thebardingreen

The rich go insane because the people around them enable them to believe their own bullshit and set no boundaries with them. This is SUPER bad for humans psychologically and causes us to lose touch with reality. Something in our brains depends on that group consensus to affirm our concepts of self and beliefs and decisions and it loses calibration when it gets crappy feedback.

They’re the people who never would have touched it, because it was too technical, had too high a barrier of entry, and saw it as niche.

Yep. My dad uses Facebook, Reddit and Youtube now. I remember having conversations with him where he was confused about why anyone would ever want to use Facebook and what the point of Youtube is... it just wastes time. When I first exposed him to AMAs I thought he would be interested in, in like 2012, he was like "It's really cool that you can talk to this person, but there's so much noise and joking around... how are you supposed to follow it all?"

Now he posts on reddit for help with home improvement projects and watches youtube channels about classic cars and how to fix your garage door opener and talks about stuff he saw his other Boomer friends post on Facebook. He sends me unfunny Youtube videos of AI Deepfakes of Trump and Biden talking about how they pooped their diapers. It's a weird role reversal, because now I'm like "I've left every single one of those enshittified platforms." But it took him years to get on them. It would take him even longer to get off.

Your premise is that using reality to encourage people to do the hard things that they need to do is a kind of violence?

I think I'm done with you.

Enjoy your axe. I hope it keeps you warm at night.

No. I am encouraging him to do everything he can to proactively make his life NOT suck later. Those aren't the same thing, but it sounds like you have an ax to grind. I get it, I have a similar ax but I have to wonder if this ax is really serving you or are you just impotently angry at a world that gives zero fucks?

I don't think your ax is with me. I empathize with your position, The last thing I want is to guilt anyone. And reality is not your, not my, and not OPs fault. We don't have to like reality, but we do have to deal with it. Now the reality is that we live in a system that will reward us for maximizing our peak earning years and punish us for not doing so. I want to be clear that I am not a fan of this system. Not even a little bit. But that doesn't change the system, and sticking your head in the sand and yelling at people that try to pull it out isn't helpful for anything.

I don't think you should lie about freelancing and 100% agree about "not putting anything you aren't prepared to answer questions about"

If you're thinking about it as "lying" you're doing it wrong. You should think about it as “explaining what I was doing professionally, to learn, grow and strengthen my skill set during these periods of less active employment.” Is glossing over the vast majority of your time that you spent living your life instead of hustling lying by omission? Maybe… but “I wasn’t doing shit professionally because reasons” is not a message you want a potential employer to hear.

Ultimately, it’s absurd that looking for work involves wondering how many lies I can get away with. But that’s the game employers are playing, and honesty is not rewarded.

Don't think of it as lies. Think of it as "explaining what I was doing professionally, to learn, grow and strengthen my skill set during these periods of less active employment." Is glossing over the vast majority of your time that you spent living your life instead of hustling lying by omission? Maybe... but "I wasn't doing shit professionally because reasons" is not a message you want a potential employer to hear.

The other poster who said "never put anything on your resume you aren't prepared to answer questions about" is 100% right. Definitely think about what you're going to say, focus on the things you DID do, don't make up shit you DIDN'T do... resumes are supposed to be quick summaries anyway.

I did not mean to guilt trip anyone. Nor am I spinning some "personal responsibility" conservative Boomer shit. Everything that you say is absolutely true.

But the reality is that those are peak earnings decades and the fact that the economy is an utterly unjust dumpster fire and 100% of the fault for that lies at the feet of rich conservative old people and idiots who get conned into voting against their own best interests, doesn't make that not true... And also doesn't change that being old and broke is gonna suck balls.

That's just meant to be a motivator. It is for me, I wouldn't be doing as well as I am (which is not nearly as well as I want to be) without that exact motivator + the fact that I have a family that depends on me.

First off, you're NEVER unemployed. You're consulting / free lance writing. With your background that's 100% believable and no one ever checks on that. Even if they did... did you do ANYTHING related to your skillset to help ANYONE (friends, family)? They'll probably agree to be a former client a potential employer could talk to. Did you do any volunteer work? Get involved in any non-profits? Get references from folks there.

• I shouldn't say no one checks. I had ONE potential employer in my entire life check on ONE of my consulting stints. I had 3 real clients happy to say super nice things about me and I got the job.

2nd, if you're working part time somewhere off and on... you're working part time there the whole time while also working on your consulting business. That's why you were part time. If you were promoted, you note the dates of your promotions.

