> Be honest about it with the people around you. If you think your partner and friends will look at you unfavorably because you don't have a job, then they're not really on your side and you are better off without them.

I think that last one is pretty damaging the way you wrote it. I would slightly change this to say "Be honest about it with the people around you, if your friends or partner evidently look at you unfavourably, then consider whether they're on your side or if it would be worth trying to keep them around, a direct serious conversation can sometimes do wonders for your relationships, and socially isolating yourself can sometimes be useful but oftentimes costly. (or something to this effect, leaning on tangibly being unsupported by your personal relationships rather than vague notions of anticipated rejection)

Merely anticipating people might not look at you favourably is kind of a separate issue.

Fair-weather friends are not true friends.

If unemployment can help you get rid of people that saved your contact as "Free food", that's a great thing.

To be clear, my comment was basically about being your own destructive force, less so about dealing with real perceived judgement.

Unemployment can be inherently isolating. If you surround yourself with status-seeking judgemental people, that's probably not a resilient social circle, but you shouldn't project your own negative perception of yourself and try to preemptively avoid rejection

You don't want to isolate yourself, that's is for sure.

You also don't want to build relationships based solely on commiseration and draining others.

But you need to have some form of support from your close circle of friends.

Absolutely. I do wonder though what circles people are traveling in these days where they'd they'd straight up be alienated purely for that purpose. I would think the more likely situation would be too much attention from an overbearing set of family members, depending on wealth class maybe and ethnic background

Haha, this is so true. It literally happened to me once when I threw a large party at my place and one lady set it in her calendar as "gourmet food" and tried to bring her friends as well.

That's funny, I guess it completely depends on context how that might be interpreted. If she had a reputation for being a leech, negative, but otherwise I think it would be kind of funny or a compliment. At least I'm doing the food right

That’s true, but neither are leeches. There’s a limit to everything.

> think your partner and friends will look at you unfavorably because you don't have a job

Friends, 100%. But I can see being uncomfortable sharing such information with a partner. Not because they'll think less of you. But because it could stress them out. (You should obviously still be honest.)

Wait, you're saying if you lost your job you wouldn't tell your partner?!

I'm thinking of https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnconfessedUnemp...

I regularly joke with my wife that I'm going to tell her I need to start going into the office 5 days a week, but tell my coworkers I still work from home most days.

> Calculate how much time you can afford to be unemployed, and how to extend that time if necessary.

I’d be interested in thoughts from others for whom this time comes out to decades, but less than actuarial time remaining. What’s the thought process between doing another turn on the hamster wheel now, when skills are fresh, vs in a half-economic-cycle or so when the market’s hotter, vs trying to stretch and stay off the wheel for good?

If your savings can be measured in decades, then you should look into some of the math and simulations behind the FIRE community.

While considering yourself financially independent may be more of an academic exercise, the most important thing you can gain is permission to chase your own fulfillment rather than numbers in a computer somewhere.

Our society rewards risk takers and when money is no longer a top concern, you can afford a whole lot more risk tolerance.

What's the advantage of taking risk in this scenario? It seems that the obvious goal is to minimize chance of running out of dollars before days, which sounds like risk reduction to me.

The “risk” may just be not getting back in the treadmill. The risk of marketable skills and your network deteriorating is real. But with years or decades of savings, “taking a risk” may just be pursuing an idea. Doesn’t necessarily mean spend a big chunk of savings.

My biggest mistake after being laid off was to not be discerning enough about my next job. You need to be willing to say no to a crummy job offer, even as the bills pile up.

It's like blackjack: do you want to stay or double down?

Either way, you can win or lose.

But as with gambling, bankroll management is of essence. You don't want to lose more than you can.

I mean you can accept it and still be on the hunt for a better job offer, no? You wouldn't lose any opportunities from accepting the offer.

Sure. Some may even hold multiple jobs (Overemployed movement).

Nit: you're never in that position in blackjack. You only double when you have 9, 10, or 11, but you'll always hit that anyway. Some bizarre casino could theoretically let you double Ace-10, but that's just getting greedy.

Anyway, you meant stay or hit.

That's true but better something than nothing, you can accept the crummy job offer, and then accept an even better one a short while later.

A temporary consulting gig is better than a bad job offer. It also doesn't stain your CV (Consultant doing something for a client vs Working at this horrible place) even if it's the same client.

I would disagree. Consulting work exposes you to more liability than being an employee. If you drop a consulting job midstream to take a great job offer, you're likely to get sued.

