Perhaps the better lesson is that tying your self-worth to your corporate employment is a really, really bad idea.
I realize that's difficult in today's performative world, where an quick perusal of LinkedIn shows loads of people that are "passionate" about banking compliance or insurance claims or whatever. Many companies have also have fostered this false idea that companies are a "family". That is always false. The best companies are more like a team, and when things start to go south, sometimes people on that team are cut.
Ironically, I think the professions where people really are passionate and see it as a "dream job" (think professional sports teams, actors, musicians, artists, etc.) generally have a much healthier view of their employment in the first place because they realize how tenuous it is to begin with. Point being, if you're considering suicide if you lose your job, you should be in therapy long, long before it gets to that point.
One final note: before I get the pushback of "that's all nice to say until you have no income and are living on the streets!", let's get real for a moment. First, I have a ton of sympathy for people who are laid off - it sucks and can be very destabilizing. But lets also get real - people were laid off from Dropbox with a very generous severance package and they are in a highly paid industry to begin with. None of these people are going to starve, and nearly all of them will be able to eventually find employment (if perhaps not at the same exact high salary as Dropbox). Any mental health issues folks have after getting laid off is nearly always the result of tying one's self-worth to one's job, and that's the link that should be broken.
The only thing we would agree on is that disconnecting self worth from a job is, in general, a good idea.
I have spoken with professionals in ballet and they actually feel mental strain from having to file for unemployment when off season. Even though it’s considered normal practice it doesn’t mean it’s right to treat people like that.
Dropbox gave a generous severance? Maybe, but is that is the case everywhere? I can tell you, the start up I worked for before, Aurora Innovation, only gave people one week for every year worked and they were doing silent layoffs in groups of five. One of those people was a young father on H1B who had been there less than a year.
Saying you should be in therapy long before it happens is rather callous. How was that father, or any of the other people, know they would need therapy beforehand for something they have no control over? It’s like saying you need therapy before an earthquake destroys your home.
>tying your self-worth to your corporate employment is a really, really bad idea.
We can talk philosophy all day long. I just want to pay rent, respecfully. People telling me to "upskill" seem tonedeaf to this.
And this isn't some thing unique to tech. All jobs dried up. I wouldn't be worried otherwise if I could find ANY work right now.
>But lets also get real - people were laid off from Dropbox with a very generous severance package and they are in a highly paid industry to begin with.
okay. Other companies don't. I got a month of severance and saved up 6 months.
It's been 13 months. What now? I'm not starving but only by dumb luck.
>Any mental health issues folks have after getting laid off is nearly always the result of tying one's self-worth to one's job, and that's the link that should be broken.
No it results from peopel stresse on how to survive. Maybe be real and look outside the FAANG bubble every once in a while. I'm not worried about Dropbox, but everything else in this BS economy that pretends to be soaring.
I don't belive you have any sympathy given this comment. You just want blame anything except the environment and people not magically being prepared for 6, 12, 18+ months of unemployment in what was very recently a "hot market".
I realize that's difficult in today's performative world, where an quick perusal of LinkedIn shows loads of people that are "passionate" about banking compliance or insurance claims or whatever. Many companies have also have fostered this false idea that companies are a "family". That is always false. The best companies are more like a team, and when things start to go south, sometimes people on that team are cut.
Ironically, I think the professions where people really are passionate and see it as a "dream job" (think professional sports teams, actors, musicians, artists, etc.) generally have a much healthier view of their employment in the first place because they realize how tenuous it is to begin with. Point being, if you're considering suicide if you lose your job, you should be in therapy long, long before it gets to that point.
One final note: before I get the pushback of "that's all nice to say until you have no income and are living on the streets!", let's get real for a moment. First, I have a ton of sympathy for people who are laid off - it sucks and can be very destabilizing. But lets also get real - people were laid off from Dropbox with a very generous severance package and they are in a highly paid industry to begin with. None of these people are going to starve, and nearly all of them will be able to eventually find employment (if perhaps not at the same exact high salary as Dropbox). Any mental health issues folks have after getting laid off is nearly always the result of tying one's self-worth to one's job, and that's the link that should be broken.