I just quit a $90k a year job due to stress, burnout, and the fact that the company was a total con and I could no longer shill their crappy AI product. I’ll be back on the job hunt in the new year and I’m not particularly looking forward to it. I’m actually contemplating taking something lower paid so the process is quicker and I have less to lose when it’s shit and I burn out again.
I’ve been trying to switch careers and get into software development. I look at a lot of postings and I see $40,000 “entry level” jobs that require 2-3 years experience and a degree.
It makes me angry.
Finding a job is literally a job right now. If the post reads like ai then give them an AI cover letter, don’t waste your time if they’re not. If it’s a succinct human written posting, give an honest and professional written cover letter. The years of experience are a filter, ignore them. Focus on if you understand the problem the team is trying to solve. Or if you can learn it in a reasonable time. (Less than six months)
Here’s a good video. If anyone has an open source mirror of the YouTube link I’ll post that here too.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=iC-PMJ8B4Z0
Also an article https://archive.fo/Asqae
Good luck. I hope you’re able to take a break and connect with loved ones right now.
You know what we do with cover letters?
Throw them in the trash.
You work in HR hiring software devs or working with recruiters?
I work with recruiters to hire engineers.
So not the standard HR dept someone would find on LinkedIn or Indeed or any of the other job boards.
Thanks for the input.
To be fair, the recruiter usually throws it away for me first.
I do also handle a number of directly incoming resumes.
Should i work a soul crushing job and starve? Or not work a soul crushing job and starve? Such a hard choice!
When cost of living goes up every year by 3-5%, you can’t accept dirt wages… it’s starting to feel like maybe we got a raw deal with this infinite boom bust cycle capitalism has created for the pleebs.
starting to feel?
Pacific is a puddle of water then eh?
Just a small swamp cooler
We got raw dogged TBH
Wont accept or can’t?
Aren’t being offered.
Fortune is out here painting narratives. It’s okay, keep going, we’ll keep striking.
Where are these jobs you speak of which such a salary
The trades: carpentry, plumbing, roofing, etc. Plus side, it doesn’t require a degree.
Basically, jobs that destroy your body, so you can’t work past 55 anyway.
As if sitting at a desk all day doesn’t destroy your body.
I’ll pick a physically active job any day of the week. If you choose not to wear your gloves, knee pads, ear defenders, goggles etc. it’s on you.
As if sitting at a desk all day doesn’t destroy your body.
It does. Which is why a standing desk is better, if you’re at a screen all day.
And if you can get a standing desk with a treadmill, then it’s peak health.
There are so many ways to make a desk job less terrible.
Then be smart about it. The money you saved from not paying for college can go into a retirement account. When your body is “destroyed” you have retirement income.
That’s not really a solution though, right? It’s more like a minimal survival mechanism restricted to those privileged with financial literacy and good discipline/planning in a system where people are (paradoxically) forced to trade their health for livelihood. Many, many people will fall short of such a bar through no fault of their own.
All I’m hearing are excuses man. You can’t do it because you don’t have financial literacy? Then get literate in finances. You guys will go to school to learn all these things to get a job but won’t take the time and learn how to budget, save, understand credit, how to manage money. They didn’t teach these things in school when I was in grade school so after fucking up with student loans I took the time to buy some books and learn it. It’s not rocket science and you have to deal with money every day so learn how to manage it properly.
Next there’s discipline and planning. Why can’t you be discipline with your future? You just want to spend recklessly and expect the state to have your back when you get older? Do you really think there will be any assistance from the state when you retire? Do you even trust the state to take care of you without strings attached?
I’m tired of people complaining about this “back breaking labor”. It will break your back if you aren’t safe about the work. The same is true for these office jobs except it’s mind numbing work. You can get very unhealthy just sitting down in front of a computer all day for years. You can get burned out for working too many hours trying to reach a deadline. At least the back breaking work has unions. In both situations you will trade your health for a livelihood.
Even if I can do those things, many can’t. Do they deserve to suffer?
They don’t deserve to suffer but until enough of us get class conciseness, they will be suffering very much
Many can’t? Those people can’t pick up a book and read? The library is free in most western nations. They can’t watch some Youtube videos on basic budgeting? If they are struggling with money every day and not taking steps to solve the problem then I can’t help them. Again all I hear are excuses to not put in the effort.
“I got stabbed in the arm and I’m bleeding. It hurts. Do I deserve to bleed out?”
Treat the wound to stop the bleeding. Go to the ER if it is really bad. But don’t sit there going all Woe Is Me waiting for the EMS that you didn’t call because you think some bystander will put in the effort you refused to do.
Bro… I am biggest critic of the system there is…
But unless you help yourself, nobody will.
