<story><title>So long, and thanks for all the bytes</title><url>https://chethaase.medium.com/so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-bytes-02a4ef972f65</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>yawz</author><text>Because of the downturn, I wonder how many people have given up on their careers at Tech? How many more will respond to the call of a different professional life that pays less, but that will be more fulfilling? Even as recent as yesterday I heard a past-colleague tell me &amp;quot;maybe Tech isn&amp;#x27;t for me, after all. I&amp;#x27;ll try my hand at this other thing.&amp;quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nrjames</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m not sure it&amp;#x27;s the downturn, necessarily. I used to be enthralled with tech, full of energy to explore new tools, programming languages, etc. I think I slowly awoke to the fact that it&amp;#x27;s not the tech but the people that make it interesting and rewarding. For me (and I&amp;#x27;m not trying to project on anybody else), interactions and activities with people who were doing things that are not tech seemed deeper and more genuine -- almost as if it was easier for me to get to know them and enjoy their company in a non-tech context. As a result, my hobbies and interests have pivoted to activities that don&amp;#x27;t involve computers much at all. My career remains in tech and I try to put my best efforts into the work that I do, but it&amp;#x27;s becoming more difficult as I continue to realize that life, for me, is better when most of it is spent away from screens.</text></comment>
<story><title>So long, and thanks for all the bytes</title><url>https://chethaase.medium.com/so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-bytes-02a4ef972f65</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>yawz</author><text>Because of the downturn, I wonder how many people have given up on their careers at Tech? How many more will respond to the call of a different professional life that pays less, but that will be more fulfilling? Even as recent as yesterday I heard a past-colleague tell me &amp;quot;maybe Tech isn&amp;#x27;t for me, after all. I&amp;#x27;ll try my hand at this other thing.&amp;quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>CM30</author><text>I suspect there will be quite a few people in this situation, but it won&amp;#x27;t be the majority of people simply for financial reasons. If your idea of a fulfilling career isn&amp;#x27;t tech, law, finance, medicine or business&amp;#x2F;management, it may simply be impossible to do it full time and have a decent quality of life in many places.&lt;p&gt;For instance, writing jobs pay terribly overall, with the quantity of them going down a lot due to the decline of traditional media and the advent of AI. Unless you&amp;#x27;ve got a FAANG income nest egg or a trust fund to rely on, I wouldn&amp;#x27;t recommend anyone get into this kind of work as their main career, regardless of how fulfilling it might be.&lt;p&gt;Ultimately I suspect many people will be forced to try and stick out this recession&amp;#x2F;downturn just because tech is their best bet of a decent living.</text></comment>