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Losing two jobs in one year

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Re: Losing two jobs in one year

#41

Post by kodejka »

p1esk wrote: post #39
phlipski wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YOU (in the non-personal sense) may make your job an important part of your identity. But I would ask you to ask yourself the following questions - "What do your close friends do for a living? Does what they do for a living matter to YOU? Does what they do for a living in any way affect your relationship?" I ask this as a thought experiment because I personally believe that we THINK people care about our jobs more th…

I might not care about what my friends do for a living (I do though), but I definitely care a lot about what I do for a living.

I think that attitude also changes when you lose a job, especially at some FAANG. When you work for FAANG everyone you ever knew, want to be your friends all of a sudden. When you are laid off, then they don't want anymore. :) In a way, works like a filter - true friends stays, but you discover how little of them you have (and that's perfectly normal).

Re: Losing two jobs in one year

#42

Post by tock »

It's really hard to maintain this mindset. I remember getting a health scare and everything related to work just seemed so insignificant. After a few days of receiving the good news regarding my health I was once again mentally wrestling with the random stupid stuff happening at work :/

Re: Losing two jobs in one year

#43

Post by manmal »

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #35
vunderba wrote: post #7

If 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 hear this argument and I should point out that it can hurt people saying something like that. I understand where you are coming from and I disagree strongly with your statement. Around age 12 I discovered software development and became my greatest passion. It helped me escape MMORPG addiction and being happy (have a family, buy a home, pursue my hobbies). If I lost my job I would be sad, no doubt, but I would stil…

And parent is right that it’s not ideal to have your eggs put in one basket like this.

Re: Losing two jobs in one year

#44

Post by lelanthran »

eru wrote: post #20
vunderba wrote: post #7

If 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.

> 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.

I think there's some crossed wires there. You both could be correct, but arguing different specific points.

You can make your skillset/vocation/etc a part of your identity. You should never make your position at a company a part of your identity.

"I write software" is something that will be true even when I am no longer employed. "I'm a principle engineer at a FAANG" is a transient thing that is only incidental to my identity.

Re: Losing two jobs in one year

#45

Post by eru »

kodejka wrote: post #41
p1esk wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might not care about what my friends do for a living (I do though), but I definitely care a lot about what I do for a living.

I think that attitude also changes when you lose a job, especially at some FAANG. When you work for FAANG everyone you ever knew, want to be your friends all of a sudden. When you are laid off, then they don't want anymore. :) In a way, works like a filter - true friends stays, but you discover how little of them you have (and that's perfectly normal).

I worked for Google for a while (2014-2017), and I did not share the experience you describe.

Granted having Google on the CV looks good to recruiters, but my friends didn't care that much.

Re: Losing two jobs in one year

#46

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

manmal wrote: post #43
Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this argument and I should point out that it can hurt people saying something like that. I understand where you are coming from and I disagree strongly with your statement. Around age 12 I discovered software development and became my greatest passion. It helped me escape MMORPG addiction and being happy (have a family, buy a home, pursue my hobbies). If I lost my job I would be sad, no doubt, but I would stil…

And parent is right that it’s not ideal to have your eggs put in one basket like this.

You don't get to choose what you are passionate about, so this comment doesn't really help im any way

Re: Losing two jobs in one year

#47

Post by trandango »

thierrydamiba wrote: post #10
aquarkortwo wrote: post #3

"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…

Would those LLM classes be open to the public? I'm looking for classes taught by a live instructor. Also open to call to anyone else that might know of some good classes to join.

Re: Losing two jobs in one year

#48

Post by bogota »

This is something i think has been slowly changing in the US. At least among the people i know.

Work is now just work. Five years ago it had to be your passion it is what you wanted or at least i wanted to be defined by. After seeing how little any company cares about people work is what i try to spend the least amount of time doing. At 5 or ideally 4 i clock out and only respond if I am paged.

Additionally i have checked out of the tech scene and just spend work time on any needed continuing education. Am I a good developer anymore? Who cares. Im good enough to pass whatever the stupid circuit of interviews is and honestly that is all that matters anymore.

Re: Losing two jobs in one year

#49

Post by whiterknight »

bdw5204 wrote: post #9
sfRattan wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's basically my understanding of how we got into that mess. There are still significant tax subsidies for employer provided health insurance and most people don't realize that the COBRA price is the actual cost of their "cheap" or "free" employer provided insurance for the same reason they think their "income tax refund" is actually "free money" from the IRS rather than their money that the government held onto w…

Most people are otherwise able to navigate their life just fine, but they struggle with systems that are ridiculously complex and opaque. Industrial society reduces your direct agency and forces you to rely on more sophisticated forms of influence.

Re: Losing two jobs in one year

#50

Post by hiAndrewQuinn »

vunderba wrote: post #7

If 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…

It's not a tribalism thing. My work is how I directly make the world a much richer place than it would be without me - otherwise I wouldn't be able to skim off some percentage of that value as a salary/income. That's something to be tremendously and persistently proud of, no matter who you are or what you're doing.

Besides: If your one and only goal with work really is "do as little as possible to not die", this is easily accomplished in the modern world by working for a year or two in the US and then moving to, e.g. rural Nepal to live off $1-2000 a year for about 3 or 4 decades, zero work required. Indeed the "4% rule" in FIRE circles says this should be permanently sustainable with savings of only about $20-40,000. (Arguments like "but what happens when you get older" willfully ignore the fact thathaving a year of prime healthy adulthood totally free is almost certainly worth quite a bit more than having a year of elderly, ill adulthood "free" in a nursing home.) Yet we almost never see people do that.

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