Comment by miningape | Hacker News Reader

Comment by miningape | Hacker News Reader

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> Your manager doesn't get upset when you leave, bit weird how people feel so differently when they get fired.

Really? You think its weird that someone leaving impacts that person more than their manager, team, or company?

A manager doesn't care that you leave because he still gets to bring home a salary, all they have to do is hire another person and maybe cut back on scope for a little while. When someone is layed off or fired they have to go find a new job, their income streams dry up, and are forced to rely on savings. People often have long term financial commitments they cannot back out of, and not knowing how you'll make rent, if you can afford your child's school fees, or even maybe having to cut back on how much you eat, _is stressful_ and emotionally taxing.

Are you fucking kidding me? "Which is a bit weird" I'll tell you what's weird: management who doesn't understand that their employees rely on them more than they rely on the employee.

Of course its fine when someone chooses to leave their job, they've made contingencies and planned around it. Whether it's through savings, another job, or the lottery, people have at least some idea of their plan when they leave a job.

> People often have long term financial commitments they cannot back out of, and not knowing how you'll make rent, if you can afford your child's school fees, or even maybe having to cut back on how much you eat, _is stressful_ and emotionally taxing.

I'm sure people making >200k/year and getting a 4 month severance package will be cutting back on how much they eat.

What you say is true about low or even medium income jobs. But most of the cuts are to tech workers and their managers, ie. people best equipped to manage in this kind of event.

You'd be surprised what lifestyle creep does to people. Often people don't pay off their debts and instead scale their debts to their new income - it's stupid I know.

I agree they should be in a better position because of their income, and I'd say more than an average amount are. But there are still a lot of people in that bracket who absolutely would have the floor pulled out from under them.

People are often caught with their pants down assuming the good times will keep rolling. And even when they see the market downturn or have a generous severance, it still can be very difficult to scrape together the 6+ months emergency fund required on short notice.

Depending on the resale value of what the debt is for (homes mainly) maintaining your leverage ratio can work out great for you. Mortgages are the only way most people are able to invest with leverage and the source of a lot of generational wealth.

You should only leverage what you are OK with losing entirely. Most people should not be leveraging their only home as investments. We are heading into some rough times and people will find out about that.

That's true, but if you over-leverage yourself and the market goes through a downturn it can spell financial ruin. It's not something to lightly do without the cashflow/assets to back up your financial knowledge - which most people don't have.

You would think so but it's often the opposite. The poorer you are the more conscious you have to be about money management so getting laid off may just be yet another obstacle life has thrown at you, business as usual.

Meanwhile if you've lived an easy life you may not have learned how to cope when the hard times come.

A manager doesn't care that you leave because he still gets to bring home a salary, all they have to do is hire another person and maybe cut back on scope for a little while.

Yeah, I'm curious how someone can have an opinions on workplaces and workers and not seem to have personal experience with the subject, especially in a community like this.

Do they just come from a wealthy family so the stance is "Getting fired isn't a big deal, just ask your dad to cover expenses until your next job."?

Don't people have savings? Don't people see what's happening in the industry and make sure to have 6+ months of savings? Don't people think that putting away a small portion of their immense tech salary would be a healthy thing to do?

If you grew up with even the slightest feeling of financial insecurity, dipping in to savings can already feel like the end of the world.

I can't imagine living with only 6 months of savings. There's no guarantee that I could find another job in 6 months, and unexpected expenses (medical, car trouble, housing repairs) can easily wipe out a month of savings anyway. In fact, given that a layoff means likely also an economic downturn, finding a job at the same salary within 6 months seems highly unlikely.

I have probably 3 years of no-risk savings at this point, have managed to reduce my living expenses to the point where I could work a 40-hour minimum wage job and still pay for my expenses, and have multiple back-up careers, and I'm only now starting to feel that taking money out of savings is an acceptable risk. That took years of frugal living on a high tech salary. People in their first few years at a tech job or with families will probably never achieve that.

It's so frustrating reading the comments around here. It's like the conversation is driven by people whose circumstances fall on the upper tail end. No concept of financial insecurity. No long-term financial commitments to worry about. Infinite flexibility. Like jeez, congrats. Now try imagining somebody else that's not you.

No. Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck.

It seems the original commenter has never really been a "line-worker". But I could be very wrong too, but then I'd be curious how those opinions were formed.

Nope, you're correct: he runs a startup and apparently has been running startups since his early 20s.

> Please tell us briefly about your background.

> I grew up in the Netherlands, and I was interested in technology from a young age. I started a gaming website when I was 13. Later, I attended Erasmus University Rotterdam before founding Fashiolista, my first startup and an early social network similar to Pinterest. It grew to millions of users...

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