You must have me confused with someone else?

Nowhere in this thread did I suggest people find cheaper housing by leaving cities.

How do I plan for job instability? By interviewing at many places continuously. By keeping my job skills and interviewing skills sharp, while interviewing continuously. By keeping my eye on the market and my value, by interviewing continuously, and evaluating the incoming offers.

It’s not easy, but it’s pretty straightforward. I picked a job sector with lots of opportunities and upward mobility, but also tons of instability. I picked a place to live which gives me physical proximity to those opportunities. I work smart and stay agile. All of that without a college degree.

Stuff is expensive and we don’t always have everything we want, but we’re secure enough to have everything we need, with a healthy risk management plan.

I do live in a major city in the US, so I have more local opportunities than someone in a small town. But I’d argue that my decision to live near where there are job opportunities was part of my planning process.

I mean, yeah, I plan for that. If you’re a wage earner like me, you should know you’re employed at the will of some company, and they don’t give a shit about you.

I plan for this by interviewing for other jobs at least once a month. I turn down offers every few months. I keep my skills sharp and my eyes open, and change employment when it makes sense.

The longest I’ve been at one company is 7 years, but it’s not unusual for me to change companies after 18-24 months.

I don’t plan to get laid off, but it happens a lot in my industry, and I roll with it. It is planned out, risk management, or whatever you want to call it.

So the economy made it so people who were planning ahead suddenly woke up one day with an unplanned 2 year old?

Sure, money and housing are tougher than they used to be, but don’t pretend like an embarrassing number of people just don’t care to plan ahead, and when they get into deep shit they look to blame everyone else.

Huh, it’s like planning ahead isn’t even a thing.

Once the kid situation hits then yeah, it’s harder to make planning decisions, people’s options are limited at that point. I agree we should help people in those circumstances, but I also think we should help people make plans which avoid painting themselves into a corner.

We have to pay to have an account on X now?

I hear you, it’s always tough out there, keep at it you got this.

The reason I take multiple interviews a week even when I’m not looking change positions is because it takes that level of legwork to maintain my career.

I don’t want to sound like I’m down playing how difficult it is to succeed in our industry. It takes a bunch of work, and networking, but getting ahead if you have talent is 100% doable.

I’m not sure what qualifying language you took offense at, and I wasn’t intending to be condescending.

I admitted that my experience was indeed anecdotal, but I stand by my statements. If you’re good at what you do in tech, you have a few years of experience, and you’re willing to take take positions that differ from your comfort zone you should never be without well paying work.

I’m always in the market as you put it, even though I’m not looking to leave my current position any time soon. I did 2 interviews in the last 7 days, and I turn down offers probably once a month.

I know this isn’t how it works for everyone in tech, but once you get your career grooved it isn’t unrealistic.

This hasn’t been my (anecdotal) experience, or that of anyone in my network.

The industry is unstable no doubt about that, but we’ve never had trouble finding better places to land.

IMO if you’ve been in tech building your skills for a few years, you really shouldn’t have trouble finding work. '01 was weird but there was still plenty of work, especially in defense. '08 was scary but turned out to be a great time to join a startup. Sometimes it’s a lateral move instead of up, sometimes it requires relocating , but if you’ve been doing good work and building your professional network you should never have to go back to driving forklifts (unless you choose to).

What about posting on a privately owned platform is free speech?

I agree twitter is shit, and these prices are stupid, but I’m not seeing the 1st amendment argument.

as they [Israel] shoot missiles directly into apartment buildings

I didn’t see this part in the linked article. I do not condone Isreal’s treatment of Palestinian civilians, but I haven’t seen any reports like what you wrote. Do you have an additional source so I can read up?