The hero's journey of getting laid off
backtohumanity.substack.com
backtohumanity.substack.com
It was still a worrying experience, had kids, family to take care of, but I chose to take that money and time and enroll in a coding boot camp and go in a new direction in life after age 40. I figured I wasn't going to see a lump sum of 9 months pay and time to do something with it ever again so I was going to take advantage of it.
Years later now I'm very happy with the decision. Starting over was stressful, but I'm much happier with what I do now... and I don't think I would have done it if I hadn't been laid off.
It was still traumatic, but I don't think I would be on this side of things had it been easier...
It all depends on the corporation.
In my country it's currently one month of pay per year worked for layoffs where the employee was not at fault.
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.
The downsides of living here are discussed elsewhere, of course. But let's not get sidetracked :)
if the employer wishes to give you more they are perfectly free to (and it's very, very common to)
Here's the list [0]:
Death of a spouse (or child*): 100
Divorce: 73
Marital separation: 65
Imprisonment: 63
Death of a close family member: 63
Personal injury or illness: 53
Marriage: 50
Dismissal from work: 47
Marital reconciliation: 45
Retirement: 45
I recently went through a layoff, like probably quite a few in our industry lately, so it rings very true to me.
[0]: https://paindoctor.com/top-10-stressful-life-events-holmes-r...
So, it's a scale on a predictor of health impacts, vs say a measure of intensity.
I think my score is about 210-290 for the last 4-5 years . And I am supposed to keep a high performance because of health insurance and keeping my visa lol.
Not really, "consultant" is just another word for contractor. Almost 20 years ago the company I worked for did a round of layoffs that did not affect me. But it got me thinking and I started looking around and decided to try contracting. It was just like being employed except the term was set (6 months) and the money was much better than being employed. That 6 month contract turned into 18 months and I did contracting for many years after. I don't regret it. It was the best money I ever made. But when you're doing hourly contracting it's hard to stop thinking about billable hours outside of work (especially if there's lots of work and no overtime cap.) "If I take a vacation I'm not billing for $X and I have to pay for the vacation, etc." Everything has its trade-offs. I'm employed now, but some days I think about getting back to contracting.
The difference between consultant and contractor in my neck of the woods, is that consultants have multiple clients where as a contractor is basically an employee-employer relationship, simply structured in a different way.
I believe the grandparent was specifically referring to an arrangement where you have more than one customer ("employer", if you will) to mitigate the risk of getting laid off.
Changing jobs, changing homes, changing relationships
Try not to do all 3 at once :)
But, I think you framed it better - a lot of people interpret what my dad said as the negative, but it really is the status "change" that matters.
I took that experience and changed what kind of jobs I looked for, and found one I'm much happier with.
Can you please clarify? What were you looking for before and after?
(Or even just changing their job/company within the same profession.)
The layoffs in tech have started. It won't be as bad as the 2001-2004 dot com debacle. Possibly not as bad as the 2008-2012 period was (which wasn't as bad for tech vs the previous downturn, but was just bad overall). If you've prepared then this will be the pause that refreshes. The break you've been needing for a few years now. A time to regroup, learn new things, rethink your priorities. Recessions need not be fearsome things if you've got a good emergency fund and you can live frugally for a while. I used the '01-'04 downturn to go back to school and get a Masters degree. I view that time positively.
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 compared to devs internationally. Devs in the Bay Area are massively overpayed compared to devs in the rest of the USA. You all just haven't realised this yet.
[1]https://www.payscale.com/research/BR/Job=Software_Developer/...
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.
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.
Speaking to a British company recently and they were trying to hire for a senior web dev role at £40k (<$50,000)
I found that surprising to say the least given that even entry level dev roles in the US pay more than that.
Lesson of the story: embrace remote work.
If you're working for a local company the increased willingness of American companies to hire remote workers is going to raise local dev salaries due to increased competition.
I think this is a good thing. If this also comes at the expense of American devs having their salaries squeezed, frankly I don't care. You're rich. You will be slightly less rich, or even just getting richer at a slightly slower rate.
While some American devs might view this as a personal tragedy, if you subscribe to a maximin view of what a desirable global economic pathway looks like (which I do), then the squeeze on American devs and increased willingness to hire remote workers globally is a good thing.
I was laid off my last job. It was totally expected (I saw it coming, years ahead), and the "forcing function" for me, was encountering the Brick Wall of Silicon Valley Ageism.
It forced me to accept that I was in early retirement; whether or not I liked it.
