Comment by sidman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sidman | Hacker News Reader

if anyone knows this i guess its me. I put my resignation in one month ago and have been unemployed for about 2 days so far and I am loving it.

My old job was in a large bank, paid well and i only had to work 4 days a week. The only issue is i wasn't following my passion and it made me feel well and truly down EVERY SINGLE DAY (was there for about 2 years).

For about 3 months prior to putting in my resignation i was also already working on a side project that started getting legs and had started to bring in ramen profitable google ads profit so that It allowed me to quit work and still be able to eat whilst not touching to much of savings along with also paying for some small amazon servers to keep the service running. I thought what the hey, lets give it a go so i quit. Shocked everyone, including parents but i just couldn't go on any longer. It hurt to much... and IT in banks just totally suck.

Also like the article says planned an exercise regime, my work hours for my currently little side project and hanging to start on Peter Norvig and Andrew Ng's classes when they start. Never felt this excited in a while.

I think the caveat though is that while being unemployed (currently like I am) is better then having a lousy job , not being able to put food on the table is lousier then a lousy job. I guess this article applies to people who aren't financially struggling cause i know some people who would take ANY job that came their way right now.

if anyone knows this i guess its me. I put my resignation in one month ago and have been unemployed for about 2 days so far and I am loving it.

I'm sorry, but being unemployed for two days is nothing. It is obvious that the simple fact of changing your life, especially since it was you who took the initiative, is what's dominating your mood right now.

Try being unemployed against your own preferences (i.e. after being fired and unable to find new work) for half a year or a year - as in the current climate, long-term unemployment is becoming increasingly a problem - and we can talk again.

Also, the typical HN reader is probably quite different from the majority of the population as it is part of the hacker mentality to keep oneself occupied with interesting personal projects. There are many people out there who wouldn't really know what to do with their time.

Absolutely correct. Hell I was unemployed for 2 days, 3 days ago (and will be again in 2 days...).

Oh i totally understand that but i think if you read between the lines this article is more target to an audience like us. ie Hackers, who might hate their job but are still at it, moving pay-check to pay-check not happy with what we are doing with our time, able to do other things but just not stepping out to do it, not for people who have a family, a mortgage and need to put food on the table.

Plus its been 2 days because thats when i found this article, if i found it 3-4-5 weeks later then i would have put there 5 weeks since i have been unemployed. Regardless of the time its been since i left work the choice has been made to step away from a stable income job that felt completely draining to being unemployed but enjoying what things i can now do (which is the jist of this article)

>Try being unemployed against your own preferences (i.e. after being fired and unable to find new work) for half a year or a year - as in the current climate, long-term unemployment is becoming increasingly a problem - and we can talk again.

Wanna know something, i have a friend who i have offered my garage too for a couple of months cause at the moment he is at risk of loosing his house. He is forced to rent it out and cant afford another place to live. He wants to keep the house for his family and doesnt want the bank to take it away and turn all those years of hard work in interest payments to vanish into thin air just cause of a few months of missed payments due to being layed of.

Now he works 2 jobs 18 hours a day for 7 days to get what he used to be paid before he lost his job and needs to do that until he can get back on track so that his missed payments for the last few months have been made up. I know full well what unemployment means, not first hand but close enough ..... and its sad

HOWEVER ... i dont think this article is directed at people in this situation - hence my caveat :)

How are you going to deal with employers that will only hire people that are already employed if / when you have to look for a job?

Just pass on them - these 'employers' are not worth working for anyway.

Hopefully thats not an issue, i plan to train myself more during this period of down time. Just cause im not going to the office doesn't mean im going to loose my skills. If anything im going to be learning a lot more things then i did at work.

If they care whether i am currently employed or not if i do need to join the work force again then i guess screw'em, they aren't looking for the right kinds of things.

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