As someone who was contracting we always had notice periods in contracts. Let’s not forget it works both ways and contractors are more often than not the first to go.

Sounds more like a temporary employee than a contractor then. Maybe splitting hairs.

When I was freelancing, I would have a Master Service Agreement that spelled out the "rules of engagement" and the actual work was in a Statement Of Work that lasted roughly 3 months. Gave each party the ability to pull the rip cord

I’ve done consulting; you have control about how you write your contract. If they want to lock you up for a long period they should be willing to pay for it.

Could you elaborate on that? I would think maybe in the very short term if you have minimal expenses and some savings, you have a bit of time to be picky, but not if you've got major expenses, dependants, or just very few offers coming in.

Like don't go agreeing to an obviously terrible offer, but this isn't a seller's market anymore.

Well maybe. You can consider taking a less-than-ideal job to give yourself a longer runway, while you keep looking for a good/great job.

As long as it's an "at will" job (as almost all are) you can quit in two weeks, two months, or six months if a better opportunity comes along.

> - You can be professional and proud of your job, but your job is not your identity. There is more to you than what you do for a living.

I see this frequently pointed out, as in not introducing yourself by your profession, etc.

But what are you then?

You introduce yourself as an uncle to somebody or a dad?

Yes there are things outside of working, but its a core part of who a person is.

> But what are you then?

"What are you" is a fun question to ask, particularly when traveling. Most Americans answer with their race or job. Italians, in my experience, gave answers with their local heritage; in India I frequently got a religion.

Race?? Wow.

Around here you're more likely to hear what their preferred outdoor activity is.

Hi I'm ${first_name}.

I only ever ask what someone does if it's clearly relevant to the context in which I met them, such as their lunch break.

It's part of what you do, and it does influence how you see things, but your life does not being or end with a job.

Your job friends, however friendly, might not necessarily remain your friends after you leave the company.

You can care about your job and your craft, and doing good for your customers to do your part in building a better world for everyone... but there must be something else outside that or your life will be pretty empty, and might even affect your job in the long run.

Leading workshops in USA and Europe has been pretty eyeopening.

Americans: “I’m so and so from $employer where I do software engineering in the foobles department”

Europeans: “I’m so and so from $city where I live with 3 kids and enjoy basket weaving. For work I build foobles”

You have to explicitly ask Europeans about their employers whereas Americans seem to get completely consumed by their company so much they lose all other identity.

I noticed this at 2600 meetings: "I'm so-and-so, I hack on $technology and I like to teach $interest", and some would mention their employer as an aside, but some wouldn't.

Whereas at tech-bro meetups: "I'm so-and-so, I work for $employer in the $technology group".

Gotta love the snide overgeneralization implying Americans are techbros.

It's a puzzling observation, isn't it? By now, every at-will US employee will have internalized that they are disposable, and yet they continue to identify as a member of $COMPANY family. It's just bizarre, and I just can't think of an explanation.

Combination of an inherited Anglo class system and American corporatism.

Prestige?

If the workshops are professional workshops, the American response seems more natural and appropriate.

Honestly, I would be weirded out if people start rambling about their kids and hobbies at a tech conference.

They were professional workshops. Your employer and your kids are equally irrelevant to the conversation.

I disagree. Not equally irrelevant. Your employer is connected to your profession, your hobbies/kids are not.

I attend a ton of AI/ML conferences (which count as professional conferences) all over the world. On almost all badges and tags, under your name you have your affiliation (company or university). You don't have number of kids or your random hobby on your badge for a reason.

See here for a list of badges (not my site):

https://data-mining.philippe-fournier-viger.com/conference-b...

Part of me understands that people have lives and don’t identify with work. But if that’s you, what are you doing with your life exactly? You only have so many years to live. Most of your waking hours are spent working.

If why you’re doing for work isn’t also your passion, it might be time to reconsider what you are doing.

> if you are putting on one face for your personal life and another for work, something is wrong.

Yet that's what most people do.

After 2008 something that always sticks in my mind was nobody puts where they worked on their gravestone.

Most of my friends know I do DevOps/SRE which is relevant to a lot of conversations we may have. They don't usually know or care who I do it for.

That's what I meant, I will edit the comment to make it clearer.

You can start by stating what you are good at.

“Hi I’m John, I’m good at basket weaving”

Why not?

Maybe at a basketball court but in a public setting? No body's going to take you seriously.

I don't need them to. I take my satisfaction from my baskets.

