Googler... ex-Googler

It sucks and especially the abruptness, but I find it hard to muster sympathy. Google employees receive some of the highest renumeration in the industry. Combined with the prestige of Google on his resume he'll land back on his feet in no time.

At least for me it’s more like “this guys career is still way better than mine so it’s hard to think of his situation as suffering”.

It's still hard. Maybe he or she has had better luck and opportunities than you, but that doesn't mean they don't suffer just as much when bad things happen.

We're all on this rock together, and either nobody's pain is worthy or everyone's is.

> We're all on this rock together, and either nobody's pain is worthy or everyone's is.

This overgeneralizes IMHO. While the pain of being laid off due to something other than your own actions is fine, there are certainly folks out there who cause a lot of pain to others and aren't worthy of universal sympathy when their own pain comes along.

> This overgeneralizes IMHO. While the pain of being laid off due to something other than your own actions is fine, there are certainly folks out there who cause a lot of pain to others and aren't worthy of universal sympathy when their own pain comes along.

Everyone thinks that when they're angry or upset with someone. Ultimately people are people, and everyone deserves sympathy when bad things happen to them. Note that i don't always accomplish this, but I certainly think it's worth trying.

Sorry, but I simply don't agree. You're overgeneralizing again with "everyone thinks..." but no, you will trivially find folks who believe that someone (as an example) who murders or facilitates the murder of innocent people does not deserve sympathy when they suffer the consequences of their actions.

It is not true that all rational people believe that all people deserve sympathy for all causes of suffering.