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A layoff fundamentally changed how I perceive work

(mertbulan.com)
1041 points mertbio | 1 comments | 27 Jan 25 08:22 UTC | HN request time: 0.223s | source
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lm28469 ◴[27 Jan 25 09:30 UTC] No.42839108[source]▶
That's what happened during my first job almost 10 years ago. "we're different than other companies, we're family", "business is always personal", yadda yadda

Then one day out of nowhere "hey btw we're not going to renew your contract, we're nice so we give you an extra 10 days of vacation don't bother coming back tomorrow, oh and all your accesses have been revoked". At least I got the reality check right away, some people get that way down the line when their whole persona has already been built around their job

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0xEF ◴[27 Jan 25 09:42 UTC] No.42839186[source]▶
I think one has some deeper issues to tackle if one is basing their whole persona around their job. This is not a healthy thing to do, regardless of layoffs.
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pjc50 ◴[27 Jan 25 09:51 UTC] No.42839246[source]▶
Difficult to avoid when there's lots of culture encouraging it, and especially once your hours are long enough that the rest of your life gets eroded.
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FridgeSeal ◴[27 Jan 25 10:23 UTC] No.42839437[source]▶
We also start, or encourage starting work quite early on in our lives, and so it naturally grabs a place in people’s existence in their formative years as “a thing that they do”. Is it any surprise then, that it naturally ends up becoming at least a non-trivial part of people’s sense-of-self?
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1. bluGill ◴[27 Jan 25 14:48 UTC] No.42841656[source]▶
You have to work. If you really want to you can live on much less - rice and beans in a tiny apartment would let you live on a tiny income. However most people like luxuries in life. In addition, most jobs you cannot get anything done in an hour - it takes times to remember what I was doing the day before before I can write code again.

For the above reasons you will be working a significant number of hours. As such work will be a significant part of your existence. I would hope you are doing things you enjoy, and that in turn means it becomes a part of you.

The important thing though is make it an easy to replace part of you. Have other things you do. Hobbies, a family, sport, volunteer. There are lots of options. If something goes wrong in any of the above you have the rest to replace it. (family is the only one where you should strive to not have something go wrong - but even there it often does)