I’m always surprised when these lists don’t include “apply for unemployment benefits”. Which should usually be one of the first things you do when being laid off.

In NYC — I was laid off and while I found a new job after a month and a half, and had savings, I still applied for unemployment. I got $400 a week for around three weeks. Not bad. Covered bills and groceries.

> I got $400 a week for around three weeks. Not bad. Covered bills and groceries.

How do people manage to find places to live where $400 a week is enough for rent alone, let alone groceries? Or do I just live in the worst possible area, paying $1600/mo for a small apartment, then having to pay for utilities too, and another $100/mo for internet, and that's not even accounting for groceries.

Sorry, it was not for rent. It was for bills and grocery costs. Internet, electricity, gas, and my grocery store bills.

However, $400 a week for a month would be almost 3x the costs of the above, so some of that would go to rent.

Presumably you have some savings.

So if your monthly spend is $2,500 and you get $1,600 from unemployment, then you only need to spend $800 of your savings each month, not $2,500?

You just extended your runway by 3x.

They live in government-subsidized housing projects.

At least in the UK, there are no benefits if you have savings.

This doesn't pass the smell test, and doesn't seem to be true. See e.g. [1].

[1] https://www.gov.uk/jobseekers-allowance

The limit is £16,000 and it's reduced after £10,000

Something should be said about living off credit cards. Don't borrow, or if you must, do it with care:

- Don't cash advance from your credit card. If you must, do it with one credit card, then balance transfer to another. Interest for cash advance is usually very high. But you need a balance transfer card, I doubt you will be offered one if unemployed.

As far as credit rating: the most important bills are loan payments (credit cards, car loans and mortgage). Forget about rent:

Maybe you need to break a lease- it's a good idea to talk to your landlord. You are better off telling them, than not paying. They might let you break it without dinging your credit. Really once they find out that you can't pay, they want you gone as fast as possible so that they can rent to someone else. If you miss payments, they are missing income, in theory a much worse situation for them.

While I didn’t personally experience this, my dad went through bankruptcy and fairly hard times after the ‘08 recession and I learned a lot.

Not all credit is made equally. Don’t mortgage your house to pay credit cards, you can default on them and keep your primary residence. Don’t pay off debt before you break into your 401k. 401k’s are off-limits to creditors. And if you can’t pay something CALL them sooner rather then later. Most creditors would rather let you miss a few payments than default. And lastly, prioritize keeping yourself healthy, fed, clothed, and housed if it comes down to it. Being honorable or maintaining a good credit score is 100% bullshit compared to your health and well being.

I don't get the point on rent, you suggest going homeless right away?

It depends on the situation: some people may be able to move back in with their parents. Better off doing this than ruining their credit rating- in three years they might be employed and trying to get a loan.

Entertainment subscriptions are usually a negligible part of people's budgets. Hard to spend more than $100 a month on it.

Yeah, but what is a high expense when you have money is food! So time to switch to cheap meals, use the time to cook. Rice + Lentils, etc.

https://insanelygoodrecipes.com/depression-era-recipes/

Some low cost alcoholic beverages:

http://bumwine.com/ (just kidding, better not to drink)

> Do not ruminate! Do not revisit arguments that could have gone differently. Use what you can as a lesson and move on. Don't get stuck in the past.

Ruminating is such a negative driver in a lot of our lives that I feel we should do better than internet advice.

It’s probably useful to rehearse decisions in the background, except when it’s overwhelming, and it makes me fall back into Tiktok addiction because only Tiktok takes me away from rumination, and I think we’re a lot of people who do something addictive just as an upgrade from ruminating.

But yes, ruminating ruins months, maybe years in a life.

Go see a psychologist if that is the case.

Just learn what rumination is, and when you realize you are doing it, just acknowledge that it is not useful. You can say "Hello there, rumination. I know it's you. Now it's time to say goodbye."

If you make thoughtful decisions based on information that's as complete as possible, you should be content with your decisions, whatever the outcome is, you did what you can with you had.

When you’ve been bullied, or when the end of the last job turned into negative comments all the time, rumination is a reflex.

Just think that you did the best you could with the information you had, the time you had. End of story.

@29athrowaway Thanks. Great guide. Good common sense stuff that is easily forgotten.

People forget the basics in the beginning and only start doing the basics once they hit rock bottom.

If you were a Sim in the game The Sims, how would you manage yourself?

Let's say your Sim is watching TV all evening and is sad, what would you do?