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Comment by eru | Hacker News Reader

> 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.

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> 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.

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 than they really do. True friendship should (and does) transcend "jobs".

Maybe I'm an outlier - but I believe most folks just want to have a good time with their friends - specific careers be damned!

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.

I promise you absolutely nothing changed about how I thought about myself after being Amazoned last September, I looked for another job and started my 9th job a month later.

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