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Losing two jobs in one year
11–20 of 192 posts
Re: Losing two jobs in one year
#12"Something else changed. Suddenly, the two layoffs stopped being of any consequence. They quite frankly didn’t matter anymore." Beautiful piece. I feel this very deeply these days. Loved ones are all that matter in life (including ones no longer in my life). The ideas here remind me a bit of the book "Man's Search for Meaning."
How do you balance this mindset with the cold hard reality that one needs to make money? I’m currently unemployed and I am lucky to have a generous runway, but that runway will run out eventually. The idea that nothing matters outside of family, friends, etc is tempting but I have made sacrifices in relationships with others and myself to be a more employable candidate. For example I’m taking LLM classes on Sunday mo…
Sounds like you're doing the right thing: trying to find a moderate position
Re: Losing two jobs in one year
#13"Something else changed. Suddenly, the two layoffs stopped being of any consequence. They quite frankly didn’t matter anymore." Beautiful piece. I feel this very deeply these days. Loved ones are all that matter in life (including ones no longer in my life). The ideas here remind me a bit of the book "Man's Search for Meaning."
How do you balance this mindset with the cold hard reality that one needs to make money? I’m currently unemployed and I am lucky to have a generous runway, but that runway will run out eventually. The idea that nothing matters outside of family, friends, etc is tempting but I have made sacrifices in relationships with others and myself to be a more employable candidate. For example I’m taking LLM classes on Sunday mo…
You do the work for the money, but you don't invest yourself in the work: you care about the people who love you back at home. In the end, the work (caveat edge cases) will be meaningless. You're converting time into fiat you need to pay for life. You can always make more money, time is non renewable.
"Today is your last day." "Meh, whatevs, going home to my family."
https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html
https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/08/putting-time-in-perspective.h...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Top_Five_Regrets_of_the_Dy...
(20+ years in tech, have been laid off twice, fired once, aware none of it really matters, we're all dead eventually, a blip in the cosmic timeline)
Re: Losing two jobs in one year
#14Tying health insurance to employment. Was, is, and will be nuts.
Unfortunately, the US has a huge number of people who would rather have insurance-run for-profit death panels than government-run non-profit death panels.
I'm not downvoting you, because I assume uour comment was in good faith.
The phrase "death panels" though is unfortunate. Nobody has death panels, nobody wants death panels, no health system anywhere private or public has death panels. It's just a scary phrase used in a political context.
Ultimately all health systems make choices at every level of care. Triage is a thing. Organ recipient lists are a thing. Hospital occupancy, and theatre usage are things.
In a perfect world we'd all get perfect medical care the instant we needed it. There'd be scores of doctors sitting around doing nothing just waiting for my call. There'd be an endless supply of organs, replacement parts, hospital beds, theatres and surgeons.
We don't live in that world. Hence our systems have imperfections. Not everyone gets an optimal outcome. There are no "death panels". There doesn't need to be. Limitations and resource constraints force decisions at all levels every day.
Now personally I think a well managed public health system us the most equitable. Failing that private insurance has a role to play in combination either public health. Employer paid health insurance has grouping advantages, but also means you lose your income and health at the same time.
Steps for affordable personal health insurance are good. There's some way to go yet, but its a step in the right direction. Having at least some part of the health system be available to the uninsured (ie non-profit) would also be beneficial.
So yeah, the US system, as it is, is great for those who can pay, terrible for everyone else. It favours the few with good jobs, and secure tenure. If you're in that group, well done.
Other countries with national health have their own resource constraints. Not all individual outcomes are optional. And being rich doesn't necessarily jump you to the front of the queue. There are good outcomes, and bad outcomes, but they don't align to wealth or status (in theory.)
In the US its hard to change the status quo because the country is governed by the rich, paid for by the richer. The system currently favors the rich. QED.
Re: Losing two jobs in one year
#15Tying health insurance to employment. Was, is, and will be nuts.
My recollection is that health care and other, similar benefits were incentives employers could offer to attract and retain talent during a period when FDR had wage and price controls in place. That is: healthcare was exempt from wage controls, so you could offer a healthcare plan or an improved plan in lieu of a raise. Then, employers noticed, "you mean offering them healthcare makes it harder for our employees to l…
"Note: I think public perception of healthcare as a moral good in principle is correct. It's just that there's a wicked mal-alignment of incentives which leverages that perception to cement a bad solution in place."
That is everywhere now. Birth, education, courtship/marriage, employment, ... all the way to death - everything is analyzed, pessimized, and stripmined for every last penny. "Enshittification" is all over HN and with good reason.
Re: Losing two jobs in one year
#16I worked with Irina (at Parse.ly!). She's an incredible engineer. Any back end team would be lucky to have her.
Re: Losing two jobs in one year
#17If you only take one thing from this article, let it be this line: My work is only part of my identity. I'd argue that unless you're literally curing cancer, it should be the least important part of your identity. I've never let work be more than the tiniest facet of my existence that provides the resources necessary to well... not die. I understand this isn't the easiest thing for most people - tribalism and pack id…
IMO it's OK for work to be a big part of your identity. People should strive to achieve things professionally; it's a very human thing to master a craft for a living.
But, to be fair, work != your specific company. It's stupid to tie your identity to the people hiring you.
Re: Losing two jobs in one year
#18If you only take one thing from this article, let it be this line: My work is only part of my identity. I'd argue that unless you're literally curing cancer, it should be the least important part of your identity. I've never let work be more than the tiniest facet of my existence that provides the resources necessary to well... not die. I understand this isn't the easiest thing for most people - tribalism and pack id…
This is a strategy, but your results may vary. After a few years meditating on how much of my psychic energy I could give to my work, I found that programming for work was impossible. Understanding systems enough to update them, debugging, and keeping up with the ecosystem are very hard work. For me there’s no way to do it well without thoughts of work clouding my brain at all hours of the day. On the other hand, doing my job poorly is an even worse option. I don’t think I could live with myself if I brought apathy to work, since I do it more than anything else.
So as a result I don’t program anymore.
Knocking your ego down to a reasonable size is nice, but it probably also means not making very much money.
Re: Losing two jobs in one year
#19If you only take one thing from this article, let it be this line: My work is only part of my identity. I'd argue that unless you're literally curing cancer, it should be the least important part of your identity. I've never let work be more than the tiniest facet of my existence that provides the resources necessary to well... not die. I understand this isn't the easiest thing for most people - tribalism and pack id…
> these things have sort of acted as a de-facto substitute for more traditional tribalism (patriotism, national pride, etc) for a lot of Gen Z / Millennials.
In 1963, Kurt Vonnegut called it a _granfalloon_: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%27s_Cradle#Bokononism
- _karass_ – A group of people linked in a cosmically significant manner, even when superficial linkages are not evident.
- _granfalloon_ – a false karass; i.e., a group of people who imagine they have a connection that does not really exist. An example is "Hoosiers." Hoosiers are people from Indiana, and Hoosiers have no true spiritual destiny in common. They really share little more than a name.
Re: Losing two jobs in one year
#20If you only take one thing from this article, let it be this line: My work is only part of my identity. I'd argue that unless you're literally curing cancer, it should be the least important part of your identity. I've never let work be more than the tiniest facet of my existence that provides the resources necessary to well... not die. I understand this isn't the easiest thing for most people - tribalism and pack id…
> I'd argue that unless you're literally curing cancer, it should be the least important part of your identity.
You are probably going too far. You are spending a reasonable fraction of your waking life at your career. So you can make it a reasonable fraction of your identity.