Three things happened all at once — and this served as a reminder to me (a reminder that I didn't want to get) about how fragile life is for the most part. First, the tech company where I'd been working was toxic and it was more than time to call it a day. Second, not one but two job offers were pulled as I was seeking a replacement to my now-former career. Third, family issues; I'm not going to get into that part here.
Before I get into it, I know that there's this stigma (with some) about working in tech: how all tech employees are coddled and so on. To this I say that there's a difference between tech and Big Tech. In tech (most of my decades-long career I've worked for startups) you're hired to solve problems — you can help grow a business quickly — and if you can't do that then they will replace you with somebody else who can, like in a hurry.
My last gig was working for a smaller company that was focused on “security.” It's not like we had group meditations or massages or private jets or gurus or paid lunches or anything that you read in articles about the tech industry, and heck, I was working from home so I was insulated from all of the bullshit (even if it had existed) that drives me crazy 100% of the time. Those “amenities” tend to be more prevalent in Big Tech (Meta, Google, AWS, etc). At the end of the day, I am a person who is trying to make a living, in one way or another, just like everybody else.
I'm not going to get into the second point about this all. This posting encapsulated it all perfectly — reading that inspired me to write this — and my feelings and/or narrative on that subject aren't all that different. But I say, in full-throated agreement with what that author wrote — companies pulling offers is a new one for me — and yet it is… very 2023. Unintentionally, 2023 is the year that I am forced to reboot professionally — I never had the need to do this before — and honestly I'm not sure how all of this is going to play out.
Having written all of that, let me assure you that I remain eternally grateful that people have believed in me to the extent that I've been able to do this for so long.
So, to the first point, it absolutely killed me inside when I realized that I was working for a shit company, and I suppose that this can be said for anyone, like in any industry. The company in and of itself is a competitor in the core realm of internet “security,” but at the same time we would lose deals to our competitors with an alarming regularity. It's not like we didn't analyze our competition; we just spent our time analyzing the wrong competitors, like over and over again. The companies that we used to mock ended up eating our lunch… and more.
In my opinion, tech had its second reckoning before Christmas of 2022. The first reckoning was deep and painful and it lasted for about 5 years (2000-2005), should my recollection be correct. My former company — our CEO stated during a company “all hands” meeting that we would be able to play 5d chess for 3 years, about 4 months prior — did a 10% layoff the week before Christmas. The company's assumption was what people would recalculate their spending ahead of the holidays — that was a “great” thing in their view — instead of laying people off in the new year. However… know what people do? THEY FUCKING BUY SHIT ON BLACK FRIDAY, and people bulk buy even more when they have children. My god. What in the ever-living fuck was the CEO thinking?! His cognitive dissonance was ghastly, in particular for a company that kept patting itself on the back for being inclusive… and open.
My boss — he decided to bring in his lackey to do the heavy lifting — then promoted said lackey to run the fucking show in the U.S. as a part of the layoffs. Who gets promoted as a part of a layoff?! Let me show you the mugshot. It's Exhibit A. I first met with the lackey in early November 2022, and from my former boss I had an inkling that shit was about to go down. Admittedly I knew that I had to ingratiate myself to this total, fucking asshole, because my own ass was on the line too. But still, what the FUCK?!
I knew that I needed to fire people on my team. To be clear, the people that I needed to let go deserved it, but over the years I've learned to look in the mirror. Firing people is horrible. Full stop. When you fuck with someone's life and livelihood it impacts you greatly.
Only somebody with the pathology of Elon Musk would think that firing people is totally fine — if not glorious. I once watched a movie on an airplane between Houston and Boston. It featured Tea Leoni dying, as the result of a tsunami that followed an asteroid strike, on the beach with her aggrieved father. People on the plane were laughing and cheering about how they both died in a blaze of glory, and I write this as someone who is not a fan of Tea Leoni. FUCK THAT. That's not how I operate in the slightest. “Be cool with people, and for the most part they will be cool with you,” was my mantra, and yeah, even with the understanding that sometimes you need to let people go such that a business can succeed.
So there I was, working for that asshole — he bore a striking resemblance to a cartoon character from a former series on the FOX network — and after the layoffs I ended up with less responsibilities as a “leader.” They cut my team by more than half then gave the scraps to some other asshole. Yeah, it was great that they kept me on, but when you see a wall and you see the writing on it, well, you think of Plan B as quickly as you can. Plus I'm not young anymore. And, comparatively speaking, I am “expensive” where younger and potentially more talented, prospective employees — are not.
