, then immigration, work, university, more work. Any holiday time you fly back home. I kept hearing its not unusual for people in the west to take gap years, so thats what Im doing. edit: thank you…

>Im quitting and not looking for another job. Gonna use the savings to take a gap year, or a couple, work on some stuff I want maybe. Maybe more involvement in OSS is coming too? Unless you have some serious FU money saved up, I'd strongly reconsider. A "gap year" as an adult can make you radioactive to potential employers. And that cash goes quick when there's none coming in. Trust me I know. It's alluring to just w…

I think this is horrible advice. I’ve hired all sorts of people with voluntary time off on their resume. Your experience doesn’t ‘expire’ in a single year. Life is about more than just working, if you have the money to take time off to enjoy your life you shouldn’t not do it out of fear.
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