Turns out, it was the best thing that could have happened to me.
META: He may want to reconsider his choice of thumbnails. I think it's a great one, but Disney has a rather fearsome reputation for going after even the smallest misuses of its IP.
The ultimate form of freedom is being able to decide what you want to do with your time. One way of accomplishing that is making a ridiculous amount of money via a successful exit. Another way is to structure your life so that you're ok with less. Sure, I think most would prefer the 'have lots of money' option, but 1) even there it's easy to get sucked into spending more, as this article mentions, and 2) we have a lot more control over living frugally while earning well (most software engineers earn pretty good money) than we do over a wildly successful exit from a startup.
Getting laid off is a traumatic event. It is not a hero's journey except in so far as a hero's journey is exciting because it talks about a path through dangerous times where a person can fail.
I, and likely many of us, have a family. We are blessed to work in technology where we earn more than we make and can put up savings for rainy days.
The average person with a family who gets laid off will not sense adventure - they will have despair. Utter despair and worthlessness and the hope they can get things back together before their family suffers.
Heck even us tech workers can feel that way. The most depressed time of my entire life was after I had been laid off. It was bad enough that I was having negative thoughts almost every day nonstop. It was traumatic enough that it fundamentally changed my approach to savings, life, and risk (likely for the worst).
I am better now, have a family, a career I enjoy, but I now know how easy it is for the veneer to be ripped away. Its not a hero's journey - its a nightmare.
If you're living paycheck to paycheck it's a nightmare, if you've got months saved up set aside for exactly this kind of thing it's a vacation.
In my own experience, it was a sense of worthlessness that seeped into me daily. I was newly married, my wife supportive, but it was constantly between us. "How did it go today, did you find anything interesting? No - ok, no worries, I'm sure something will pop up."
Deep depression and a sense that you are failing your family, that if you had tried harder maybe it wouldn't have happened, that you arn't successful and that is why noone would want to have you.
Funny. I had thought I was over it - its been a long long long time - but I find myself affected even writing this.
I think you're presupposing that your experience is universal. I felt refreshed and reinvigorated when I started my new job, not panicked and depressed, because I had created for myself a solid support structure for such eventualities (financially and socially).
I would argue that the real key here is preparation; if you can set yourself up not to be harmed by something like a lay off, you will be much more likely to go through it in a positive way than if you leave it up to fate to decide how and when you experience such a potentially negative event.
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).
Not always. When I was laid off I wasn't surprised in the slightest. There had already been layoffs and the company eventually effectively shut down.
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.
Few do, however.
It is not a lot to ask for someone in the top x% of earners to set aside a few months' expenses instead of spending every dollar on housing/food/entertainment/etc.
There are situations where employers do mistreat employees, but failing to guarantee perpetual employment is not one of them.
I got laid off again about 3 years ago. It was nice. I got an immediate offer from someone I had worked with before. I wished I could have taken more time off. I currently have several years of expenses available to me.
It really depends on where you are in your career. Money really is freedom in the US, try not to spend it carelessly.
The majority of people who read Hacker News? Uh. No.
Car trouble? Savings gone. Any sort of medical issue? Savings gone.
I actually think those folks are more financially disciplined than us, given they somehow make it work despite their low pay.
Now:
1. Is there a substantial minority who genuinely can only really live hand-to-mouth in the US? Yes.
2. Is it obviously much easier for those of us who have tech-job incomes to put away substantial savings than it is for the median family? Also yes.
3. Am I personally some kind of paragon of financial discipline? No.
4. Is it understandable why many people live closer to paycheck-to-paycheck than they could? Yes.
But I don't think that hyperbole serves anyone here.
Go accept a $67k job (which is actually higher than each of my non tech friends, but whatever), and then go live somewhere on that (renting too!). After a few years, show me how much you've saved. I have zero doubt you'll find it's been eaten up by emergencies, etc. Then get laid off! Hopefully you don't have family to take care of either. I don't even want to think about what happens to your health in that time (fitness, nutrition, etc.).
That's why I have major respect for folks who do it. I don't think I'd have the resolve.
That's also why I fight for better pay / social safety net for all. They shouldn't have to live like that.
I have a low tolerance for making light of other's situations.
Why not admit it takes a good amount of financial discipline (if not superhuman)?
What does it cost your ego to admit that?
Financial discipline is hard, it's totally understandable why people don't save as much as would be optimal. I also don't save as much as is optimal. It requires good financial discipline to save money when your budget is limited.