We had this hoity-toity company event early in 2023 — after having spent a bunch of VC loot to pull the event off, they literally downplayed fucking a bunch of employees in their asses before Christmas of the previous year, and this included a bunch of large and illuminated letters on the center stage with the theme of the event — after which my boss's boss (my former boss) took me aside and told me to ask the new boss for a promotion, how much he loved my work and so on, so I went with it in that spirit…
I should've known. I'd been in the game for a long time. When people take shit away from you then it's a harbinger, no matter how much they tell you that they want you to succeed. And yet, well, I persisted. So I talked to my new boss about the conversation, and not surprisingly he didn't give a fuck about it. Again, I should've known, but until this all played out I still had faith in humanity. My internal dialog at the time was, “maybe I am just competent enough that I can carry on.”
The ensuing months featured flying hundreds of miles, only for my new boss to tell me that he didn't have time to meet with me, expensing thousands of dollars to the company so that I could sit in a hotel room by myself, me not being part of anything useful in the company, having ideas that people loved (only for the boss give them to other people to run with), not being able to interview new talent for “leadership” roles, and one of my parents dying in hospice (RIP!). In the past decades none of this had ever happened to me, although I had heard stories from peers in tech around the shenanigans of 2022 and 2023. I considered myself lucky, well, until I ended up sitting here jobless and completely mystified by it all.
However, I knew that it was over with that company. Sooner or later they would fire me, and they would most certainly eliminate my position. The boss preferred others, and in as much as he tried to tamp down the strain by calling me “dude” or “bro” or “man” repeatedly in his soulless tone (he also had the most artificial laugh that I've ever heard), I knew that I was fucked. It broke my heart in myriad ways that I had to tell him about having a parent in hospice, because I didn't want that soulless fuck hanging that over my head in the future, should I ask for a leave, in particular because I think that we were all in agreement, if only in non-verbal forms, that it was time for me to call it a day.
The last straw with the boss was reached when he texted me, after I told him about one of my parents having passed, when he told me that I should be grateful for all of the frequent flier miles that I would receive as a bounty for my travels. He also cited these various scriptures in his texts which pissed me off even more. I quit through text, telling him to talk to HR and that this wasn't a joke. People on my team kept calling me, right before the airplane door closed, imploring me to tell the boss that I made a mistake and that I should take it all back. I have no idea how they knew, but hey, reasons.
My original boss called me the next day and asked me if this was real, as I sat in my childhood home, just staring at the age-old pictures of my family on the wall. One of my parents was in mourning, as I was, and my siblings were as well. We all converged at the same spot at the same time, and yet my original boss was continuing to ask if it was all real. I told him that it was, and I explained why.
He was basically like, “well, fuck you, you should've talked to me about all of this before.” He didn't use those exact terms, but he promptly hung up the phone and that was it. I got some severance, but at least I had two offers, well, until I didn't. I've barely heard a peep from anyone at that company since, which is more than fine.
In as much as you might read this and think that I am a difficult person, I am not. My only real hinderance in life is that I really, really hate bullshit. In particular, I hate when people hide the ball / obfuscate. I will literally work my guts out for you, but be straight with me. If I'm doing a good job then tell me, but more importantly, if I'm doing a bad job then tell me honestly about my shortcomings so that I can course correct. Both of my parents are/were straight shooters, and perhaps that's not great for the way that I operate. I will swallow nugget of shit after nugget of shit and roll with it, but at some point you can only ingest so much… shit
I thought that I was going to make a soft landing, and I was relieved. If Offer 1 didn't work out then Offer 2 would work out. Again, and anecdotally, you hear about your friends in tech getting offers pulled back, so you want multiple offers. It's not that I was a greedy asshole in as much as I was a realist. Having two offers was smart, but unfortunately they both crashed for the same reasons as given in the link that I've noted above.
While I admit that it's maybe antithetical to this sub, it's not like I don't like working. It's that I love working. It's incredibly validating for me. And yet, I find myself at this crossroads where I keep asking myself, “why in the fuck have I been doing this for all of this time?” I think that there's an intersect here.
All I want before I'm cremated is peace. I want to start working again — be it in a restaurant, a supermarket, or cleaning toilets. Not working has an impact on the way that people view you. It's incredibly tough at home. I spend my days doomscrolling LinkedIn and Indeed, and yet's there's shit. I spend an inordinate amount of time writing about sexual encounters in my past (read the history).
I create shit out of the blue in other ways just to keep myself sane.
People who I'd thought were friends can't do shit for me either. I think that my professional career, as I knew it, is over. Trying to think of next steps. Thank you for reading this.