I worked manufacturing in my younger days and also spent some time in the Marines, so I feel ya on the cushy tech jobs... But I'd just about rather go back to Iraq before I go back to corporate culture.
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1. Back in the 00s, I would buy our weekly supply of eggs from a woman who sold eggs at the Beverly Hills farmer’s market. She had photo albums of the chickens at the farm. One Sunday morning, I overslept and arrived towards the end of the market. The egg lady had no eggs, but was selling whole chickens out of a cooler. I was relieved to discover that she’d just sold out of eggs and the chickens she was selling as meat weren’t the hens who laid the eggs (although still, chickens were slaughtered to make meat). And yes, I’m the kind of urban hypocrite who is happy to eat meat as long as he doesn’t have to think about how it transformed from an animal into a food.
Doing that in your backyard with a few chickens sounds great.
>but reality is much uglier than that, of course.
Much uglier at any sort of commercial scale.
Vs what exactly?
I shifted away to get more predictability and less accounting/biz management stuff. Maybe the party has ended, but I bet there's still some ability to freelance for small orgs? Alternatively working for small yet sustainable companies should be similarly lean.
I find the BS really ramps up with the size of the org. Small orgs obviously have their own problems (and often create problems that don't need to exist), but pick your poison.
I have this idea that AI might actually be a real enabler for small or 1-man teams if you find the right niche. I haven't acted on it yet, but I expect a lot of folks are doing that right now.
I think you can get lucky and be in those good environments for longer (looks like you got lucky for 11 years) but by the nature of capitalism and competition those things never really last.
And I will admit that the mid 2000's to roughly 2020 was a pretty good time to be in that mode. I haven't freelanced since 2019 so I might just be talking about good times that are gone now - it does seem like a tough world out there right now, but I bet there's still plenty of niches to be found.
You won’t exit after this year. You’ll keep pushing it out.
Reading the FIRE subreddit I have realized that most people like the fantasy of retiring more than actually retiring. A lot of them wouldn't actually know what to do without the daily societal pressure to grind. Life is tough when you are out of the beaten path and need to figure out how to fill your days apparently.
versus
> crunching the numbers I could have retired years ago
How do you reconcile the apparent hypocrisy of your wealthiness?
The stereotype is a boomer taking their winnings and then complaining about the system.
I've got just enough money to start worrying that my savings will mostly be taken by my government. Perhaps it is time for me to join the old white man complainer's club (is HN that?).
Does this specific category error have a name? I see it so frequently, it's ridiculous. Being genre-savvy/aware of the meta-game doesn't mean one can opt-out, or refuse to play. Recognizing how a game is rigged often allows one to play it better than the average person.
I'm not GP, but my acknowledgement that society is unequal, and that I sometimes benefit from the inequality doesn't mean I have to be dude under the bridge, nor is it immoral since I cannot opt out of humanity. All I can do is minimize my odds of falling into societal cracks, and I make no apologies for that.
In reasonably balanced games, it usually turns out the "overpowered" strategy is not all that overpowered and that they have huge downsides when played against people who know how to counter them. In real life, which has no requirement of being balanced, we can recognize that certain strategies ((explicitly legal and often even encouraged!) consistently work really well. Choosing not to use those strategies doesn't make one morally superior, just bad at playing the game of life.
That said, "minimizing your own odds of falling into societal cracks" often still includes caring for others around you. On a small scale, being rich but alone because everyone around you went bankrupt and/or became estranged to you is not much fun. On a bigger scale it's just good governance to make sure everyone has food, safety and entertainment, just to keep the pitchforks away.
I'm not sure this is full on hypocrisy.
In this case this is the game we are forced to play (late stage capitalism). Doesn't mean I need to like the game, but since I'm forced to play I will darn make sure to win as much as I can.
Hate the game, not the players
Nicely demonstrating the root cause of late stage capitalism - us. Perhaps we should blame the players.
I see so many comments trying to blame others or blame systems. Blaming billionaires, or consumers, or boomers, or zoomers.
Of course I'm part of the problem too. I do fix things in my direct environment but I figure trying to help fix more would be beyond my skills.
I am not planning to stay out of tech altogether though, at least long term.
Retirement is inherently a choice to earn less lifetime money and pour that time into family and other things you like doing. Waiting for the next vesting cliff is inherently a choice to earn more money and spend less time on your family.
Healthcare is the item that most FIRE folks underestimate. It was actually pretty tenable when the Obamacare subsidies were more fully in effect. Now that those are mostly gone it's a much larger line item in the household budget. I've only got a couple of years until Medicare kicks in so I'm not too concerned - unless they mess that up too - but for folks thinking of FIRE'ing in their 40s & 50s with kids still at home it's probably not advisable now.
They are not really comparable and are exhausting in a different way. Tech makes me mentally exhausted fighting things out of my control. Hard labour made me physically exhausted but I felt more in control of my life. I didn't need to do any performative tasks. Once the day was over, it was over.
Just different type of exhaustions. Grass is always greener on the other side I know
Although now sometimes I yearn for a solid day of physical labor out on the ocean.
But yeah, grass is definitely greener on this side. I can always go shovel dirt o a saturday.
Late career is a different story. Tech is Up or Out. A lot of people here are off-the-grid contractor types living in LCOL areas, fully remote, with varying degrees of financial comfort. Those people in HCOL areas who got used to expensive lifestyles - sometimes because, let's face it, return to office meant living in a HCOL area, and eventually buying when the rents got tiringly highter - well some of us have choices to make. You can be not wealthy enough to retire, but still trapped in expenses, and seeing how you can pivot to continue the high.
Then the planning begins to where you'll live in a LCOL area.
Some others in early career are really suffering. People who were laid off are having issues at the moment. It's K-shaped.
So enjoy your mid-career bump. Or, you're in the lucky few late-career types with googleable reputations, you accumulated FANG money/shares, and then you're golden.
I was digging 6 holes in full sun, 26 degree C, transporting 100 kg of dirt in 8 rounds, moved 600 kg of ceramic roof times, worked on rain and had sun burns which I treated 2 days with pain even sleeping
Everything for third of my normal salary
That said, I would like to retire early, not because I dislike it, but because I like a lot of other things more than it. I'd probably still have a software hobby project or business, but it's nice to be able to choose to do so instead of having to do it because someone wants me to.
Plus I can choose how much AI to use.