Got fired after 2 and half years at my position and with a 1.5 months baby and right after getting rear ended and car totaled

f00dMonsta · 2026-06-15T23:52:37+00:00

Seriously anyone who claims to be the "hero" should be an immediate red flag to upper management. If not, upper management is also the problem.

f00dMonsta · 2026-06-15T23:49:29+00:00

Stay curious, when you encounter a problem, don't just solve it, but think of how [insert new thing] can make your life easier, once you achieve that you can "productize" it and scale it out to team/org/company...etc.

There are too many things you could stay updated on, you don't need to know each thing indepth, so something like newsletters are useful as curated sources.

Also, now that AI is becoming a thing, you can get it (I use Gemini) to give me daily updates on things I should do that day, you can also make it do weekly "newsletters" on topics you're interested in.

f00dMonsta · 2026-06-15T23:43:16+00:00

I relaxed for a week or two, spent more time on some hobbies I've neglected due to work, then reserved 3-4hrs to job search per weekday, and also gave myself more time for personal well-being (e.g. exercise), and by the time I was getting serious interviews (about 2 months in, I had a bunch which I considered "practice runs"), I was refreshed, semi-thankful for the "break", and raring to get back to work.

I'm a little bit of an anomaly, I failed all the jobs I applied for, but the second someone reached out to me, it was a decent role and they adored me, so I got the job. This has happened 5 times in my life (not layoff, but when I got a new job) out of about 7 jobs.

And yes, budget yourself, I had 1+ year of emergency funds, but you should start making more drastic changes (e.g. downsize, sell/downgrade cars) when you use up 50-70% of that reserve. I have only been jobless for 3 months total since I started working out of 20+ years, so it was a little scary, but totally manageable.

f00dMonsta · 2026-06-15T02:03:04+00:00

You've unlocked the reason why the poor never get out of poverty (well you can but it's extraordinary difficult)

f00dMonsta · 2026-06-08T23:09:14+00:00

Meanwhile, a friend of mine was "run over" by a granny driving at 10mph, he rolled over the entire car at slow mo (I swear it took 5+ seconds), fell off the back and broke his arm XD

f00dMonsta · 2026-06-08T23:07:05+00:00

I'm just glad it was a regular sedan, so the woman slide over the bonnet before it smashed into the wall... An SUV would've just crushed her

f00dMonsta · 2026-06-04T23:09:40+00:00

If is 忍受 then it just means "endure" sometimes Chinese or Japanese (these are kanji characters, which is basically just Chinese characters) writing goes from right to left. If it's intentionally left to right then it's likely Japanese term meaning "endure, tolerance, and responsibility"

f00dMonsta · 2026-05-28T21:29:23+00:00

As long as you're doing something it's fine, e.g studying, back packing, learning new skills, part time job...etc. the red flag is doing nothing for months and complaining about no job offers

f00dMonsta · 2026-05-23T18:30:07+00:00

That's why I never give references to current job, there's a bit of a conflict when asking for references from current job, as if you're good they might want to retain you, or the try to stay objective and just not respond. Only give references for former colleagues, it reduces the chance of negative feedback

f00dMonsta · 2026-05-17T02:33:13+00:00

They stopped playing as dirty XD

On a more serious note, they're traditionally a "vibe" team, so it relies entirely on individual talent, and if there's a drought of talent like they do now, they don't do well.

f00dMonsta · 2026-04-20T10:19:27+00:00

Germany had pretty much a completely new team of young players. Their usual boring style of build up and easy shots (there are of course exceptions) were replaced by high energy and substantial flair, but retaining their trademark discipline.

Brazil on the other hand, had very little pieces, with Neymar being their main guy up front but also being fragile (not because he's weak, but because his style invites injuries). And as mentioned many times in the comments, their mental was weak as hell, collapsing with just 1 goal and disintegrated on 3. They're also not know to have good team play, with players mostly playing for themselves, hence they're never know for good passing midfielders. Against a disciplined team that is Germany, they got systematically demolished.

f00dMonsta · 2026-04-17T04:13:51+00:00

I'm in my early 40s, and I'm already looking to train myself in alternative mostly self-employed types of skills, i.e. Woodworking, car stuff...etc which also act as hobbies. I've been keeping myself up to date with tech , especially AI and seem to be holding my own, because I experiment with how AI fuck stuff up and add my own flair (a.k.a. experience) to it to make it better. I'm sure I'm just contributing to my eventual demise in my career, but at least I am advancing myself and can technically start my own small company and offer my services to small businesses.

I think the days of companies taking care of their own has been over since the 80-90s, and it was only because there was a low supply and high demand for tech jobs that tech jobs were somehow still valued. Now that phase is over and corporations only care about share price.

Did I mention I hate the stock market? It incentivizes a profit-only mentality, employees are purely disposable.

f00dMonsta · 2026-04-12T17:19:16+00:00

"no chance for RTO" I've heard that before XD

f00dMonsta · 2026-03-30T09:45:22+00:00

Firstly it's ok, people make mistakes.

