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The hero's journey of getting laid off

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Re: The hero's journey of getting laid off

#81

Post by cableshaft »

bombcar wrote: post #25
shortstuffsushi wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I've been laid off six times. It was a surprise once, the first time, an early job at Wal-mart. The other five times I could see it coming (and three of those times I had already started actively interviewing elsewhere). Three of those jobs were small businesses in the video game industry, where layoffs after a game is finished and released are pretty common.

I was actually more surprised that I somehow didn't get laid off at a previous corporation that had multiple rounds of deep layoffs, especially considering how often I had been laid off in the past.

In fact I found out when the department head put in his notice that I was on the list of one of those layoffs, but so many people quit in the meantime that they didn't need to lay off as many people, so he was able to take me off the list. I stayed there a little too long, through inertia and also I had so many 1 to 1.5 year job "hops" from all those previous layoffs I felt I should stick around a bit longer to show I am able to stick with a company when they let me.

It would have been a blessing if they had laid me off, though, it would have forced me to find a much better job much earlier.

Re: The hero's journey of getting laid off

#82

Post by the_af »

scarby2 wrote: post #73
the_af wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Awesome that it worked out for you! That said, 9 months of pay as severance for 20 years of work seems a bit disappointing. In my country it's currently one month of pay per year worked for layoffs where the employee was not at fault.

where is this? I've lived a few places and never heard of something so generous. It's normally closer to 1-2 weeks per year. Also in the UK, ireland and france they put a very low cap on the weekly pay.

Argentina.

The downsides of living here are discussed elsewhere, of course. But let's not get sidetracked :)

Re: The hero's journey of getting laid off

#83

Post by blibble »

scarby2 wrote: post #73
the_af wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Awesome that it worked out for you! That said, 9 months of pay as severance for 20 years of work seems a bit disappointing. In my country it's currently one month of pay per year worked for layoffs where the employee was not at fault.

where is this? I've lived a few places and never heard of something so generous. It's normally closer to 1-2 weeks per year. Also in the UK, ireland and france they put a very low cap on the weekly pay.

in the UK the cap is for the statutory redundancy

if the employer wishes to give you more they are perfectly free to (and it's very, very common to)

Re: The hero's journey of getting laid off

#84

Post by snapetom »

r_hoods_ghost wrote: post #71
snapetom wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're going to be shocked at prices these days. Paying some poor soul from some poverty stricken developing country, and expect them to be grateful for just a job, is an archaic notion. In Latin America, the price is near US levels thanks to companies like Amazon heavily investing there these past 5 years or so. Salary at intermediate and above prices are nearly on par with US skill levels, but you do save on employ…

Uh huh... This is just wrong. So the median Brazilian dev salary is 58000 BRL or about $22000 USD [1] The median US dev salary is $73900 using the same search criteria on the same site. In the UK it is $37000. I'm in the UK and this passes the sniff test as a median base salary. Obviously it's more if you're in certain industries or work for certain companies (faangs). US software developers are massively overpayed c…

You're leveraging historically bad pound/dollar conversion rates to get that figure. In general, US salaries are higher because of the lack of social services. $37k for a UK dev, I don't buy. I worked with Belgian devs, intermediate to senior, ten years ago and they were at $60k/year.

Regardless, that site has some very problematic data. Maybe Brazil does have a lower cost compared to other South American countries, but that site is also claiming Argentinian devs making 3700 USD per year, which is ludicrous. We can't attract even junior ones for any less than 5k per month.

Re: The hero's journey of getting laid off

#85

Post by bombcar »

cableshaft wrote: post #81
bombcar wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I've been laid off six times. It was a surprise once, the first time, an early job at Wal-mart. The other five times I could see it coming (and three of those times I had already started actively interviewing elsewhere). Three of those jobs were small businesses in the video game industry, where layoffs after a game is finished and released are pretty common. I was actually more surprised that I somehow didn't get la…

This strikes at the heart of the matter - you want the 6 mo or 1 yr "nest egg" so you don't have to wait for the company to tell you it's time to move on - you can jump ship earlier once you start noticing the signs.

