The hero's journey of getting laid off
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The hero's journey of getting laid off
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Re: The hero's journey of getting laid off
#2Market 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.
Re: The hero's journey of getting laid off
#3I'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...
Re: The hero's journey of getting laid off
#4I'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.
Re: The hero's journey of getting laid off
#5Market 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.
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.
Re: The hero's journey of getting laid off
#6I'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 fami…
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.
Re: The hero's journey of getting laid off
#7I'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 fami…
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.
Re: The hero's journey of getting laid off
#8I 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...
Re: The hero's journey of getting laid off
#9> 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)?
Re: The hero's journey of getting laid off
#10I'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 fami…
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.
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.