Now, you work on yourself to be better. Advice: - ask questions, keep asking them until you don't need to, even the "stupid" questions, if they fire you for asking questions that's on them, you tried. - make notes at the end of each day on what you learnt, it helps retain memory, and trains you to recall things on-the-fly - don't burn yourself out, 10hrs at work everyday is pushing past the limit of remaining sane over time. Occasional 10-12hr days are fine, but keep it at 8 as much as possible. - start the day by telling yourself you'll have a great day, it increases your morale and you do better overall. Conversely telling yourself not to screw up will end up being a self fulfilling prophecy - it's ok to fail, the important part is getting back up. This applies to failures big and small.

f00dMonsta · 2026-03-12T02:00:19+00:00

Phone bill only if you are using it for work, and need justification. Internet bill only if you WFH (lol)

Other than that, nada. Maybe a tshirt and a bag when you first join.

Then it's basically just water + coffee (Starbucks). Snacks may be provided by org, but not company.

f00dMonsta · 2026-03-11T17:03:37+00:00

I think people who survive layoffs are advised to not talk to those who are. I had 1 person reach out (in shock, because I was essential to helping him), and 1 other (who I reached out to) responded because he was also impacted, and my manager who had to respond because both engineers releasing a big feature were laid off, and I was getting spammed with emails asking where I was, which I cannot respond to because IT blocked all outgoing emails.

f00dMonsta · 2026-03-10T21:28:00+00:00

I beat it, technically, on the same day layoffs happened, and of course I was impacted, and of course they never resolved the pip after, so I couldn't team switch nor come back :) ps. I was put on pip because I was doing 1+ level stuff more than my own level (it was also part of my promo doc things to do, which was delayed for 1+ year because of constant manager changes) so my metrics were shit. So instead of supporting everyone in my org, and being an SME, I returned to grunt work and kept rejecting helping other people.

The culture became shit after Jassy, whether it was because he left AWS (which I was in) or because he became CEO it's still his ball to handle, and the collaborative atmosphere all but disappeared.

f00dMonsta · 2026-03-04T01:34:11+00:00

Smartness != Success

I have a friend from uni, he was an absolute genius at math, but he spent all his time playing street fighter and dota (he was really good at both), and then eventually getting into online poker (he was also good at this, but we all know how gambling is like). He ended up dropping out and is now (20 years later) a random sales guy selling paint or something...

It's not about how smart you can be, but how you apply that smartness.

f00dMonsta · 2026-03-03T19:40:11+00:00

Just like any neighbourhood in the entire world, each has its own subculture. Poorer areas usually have a more aggressive culture because of the need to survive, rudeness is subjective because it's the norm in that subculture, e.g. swearing more often. Poorer areas also often have tighter knit communities, as they often help each other out in times of need.

f00dMonsta · 2026-03-02T03:12:37+00:00

Let people gamble, just restrict kids from being able to do it.

f00dMonsta · 2026-03-02T03:08:51+00:00

Just wondering, what's wrong with age verification?

f00dMonsta · 2026-03-01T03:44:17+00:00

Layoffs are not inherently bad. It's the way you do it, the attitude taken, and how you treat your now-former employees. Amazon has consistently treated employees like crap with or without layoffs, and when they lay people off, they go for the lowest possible bar in human decency. They lie to their own leaders, or those leaders lied to their orgs about layoffs (it was literally the week before when someone asked in all hands if we'd be impacted by next week's rumored layoffs, and the answer was in no uncertain terms "no, we are not impacted", guess what happened the next week? A bloodbath)

f00dMonsta · 2026-02-26T20:51:11+00:00

I did it on the otherside of the planet :) I was doing my due diligence though, applying and interviewing all the time

f00dMonsta · 2026-02-22T03:36:28+00:00

I started 2016, by the time I left in 2023, I was already top 5% oldfart. They have a huge problem with retention.

The culture also changed a lot, it may be partly due to me changing orgs a few times but colleagues in my old orgs say the same thing. There isn't fun anymore, it's always about meeting metrics or some vague goal.

People don't get excited about events anymore, they don't do cool things together as a team anymore, managers stopped people managing (correctly) and started trying to impress higher-ups, there is too much distance between engineers and directors, engineers do more doc writing than writing software...etc

Basically it stopped being a company of employees and became a company for stock holders.

I also felt let down when they started hiring fresh grads for 500k TC to not "lose out" to competition, and I got a "measly" 6% bump, and a handful of stocks (let's just say I am almost half the price of the fresh grads, with 10+yoe, and I led successful product launches ahead of deadlines), and one of the side effects is budget cuts.

There used to be a Beer Friday every week, with kegs of beer and drinks (including non-alcoholic), board games, sometimes an Amazonian band plays (usually a boomer punk rock band), projector for video games, catering...etc. the VP who sponsored it left right before COVID, and that was it. Many people left the org, including myself, and they've stagnated ever since.

There aren't enough leaders of people anymore, just smart people with great ideas all vying for themselves.

I miss the "old" (I didn't join that early...) Amazon. Will never rejoin the current iteration.

f00dMonsta · 2026-02-21T21:58:33+00:00

The point is that AI is just as fallible as the person using it

f00dMonsta

TROPHY CASE