> A monk is more financially independent than a hedge fund manager with a Lamborghini addiction This just tickles me. Great analogy.
Thanks :)
The hero's journey of getting laid off
21–30 of 107 posts
Re: The hero's journey of getting laid off
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
WOW what a story. And what an epic layoff package ;)
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.
Yup that was roughly the number they used / how it worked out.
Re: The hero's journey of getting laid off
#23I'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.
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.
Re: The hero's journey of getting laid off
#24Any 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.
Re: The hero's journey of getting laid off
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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…
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).
Re: The hero's journey of getting laid off
#26> 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-…
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.
Re: The hero's journey of getting laid off
#27I'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.
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.
Re: The hero's journey of getting laid off
#28I'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.
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.
Re: The hero's journey of getting laid off
#29I'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…
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…
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.
Re: The hero's journey of getting laid off
#30Any 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.
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.