But it doesn't require living like a monk or spending every minute of every day pinching pennies to put away $1000 to $3000 or so per year for most Americans, and if you do that you'll be insulated against the kind of minor disasters that happen once a decade or so.
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
The majority of Americans who live paycheck to paycheck choose to live paycheck to paycheck and act like every expense is an obligation.
I, to be fair, have been one of them for significant amounts of time, but I chose it and the consequences which were of my own making.
I was laid off almost immediately after 9/11 in the midst of dot-bomb. As it turned out, I almost immediately landed a new job with someone I knew. It was a pay cut and that company barely made it through the dot-bomb aftermath itself. But it was a comparatively good landing considering. I wasn't about to starve but you didn't want to be cashing in stock at the time. And I definitely knew, especially older, people who lost their jobs in that period and never really recovered in terms of financial position or career.
Under those circumstances, unless you have a lot of cash tucked away, you probably shouldn't be treating it as a vacation. I wouldn't say it was traumatic for me--I pretty much knew it was coming and I lucked out--but it could have been quite bad as I didn't have so much as a nibble from anyone else I talked to.
Even with a cushion to fall back on though, don’t discount how it’s going to feel seeing the balance fall month after month.
I expected a break when a company I worked for closed down. In fact, it was autumn and my original plan was to enjoy some time off and pick things up in the new year. Part of me regrets not doing that but I know at the time stress quickly set in.
Being so dependent on your employer that it would ruin your life if they terminated your contract is probably not a good thing. A hero's journey is about remediating that deficiency. For some people, being laid off may have been a good thing.
I agree that it is for many, but in my case it wasn't.
> It is not a hero's journey except in so far as a hero's journey is exciting because it talks about a path through dangerous times where a person can fail.
Difficult events are often found at the beginning on the hero's journey... like getting laid off.
> The average person with a family who gets laid off will not sense adventure - they will have despair. Utter despair and worthlessness and the hope they can get things back together before their family suffers.
I totally agree with this. I originally wrote more about this but I reduced it to: "Most, unfortunately, will never hear it over their newborn’s cries or the deafening financial storms that suffocate them." This will be terrible for many people, and I have endless sympathy for them. But there will be others who gain from this.
Keep six months expenses on hand to deal with this kind of thing and you won't have to be afraid of being laid off. Like you say, if you're prepared it's a free vacation and and opportunity to be picky with your next job.
Still I'm fortunate/could be worse.
This just tickles me. Great analogy.
Stop picking up extra work just because you can do it.
Start working less hard (spend a few hours a day on hacker news, for example).
Sadly, the above often results in more promotions and being considered more important, for some reason. I can't explain it.
Success depends on your relationship with your manager and if they actually have control over who gets let go.
They will usually oblige you because you are solving a problem for them (meeting their cut headcount requirements) and they know that if you stay you might leave anyway and if you don't you'll be unhappy.
Heck, if they layoff is a surprise, ask your boss if you can swap with someone else. They often have the flexibility to do that.
Life is huge - humongous even and you owe it to yourself to explore.
The world is a very large place. You can succeed in very different ways as long as your provide value. In a lot of situations and places that bar of value is lower than what you are accustomed to.
I've known Billionaire founders who know little about business or code, software engineers who made more money selling shoes online.
W.r.t decisions:
People seem to need these "Walls" that they need to run into to be forced to make a decision about their lives - layoffs, firings, family care issues, health issues etc.
Don't fight it- go with the flow. Use those to do what you really want to do or at least to give it a brief try.
A low cost of living is the only thing that really gives you a robust form of freedom.
They probably aren't. Some of them are really smart. Some of them are pretty dumb. Some are determined and hardworking. Some are lazy. Most are more or less somewhere in the middle.
I don't know why anyone would assume the smartest people in the world are working on delivery food (I understand the subtext of the-smartest-people-are-choosing-to-work-on-apps-ad-tech-etc but I just don't buy it)?
This is not always true. And smarts/talent aren't completely interchangeable, either.
Find work that has great synergy with your hobbies/interest but is not exactly the same. Either requiring similar skill or being the the same or related field. That way they will fuel each other.
And most importantly, don't try to find meaning in your work (except maybe if you work in non-market driven employments like education/health care but sill beware). That is something a simple farmer that directly interacts with his produce might have experienced but modern capitalism it way too alienating for that to work. Most of the time you wont be even able to tell if you individual output makes any difference and if so for better for worse.
Find meaning outside work.