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What I wish I knew before I quit my job

michaeldrogalis.substack.com

31–40 of 52 posts

Re: What I wish I knew before I quit my job

#31
post #27

Quitting to quit working is a different feeling. You may spend time in the first month untangling your role and your ego. I had no idea how important the status was to me until I was just a guy, at home, that no one needed. It was a valuable lesson about self worth, and one that stayed around after I rejoined the work force.

>I had no idea how important the status was to me until I was just a guy, at home, that no one needed. Interesting, considering that every company goes to great lengths to let everyone know they are easily replaceable and not needed.

They need someone in the position. When you are that particular someone, you are needed.

That doesn't mean you can't be replaced.

Re: What I wish I knew before I quit my job

#32
post #17
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My boys will be in college in about 6 years. My wife and I have been talking about what comes next for us. I would really like to make a significant career change but, yeah, it’s pretty scary. My current job is pretty secure, good pay, good benefits but brutally hard. I work leading delivery in consulting for very large projects. Pretty much the hardest role in the most cutthroat industry. It takes a toll.

This is why spouses sometimes divorce anyone leaving a high pay industry to rest. They have to act quickly to lock in high alimony/child support to maintain their standard of luxury at high imputed income so the spouse will go to jail if they don't continue their stressful job.

Someone says they're looking at what to do after their kids go to school and your reply is basically "well, if you think you're going to quit your current job, just so you know your spouse might divorce you for the money before you get a chance to quit".

Wow.

Re: What I wish I knew before I quit my job

#33
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you provide that data that divorces spike due to shutdown of plants or unemployment that won't directly prove your case. Looking around the internet, I see sources ranging from 20-60% of divorces being caused at least partly by financial issues, and that makes sense, to be poor is to be stressed, and to be unemployed is to be stressed, and to be stressed is to fight, but that doesn't provide strong evidence f…

You're not convinced, that's fine. You're open either possibility and asking for proof. To prove something happens at least sometimes I need at least say 2 anecdotes, which I could scrounge from some forum. But you have already decided it's misanthropic without proving that either, you are just rigging the game to play the fuck fuck game where you want it proven to some level of scientific rigor beyond what's quickly…

I'm unsure what the "fuck fuck game" is, but I honestly think HN tries to be more than just a "tech bullshitting forum". I think there's hope that you put some thought into what you say and how you say it.

Sure, there are certainly marriages for financial convenience, but you presented this like a widespread phenomena, so much so that you felt like you wanted to warn people about it.

You said so yourself, it's well documented that spouses divorce because of a change in finances and you could provide the evidence yourself of that, but, to my knowledge, not well documented that it's a common reason that spouses divorce because they want to force the unemployed high earning spouse into miserable work.

I'm not looking for a direct scientific study, but it would be nice if you could provide some sort of news article or the like about this phenomena. I'm sorry that I didn't just uncritically accept your anecdote as being true.

Re: What I wish I knew before I quit my job

#34
post #32
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why spouses sometimes divorce anyone leaving a high pay industry to rest. They have to act quickly to lock in high alimony/child support to maintain their standard of luxury at high imputed income so the spouse will go to jail if they don't continue their stressful job.

Someone says they're looking at what to do after their kids go to school and your reply is basically "well, if you think you're going to quit your current job, just so you know your spouse might divorce you for the money before you get a chance to quit". Wow.

It happens, sometimes, as i said. Probably not to them, nor did I claim it would.

Re: What I wish I knew before I quit my job

#35
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not convinced, that's fine. You're open either possibility and asking for proof. To prove something happens at least sometimes I need at least say 2 anecdotes, which I could scrounge from some forum. But you have already decided it's misanthropic without proving that either, you are just rigging the game to play the fuck fuck game where you want it proven to some level of scientific rigor beyond what's quickly…

I'm unsure what the "fuck fuck game" is, but I honestly think HN tries to be more than just a "tech bullshitting forum". I think there's hope that you put some thought into what you say and how you say it. Sure, there are certainly marriages for financial convenience, but you presented this like a widespread phenomena, so much so that you felt like you wanted to warn people about it. You said so yourself, it's well d…

What level of proof do you demand to show something happens sometimes? Because you keep changing it to strawman like 'common.' And to be clear, unless it is zero, you've not applied same to your misanthropic claim.

Re: What I wish I knew before I quit my job

#36
post #34
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone says they're looking at what to do after their kids go to school and your reply is basically "well, if you think you're going to quit your current job, just so you know your spouse might divorce you for the money before you get a chance to quit". Wow.

It happens, sometimes, as i said. Probably not to them, nor did I claim it would.

You didn't directly say "this will happen to you", but you are certainly implying that it is something the parent commenter should be worrying about.

It's weird. It's like telling random strangers, who you know nothing about, that they might get cancer. Is it true? Sure, cancer happens, sometimes. But it's weird to remind people about it unsolicited.

Re: What I wish I knew before I quit my job

#37
post #36
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It happens, sometimes, as i said. Probably not to them, nor did I claim it would.

You didn't directly say "this will happen to you", but you are certainly implying that it is something the parent commenter should be worrying about. It's weird. It's like telling random strangers, who you know nothing about, that they might get cancer. Is it true? Sure, cancer happens, sometimes. But it's weird to remind people about it unsolicited.

If someone has the power to have a judge order you to pay 20+% of your income, and that income is imputed meaning a lower income may leave you in an impossible position, it is smart to always keep it in mind. I also keep cancer screening in mind.

Re: What I wish I knew before I quit my job

#38
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm unsure what the "fuck fuck game" is, but I honestly think HN tries to be more than just a "tech bullshitting forum". I think there's hope that you put some thought into what you say and how you say it. Sure, there are certainly marriages for financial convenience, but you presented this like a widespread phenomena, so much so that you felt like you wanted to warn people about it. You said so yourself, it's well d…

What level of proof do you demand to show something happens sometimes? Because you keep changing it to strawman like 'common.' And to be clear, unless it is zero, you've not applied same to your misanthropic claim.

Misanthropic is not a claim I'm making based upon data. It's not possible to validate independently, but a judgment by myself. Your claim sounds misanthropic to me - it sounds like, if we are high earners, we should distrust our spouses because they are just out for our money and will demand we work miserable jobs to make sure they have enough, and if we don't they'll divorce it and demand the money of us. That's bleak and distrustful of people.

I'm not expecting a Cambridge study, but I was hoping you had some sort of news article or something rising above an anecdote in a forum about how some guy's wife forced him back into his job. You seems to feel you should warn people about in this forum, so you believe that it happens at a rate such that it could happen to any of us. So in that case, "common" seems less "strawman", and more "correct usage". You don't have it, that's fine, but if that's the case, why do you believe it?

Re: What I wish I knew before I quit my job

#39

I love a good 'I quit my job to start my own business' story, but this one doesn't have much detail. Fair, everything is not written for me or this audience, but would love to know more about the particulars.

Hey, author here. I write a short weekly blurb (like this one) about how my startup is going. The origin story starts here: https://michaeldrogalis.substack.com/p/im-launching-4-startu...

Let me know if you're wondering about any topics in particular and I can dig up the right week's links.

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