My resume says "Consultant at Coyote, ltd" for an 8 year period. Overlapping with that period is 1 year as IT director at a now defunct startup, 1 year as a project manager at a cybersecurity firm and 1.5 years as Cyberoperations Director at a spaceflight electronics startup. The CEO at the space company tried to get me to sign a no moonlighting clause and I flat out told him no. He was a bit of a dick about it (and whined about "this is standard stuff!") I held my ground and they didn't fire me. Fuck that noise.

3rd, Don't hesitate to clean up your LinkedIn. I HATE LinkedIn. It's intrusive and invasive, it serves corporations while exposing humans to a hypercompetitive stressfest of bullshit career posts to "like" and "engage with" and it exposes your past dirty laundry (or job history at dumpster fire positions) to potential future employers in a way that feels icky. I fucking hate that company, and wish death upon it.

That being said, you DO need to use it and game the shit out of it. Every hiring manager EVER will check your LinkedIn profile to see if it mostly matches your resume. But they won't spend time to dig too deep into it unless your REALLY STRONGLY being considered for a senior position. They'll just check that it exists and you have connections with people from former positions. Which if you're NOT connected to former co-workers... get on that.

Add a "Freelance Writing / Editing Consultant" (or whatever) position to LinkedIn covering the years from your first to your final unemployment period.

4rth, You're applying in a field where a gajillion liberal arts / humanities grads are competing over jobs that are being replaced by generative AI at companies that are being looted by vulture capitalists and repurposed for propaganda by right wing billionaires. I'm SO sorry about that. It sucks.

Realistically, it's time to ask what ELSE your background qualifies you for...

• Lots of small businesses, including high tech ones and consultancies will hire project managers with diverse backgrounds. I just hired an old friend of mine with NO tech company experience to be a project manager to help me wrangle a bunch of programmers working on different consulting gigs. Because I KNOW him and he's gonna kick ass and take names at that. In the past month of having him aboard, he's made ME significantly more productive. His back ground: High school teacher turned Whole Foods dept. manager, who spent a bunch of time trying to make a living hand forging swords and knives.
• Lots of successful business folks need personal assistants / executive assistants. It's often a shitty stressful job for a dickhead you don't like or respect, but it can also be an awesome job for a sweet decent person if you get lucky. My clients are small businesses. EVERY SINGLE ONE has one of those to help the big boss, and they have, like I said, a diverse set of backgrounds. One of my clients is a medical cannabis manufacturer and the CEO is a super sweet old lady. Her executive assistant is a guy in his 50s who survived cancer and whose background is in patent writing.
• Start ups and small businesses of all kinds need operations directors.
• With your back ground, you could consider roles in PR / publicity.
• You could also consider roles in technical writing.
• Government departments need case managers and supervisors all the time. A BUNCH of my friends with a wide variety of professional backgrounds work for the Colorado dept. of Unemployment, for example. None of them are rich, but they're not starving either.
• Your profile page claims you were a tech enthusiast before you got burned out (is how I read it). Are you enough of a tech enthusiast to help some boomer middle managers trouble shoot their printer problems and deal with scam popups locking their work computers? If so, an MSP may be willing to take a chance on you. It's part time and it's never enough money, but it's some income while you figure out your next steps.
• Your profile page also says your a van dweller. High five... I did that for 8 years and it was mostly awesome. Apply in any city you're willing / able to drive that van to.
• Dust off the old Reddit account (or make a new one) and just check all the job subreddits (r/DenverJobs and r/SFBayJobs are the two I'm most familiar with). If you get a call back, tell them you are in the process of moving (also say that on your initial application).
• Get in touch with recruiters. If you have a good looking resume, they will WANT to sell you. Look for recruiters that specialize in the industries you want to work in. Contact recruiters in cities you're willing to live in and tell them you're looking to move there.

Finally, your timeline makes me think you're in your 40s or 50s maybe? These are your PEAK earning years. Don't waste them.

But... why?

I'm having fun with what I'm working on, but I simply have too much to do, too many places to go, too many people to talk to.

I'm not going to get it all done today, that's not possible and that makes me feel tired and discouraged, even though I'm having fun.

So... a very normal Monday.

It's interested that they say "oxygen could travel below the ice and support life."

I would expect life on Europa to be anaerobic, given the obvious lack of photosynthesis.

The corporation doesn't love you, nor does it hate you. But you possess economic value, which could be made to belong to the corporation's shareholders.