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Comment by gregd | Hacker News Reader

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.

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I’m not sure what “most of the world” has to do with a guy making more than $200k a year. At $200k per year, you are in a very good position to change your circumstances.

Imagine going down to your local watering hole and lamenting about your circumstances that “stuck” you in your $200k job. Probably a pretty good way to get punched in the face.

> this idea that people should (or can) just leave employment, needs to stop

On the contrary, when my friends/family complain about employment I'll usually ask them why they stay. While sometimes people just want to vent (and that's totally okay) there have been various instances where they realized that their notion that they need that particular employer was flawed and they've been able to move on to other gainful employment.

While the idea that people should just leave their job is overused and probably unrealistic for some individuals if you stop saying it you may miss a chance to help someone realize that they may be their own best bet for getting out of their current plight and move forward to something (hopefully) better.

> 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.

If the mortage/rental and family expense is in the same order of magnitude as the salary, it's little different than everywhere else.

Does this really apply to people earning as much as a quarter of a million? Surely at that point most of your money is disposable income?

>Surely at that point most of your money is disposable income?

Not if you're living in a major city with wife, kids, and a mortgage.

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.

The market is still desperate for developers so you can get away with it here. Technical interviews mean you have an alternative to your work history, so you can get jobs if you have skill but have some gaps or sudden departures. If anything, we've learned that finding the right fit is difficult. This is just knowing the market. If the market changes, then yes, people won't be able to suddenly quit as often.

There are some crazy boring jobs out there that will absolutely be fatal to any real passion and some people want to see where that takes them.

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.

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