Until you help yourself, it is hard to find class consciousness
It is nearly impossible but most of us will need to get good at this shit.
They keep us poor because they know this.
I hear this take frequently and I think I understand where it comes from; you can lead a horse to water and all that. However, that thinking serves mostly as a way to disconnect from the suffering we’re seeing similar to a thought-terminating cliché. If you can convince yourself that people who don’t help themselves don’t deserve help, it’s much easier to cope with the existence of their suffering.
I hope this doesn’t come across as a criticism of you – I appreciate that you took the time to share your thoughts with me. Thanks!
Some people just don’t want to listen. I’m with you, the system is broken and we need to fix it. There’s also opportunity and sometimes you have to put in work to reach it.
Or you transition to an owner/management role so that you can stop punishing your body in your 40s
Not everyone can be an owner/manager
Those people can die homeless then!- Evil idiots that can’t think beyond one step.
That’s the wonderful thing about trade work, you can just become an owner. Then you train young people, they beat up their bodies for a bit and then they become an owner. That is the idea behind apprenticeships. Or you join a Union who will protect you and make sure the owner of the company does the bare minimum and take care of the health and safety of their employees. Or you go a different route and consult. Or find a niche and start selling products that were hard for you to find but are needed in your industry.
People who boo hoo on trade work are in the same vein as the ones who say you need a college degree to be successful. A lot of people have made a really good living out of trade work and they don’t have to “destroy their bodies”
You still need to be enterprising and have business skills. Some of the tradespeople I know are just struggling to get by because they don’t know how to manage their money.
Heck, I’ve heard that a shockingly high percentage of professional athletes end up broke within a few years of retiring from sports. We’re talking about people who make millions a year ending up with no money and even declaring bankruptcy!
That’s. How pyramid schemes work lol
No, pyramid schemes work by selling the end products to recruits with the hope of those customer/recruits being able to recruit more customer/recruits.
Where I live, two of the three trades you listed require completion of 4-year apprenticeships, including a minimum of 6 weeks of in-school technical training per year. It’s much cheaper to train as an apprentice than it is to pay other post-secondary tuitions, and you earn an income most of the time you’re an apprentice, but the reality is a lot more complicated.
And it’s also very easy to be employed in most trades and not make that much. It depends on which trade you’re in, how much punishment you can take, and whether you’re in a union job or not.
Like every other field, you won’t make a living wage until you are at the top. Apprenticeships aren’t possible unless you can finance it yourself these days.
In a just world we would redistribute the excess wealth of the rich and would never allow this kind of wealth inequality to break our economies
In reality nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives.
Not necessarily the top, but skilled labor demands a price. Years of experience helps you determine what to quote and the fastest most efficient turn around of a job. It’s like the $10,000 chalk X
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/know-where-man/
Ugh ignore the end of that article where it completely misses the point and disregards the skill and effort of having to work customer service or fast food.
The amount of emotional labor it takes to deal with the public and feed them is actual labor and the very reason anyone gets paid in that industry. Also the end of that article is a direct refutation of the analogy. Knowing how to do the labor is just as important as doing the labor. They’re linked.
Better save and be prepared to retire early.
Trade work, office type jobs in big cities with an established career, police, and Onlyfans.
Most only fans creators aren’t even able to pull min wage. It’s a side gig for all but the top percent or two.
You can make minimum wage working as a coder or 6 figures. They only asked where jobs that pay $81k are.
That’s an idiotic way to interpret that. You end up with an answer so broad as to include almost any job in existence. Reigning it into a realistic earning amount for the position is the only rational way to approach that.
Think next time
Police are an excellent example of why unions should be armed.
Everyone should be armed and proficient, if they so choose and aren’t a violent criminal, and if they have a union card they are all the better a citizen.
An iteration of the survey taken in July found that 4.4% of respondents expect to lose their jobs in the near future. To put that into context, the only other time it’s ever hit 4% was when the pandemic struck in March 2020.
That’s pretty stark.
But despite fears they may be jobless soon, today’s job seekers won’t accept less than $81,147—up by almost $20,000 since March 2020. This figure is the average reservation wage of workers, which is the lowest wage at which respondents would be willing to accept a new job.
I guess people polled are doing better than I’d expect. I thought a lot of people have to accept a fair amount lower than this. How many fast food workers are making this much? Maybe in California (where cost of living is also much higher), but I doubt it in Alabama.
I thought a lot of people have to accept a fair amount lower than this.
I mean, they could accept lower, but then they’d be homeless and starving but still employed, so they can’t get any benefits.
Not really a choice they’d willingly want to make.
California fast food workers are getting $20+ / hour but there’s no fucking way the average worker is getting 29+ hours a week. They’d be owed benefits.
I am too poor to work boss
