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Some people may think of it as a vacation. I don't think most people in the world would and not even most people in technology.

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.

Contrast it with my experience where my wife was 100% supportive of me taking multiple months of not working at all and not really looking to recover from my time at my previous employer.

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.

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 companies, and are not financially well off, so when it does come, they're going to be SOL. It's not un-preparedness, it's inability to get ahead of it. Yes, some of them could be making better fiscal decisions, but others are trapped by kids, medical conditions.. etc.

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).

Definitely, and I don't mean it to sound like these people couldn't be making better choices, but once you've dug your hole deep enough, it's hard to ever get to a point where you can be "safe" from this sort of thing. Even if they knew, for example, that the company was shutting down for a month starting in six months, the likelihood of being able to stow away ~ two paychecks during that window is quite small.

>but they're always entirely surprised when it happens to them.

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'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.

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.

I really am blaming the "victim" of a layoff of an upper class engineering job if they suffer the consequences of setting up their lives as though they will always be employed without gaps.

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.

It depends. I got laid off during the dot bomb (contract not renewed) and I had 4 months of money saved up. I was out of work for 6 and had to move to a new city. The dot bomb + 9/11 was pretty devastating for the area I had worked in. I had only been in the biz for a few years and didn't make that much as a tech person. It was also a techie college town, so there was lots of labor supply.

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 folks are forced to live paycheck to paycheck, not of their own volition. I'd be fine for quite some time, heck I could probably semi retire so to speak.

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.

It's nearly impossible for folks outside our industry (or some comparable industry in terms of pay).

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.

Median household income in the US is about $67k, and of course median cost of living the US is much lower than in the SF Bay area. It is thoroughly possible to put away enough money to pay for car troubles or many kinds of medical problems without superhuman financial discipline for most households in the US.

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.

I think actual numbers are hard to come by, but I would say it's like a "go do it then" sort of thing. It's easy for well off folks to offer thoughts / advice.

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 think actual numbers aren't at all hard to come by, this is extremely well-studied and easily available to anyone by Googling. But I see that now we're going to go, "Well, the anecdotes of my friends trump actual data."

As I said, go do it! Most studies I've seen state that it's hard to know because paycheck to paycheck is such a loaded word. And it's easy to access that the majority of Americans end up in medical debt in their lifetime.

Sure, yes, I'll upend my life for multiple years in order to satisfy the demands of a random HN poster. That seems highly reasonable. Quick question: how many times have you completely changed your entire life because someone on the internet told you that you weren't allowed to have a comment before you did that?

If you're going to say something like "It is thoroughly possible to put away enough money to pay for car troubles or many kinds of medical problems without superhuman financial discipline for most households in the US." then you should be willing to put your money where your mouth is or prove it in some fashion (run a fake budget based on your household making that amount).

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?

I did say that. You got pissy because I didn't agree with your over the top hyperbole, then you said a lot of ridiculous nonsense, and now that you're ridiculous nonsense has been called you're trying to retroactively pull back on your claims.

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.

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

Forced? No.

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.

yeah. living indoors and eating are for spoiled brats.

People have very different paychecks, very different family sizes and essential needs (such as necessary medication etc.). And yet, majority of people have to spend exactly their entire paycheck? I don't buy that. Sounds more like, for a lot of people, the lifestyle is inflated to as much as the paycheck allows.

It very much depends on a lot of things including the economic conditions at the time.

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.

Having an emergency fund is basic financial planning that is too often neglected.

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.