Comment by Arete314159 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Arete314159 | Hacker News Reader

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I can speak to one of your points! I got dealt a bad hand in terms of health issues. However, a few years before I developed my health issues, I happened to have a long talk with a guy who had advanced MS. He told me that after his diagnosis, he tried to sock away as much money as possible and go for higher-paying jobs, as he knew that one day he'd become fully disabled and have to live on disability. Also, disability is pegged to your latest or average salary, so that's important to consider!

(SS is an average, LTD is your most recent)

During my 10 years of illness leading up to my eventual disability, I tried (with varying success) to do the following things:

- Looked for jobs with slightly under full-time work loads to allow me time to rest (found only one for 2 years, but the extra rest helped me slow down disease progression a lot)

- Looked for jobs with full benefit packages, including Short Term / Long Term Disability. If the job didn't offer it I signed up on my own

- Maxed out HSA every year

- Reduced my fixed costs as much as possible to prepare for living on a fixed income; moved to a LCOL area

- Moved to a climate that was better for my health

- Didn't have kids because I knew I wouldn't be healthy enough to bear them / raise them :-(

- Researched how long term disability / social security disability worked (this site is really good: https://howtogeton.wordpress.com/social-security-disability/ )

- Tried to do excellent work so my employers would still like me even with all my sick days

Very cool! Congratulations on your exceptionally clear-eyed approach to a major life challenge!

I’m sure this sounds sarcastic, but I’m genuinely impressed. It takes a lot of mental discipline to examine long term trends, make a correct projection, identify an appropriate course of action and then implement it even when its disruptive to your personal life.

I hope it worked well for you, and that you are living your best life despite your health challenges.

Thanks! Yes, it is especially challenging because my health problems are in the unfortunate category: extremely disabling + poorly understood. So until I found specialists I got a lot of "Well everyone gets 'tired' sometimes" gaslighting from medical professionals.

In other words I had to prepare for total disability being in my future, while also being told that nothing was wrong with me in my present by some doctors (not all, fortunately).

So psychologically the greatest part of the challenge was to prepare for an extreme event (disability) while being told that nothing was wrong. I just had to listen to my body and hear when it told me I wasn't going to be able to work full time until retirement age, and then plan accordingly.

So far, mostly due to the grace of God, I have turned out all right, thank you for your kind words. Getting approved for disability was brutal but I did eventually get approved.

Side note: Unfortunately / fortunately, dealing with medical gaslighting for all these years helped my BS detector spot the issues in the "just the flu" narrative this year way ahead of the curve, and prepare appropriately. Sadly.

> - Looked for jobs with slightly under full-time work loads to allow me time to rest (found only one for 2 years, but the extra rest helped me slow down disease progression a lot)

I think it's awful that such jobs are hard to find, considering the effect on disease progression of all things.

My own only very distantly related anecdote. I'd had an interview with a hiring manager, who would be my boss, who liked me and was keen to employ. But he didn't get to make the decision; he passed me to Head of HR who made the final decision on all hires.

The conversation with Head of HR seemed to go well, and I would have taken almost any terms (including a pay cut) because I really liked that job. But he (HR) wouldn't say how much they'd pay or give any clues about what level they operated at. He insisted on negotiating by insisting that I make the first move with no information, and say what would would make me happy. So I asked if they would consider a 4 day week. No pressure, I'd happily do 5 but 4 would be something I'd like.

That, it turns out, was a "red flag" for them, the idea that I might not be loyal enough to the company that I'd want to spend a day doing something else. This despite my evident eagerness for that particular job. There was no concern about not getting enough work done; they had enough people. It was all about concern that I might do something else with my time off.

I didn't get the job. Despite getting a message from the hiring manager that he was going to send me an offer the next morning, it was blocked by HR the following day with concerns about loyalty being given internally as the reason. Of course HR told me something else entirely.

This is exactly the reason why part-time jobs are so difficult to find. By saying "I don't want to sacrifice as much time as possible to this job" you send a bad signal. You working 4 days instead of 5 is frankly not a problem. But you wanting to work 4 days instead of 5 is. Why hire a guy who wants to sacrifice less, when you could hire a guy who wants to sacrifice more? Having a life outside of job is a red flag. Do you have hobbies? Dreams? Want to spend more time with your kids before they grow up and leave home? Go somewhere else; I want someone more loyal than you.

There are exceptions. Typically, women returning from maternity leave; with the assumption that the part-time is only for a year or two, followed by usual full-time. Also, students who work besides their school; again, with the assumption that after finishing school, the work becomes full-time. In both cases, there is a good excuse. "I'd love to devote my all time to you, but my selfish baby insists on my presence, and I need a few months before I can store it in kindergarten for the whole day." "I'd love to devote all my time to you, but this stupid school insists on me going to lessons and exams, but it will soon be over, I promise."

Maybe a health problem could serve as a sufficient excuse. "I'd love to devote all my time to you, but my doctor says 4 days a week max, otherwise I'll drop dead." It misses the "soon, it will be full-time" part, but at least it doesn't signal insufficient loyalty. I don't know; I never tried this. I'd like to hear a report from people who did.

I see where you're going with this, but a health problem which you are open about is often the kiss of death. Going by your theory, it means you'll never be able to make that sacrifice and you'll always have a different set of priorities...

But really what happens in corporate America is more brutal: "health problems" = weakness, and showing weakness is very bad.

A lot of employers prefer a mediocre employee who is there all the time to a stellar employee who has any sort of "defect." So actually it took me some effort to find employers who were "nice enough" to rate me only on my work output and quality rather than on some sort of law-of-the-jungle, survival-of-the-fittest thing.

Wow. That is nuts.

The thing is, for technical jobs like the ones folks at Hacker News tend to have, I find almost no difference in my output between 30 and 40 hour weeks. 30 hours / week I'm more mentally / physically refreshed and better able to problem-solve, so I get my work done faster.

The only advantage to a full-time schedule is that it's easier to coordinate / follow-up with other people.

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