Few do, however.

Re: The hero's journey of getting laid off

#86

Post by r_hoods_ghost »

snapetom wrote: post #84
r_hoods_ghost wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh huh... This is just wrong. So the median Brazilian dev salary is 58000 BRL or about $22000 USD [1] The median US dev salary is $73900 using the same search criteria on the same site. In the UK it is $37000. I'm in the UK and this passes the sniff test as a median base salary. Obviously it's more if you're in certain industries or work for certain companies (faangs). US software developers are massively overpayed c…

You're leveraging historically bad pound/dollar conversion rates to get that figure. In general, US salaries are higher because of the lack of social services. $37k for a UK dev, I don't buy. I worked with Belgian devs, intermediate to senior, ten years ago and they were at $60k/year. Regardless, that site has some very problematic data. Maybe Brazil does have a lower cost compared to other South American countries,…

And you're not showing any data at all. Please show some that shows devs in the USA aren't over compensated relative to the rest of the world. Until you do I will assume you are just using anecdata because you want to pretend that what? US devs don't get paid more than devs in the rest of the world? Why?

Re: The hero's journey of getting laid off

#87

Post by mysterydip »

abrichr wrote: post #68
mysterydip wrote: post #18

Getting laid off was the "cold water shock" I needed to rewrite what had been drilled into me since grade school: if you work hard and do your job, you'll always have one and your hard work will eventually result in promotions. I took that experience and changed what kind of jobs I looked for, and found one I'm much happier with.

> changed what kind of jobs I looked for, Can you please clarify? What were you looking for before and after?

Used to be pay and upward mobility potential. Now it's stability, work life balance, not on call, and other intangibles.

Re: The hero's journey of getting laid off

#88

Post by snapetom »

r_hoods_ghost wrote: post #86
snapetom wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're leveraging historically bad pound/dollar conversion rates to get that figure. In general, US salaries are higher because of the lack of social services. $37k for a UK dev, I don't buy. I worked with Belgian devs, intermediate to senior, ten years ago and they were at $60k/year. Regardless, that site has some very problematic data. Maybe Brazil does have a lower cost compared to other South American countries,…

And you're not showing any data at all. Please show some that shows devs in the USA aren't over compensated relative to the rest of the world. Until you do I will assume you are just using anecdata because you want to pretend that what? US devs don't get paid more than devs in the rest of the world? Why?

> And you're not showing any data at all.

And your payscale site is so far off, it can't be called data.

> US devs don't get paid more than devs in the rest of the world?

How in the world did you come to that conclusion? My only point is that your claim of cheap foreign labor comes from Western privilege.

Re: The hero's journey of getting laid off

#89

Post by selimthegrim »

sleepdreamy wrote: post #74
aetherson wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of which folks? People in the world? Certainly. People in history? Even more certainly. People in the United States of America? ...I mean, probably not actually a majority, but certainly lots of people in the US would have difficulty putting away months' worth of savings without really rigorous amounts of financial discipline. The majority of people who read Hacker News ? Uh. No.

Actually - over half the country is living pay-check to paycheck. We are lucky to do what we do, don't forget that. I worked a ton of awful jobs before breaking into the industry. A lot of people don't know what it's like to be stepped on in STEM fields but its a constant thing for lower echelons of our society. Cold World

You clearly don’t know anyone who went to STEM grad school if you’re saying that

Re: The hero's journey of getting laid off

#90

Post by pards »

scarby2 wrote: post #73
the_af wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Awesome that it worked out for you! That said, 9 months of pay as severance for 20 years of work seems a bit disappointing. In my country it's currently one month of pay per year worked for layoffs where the employee was not at fault.

where is this? I've lived a few places and never heard of something so generous. It's normally closer to 1-2 weeks per year. Also in the UK, ireland and france they put a very low cap on the weekly pay.

One week per year is standard in Canada, too
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