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How I survived being a $220k/year intern

matt.sh

151–160 of 197 posts

Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern

#151

Being paid a lot of money for not having any responsibility sounds good to me. This guy sure seems angry about it though.

When I was in Kuwait on military deployment last year one of my three roommates was a pediatric cardiologist. I remember hearing a conversation between him and another of my roommates who was disgruntled because they couldn’t get a real job. I butted in saying I have a six figure job in a low cost of living economy and I don’t do shit. I hate it so much they could take my job. I would happily give it to them. They we…

> the cardiologist voiced the greasiest envy.

I guess you meant greatest but I love the idea of greasy envy. (Apologies for the diversion.)

Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rachel had something about fixing corporate culture recently (hint: you can't), and sometimes really you can't leave. Some are shackled to their jobs through their visa, others because of healthcare needs (their health insurance has favourable terms, and they need to care for a family member), and others because of the nature of the industry (university faculty comes to mind, especially post-2008). The fact that you…

>their health insurance has favourable terms, and they need to care for a family member At 200k per year, you can buy Obamacare which is 6k per year and for an individual 6k max out of pocket. So many people are fooled into thinking their companies health insurance is worth something beyond 12k/yr. And that 12k is firefighters union tier.

That math doesn’t look right. I think you are confusing out of pocket maximum with premium. Your premium depends on the people covered, their ages, tobacco use, the state you’re in, etc. It can definitely be more than 12k per year just for the premium.

Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern

#154
post #29

Blog posts like this are usually best interpreted as the bitter ranting of an ex-employee who was let go. The author himself was semi-notorious (possibly still so?) in the Redis community for being a bit of a self-serving demagogue (to put it nicely). Generally speaking, if an individual was a remote, WFH, IC employee whose manager didn't even talk to them for a year, they probably don't have the working knowledge to…

> It should also be noted that Pivotal was acquired by VMware for ~$2.7B. This doesn't mean much. Both Pivotal and Dell were controlled / belonged to Dell at the point of the acquisition, so this was more of a Dell-internal restructuring than an acquisition on the open market. That said, I agree that the OP is way over the top to be taken seriously.

Wait, so how much did Dell buy it for?

Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern

#155
post #82

I find this post to be relatively unimpressive. He spends a great amount of time complaining about how the company was shit in a way that implies he was personally offended, but the title says he got a generous salary for little expected work. It’s not clear to me why he is bitter about anything. I have no doubt that the company was genuinely poorly run. His observations about problems in the sales culture are likely…

While I don't disagree with most of what you're saying, this idea that people should (or can) just leave employment, needs to stop. This is not the way most of the world works and many people are "stuck" in very shitty situations that don't have many opportunities, out. But with regard to the rest of your comment, absolutely. This guy is a knob.

I feel like I acknowledged that in my post. Most relevant concerns for “why don’t you just leave” are around having enough money to pay for basic needs, having other jobs, or finding a place that works for your geographic situation.

This guy got a huge salary in a market with tons of demand while working from home. There was no particular urgency to leave, so he could have casually looked. It also seems like he would have stayed there if he wasn’t let go.

And from the look of it was still writing about it years later.

Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this idea that people should (or can) just leave employment, needs to stop I don't think this applies when you are pulling down nearly a quarter of a million dollars a year - then I think you probably have quite a lot of freedom to just walk out the door anytime you want.

It doesn't matter what your salary is, if you've got a big old mortgage and a wife and kids then losing your income is really scary . What if the job search takes longer than you expected? What if it takes much longer? He's already remote working, that massively narrows down his options. It's not as simple as just "get another job" and every day he doesn't have a job, bills are piling up.

I feel like all of those concerns are nullified if you just don’t quit your job before lining up another... which is what people usually do.

Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern

#158
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It should also be noted that Pivotal was acquired by VMware for ~$2.7B. This doesn't mean much. Both Pivotal and Dell were controlled / belonged to Dell at the point of the acquisition, so this was more of a Dell-internal restructuring than an acquisition on the open market. That said, I agree that the OP is way over the top to be taken seriously.

Wait, so how much did Dell buy it for?

I think GP poster means “both Pivotal and VMware were owned by Dell.”

IIRC Pivotal’s stock price collapsed, it didn’t seem to have much of a future as a public company, and so Dell consolidated it into VMware to save face.

Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern

#159

the weirdest thing to me about pivotal is that they require full-time pair programming. how do people survive in that company at all? i can't fathom being yoked to someone (literally) 40-50 hours a week.

When working alone remotely from home, I simulate pair programming with a methodology I call "The Stranger". I sit on one of my hands until it becomes numb and tingly, and then it feels like somebody else is typing and moving the mouse!
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