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Comment by peterldowns | Hacker News Reader

Send me an email — I'm an '18 and if you're telling the truth about side projects, interview skills, graduating, etc. then I should be able to help you find a job very quickly, either in my own org or with someone I know who is hiring.

> I’m facing the very real possibility of moving back home to an unstable and abusive environment while continuing to job hunt

You don't have to do this. You can do anything you want you're a free person with your own agency and plenty of skills. There are a million ways you can work around this.

> What helped you push through when it felt like the system failed you?

Realizing that I am owed nothing, and focusing on ways to get what I want. With your background and skills I am certain you can achieve anything you set your mind to as long as you don't put yourself in a subordinate, dependent, position.

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> Realizing that I am owed nothing, and focusing on ways to get what I want.

I don't think the system _ever_ fails people with "merit" like MIT grads. It fails people like me that can't get into top schools that went to 50% accept rate public schools.

I graduated in 2018 too - I guarantee people like you consider me and my career accomplishments in the intervening years to be failure worthy. I genuinely think a typical MIT Course 6 grad from 2018 would be clinically depressed if they were in my shoes.

How dare you guarantee that I'd consider you a failure? You don't know me, don't put that on me. In fact I am pretty sure I wouldn't consider you a failure. You're saying a lot of negative things about yourself and I don't know you or your situation but I hope you don't give up.

I recognize your username and I've followed your career since ~2017 or something. I never got an interview at Stripe, not that I would have ever passed it. I'm not a L6/L7/L8. I worked at Amazon, and people think my class of people are subhuman.

Levels.fyi has L5 at Amazon making $150k base, $220k TC. You might not be Jeff Dean or Andrej Karpathy but there's only two of them. None of us are. That's not remotely subhuman failure.

https://www.levels.fyi/companies/amazon/salaries/systems-dev...

I make more than $220k now but OP 100% makes closer to $800K+ He definitely doesn't think people like me are human.

I sincerely hope that you seek and receive help.

What help?

There is no help that will stop me from being an untermensch and failure? It's not going to get me a 1600 or get me into a top school or make me earn $800k a year.

Don't worry. There are people with privilege who would never understand the mean. They fly high due to their circumstances and are just lucky.

Us, we have go strive for living. That's the unfairness in life. It would have been so much easier if lucky ones would acknowledge their luck than attribute for hard work and what not.

Everyone discounts luck while it is the biggest factor. Only action you can do is increase the surface area of your luck.

Try to find meaning beyond career. There are multiple ways to get lucky. Find your own luck. After all we are in an era where people get wealth screaming on top of their lungs to the internet.

Like Peter, I do recommend talking to someone about this. You don't sound content, and life is too short to miss out on the journey.

I say this as someone who earns much less than you (never mind 800k), and who didn't go to a top school.

I'm no psychiatrist but your posts suggests that you see yourself as a failure, or possibly you've gotten that feedback from others directly. Perhaps at Amazon or elsewhere.

Projecting that feeling onto others suggests you would really benefit from talking to a professional about this.

I don't think you're a failure, I don't know you. But from what little you've revealed I'd say you're not a failure. But perhaps you had your own goals you failed to achieve?

I’ve had therapy, it doesn’t help. It doesn’t change the material facts that everyone thinks I’m a failure because that’s the objective truth.

Did they actually tell you that? I highly doubt it. You've created a preconception that I guarantee is not accurate at all. You have multiple people here saying it's bullshit, and we're not lying or trolling or anything like that. I replied somewhere else but I want to reiterate - why would you even want approval from people who dehumanize others on the basis of TC? It's like being upset Martin Shkreli doesn't want to be your friend. I really hope you'll believe me

It’s not just TC though. TC is an imperfect proxy for ability and class. If I’m just permanently in the underclass - unable to be compared to you people - it’s obvious that y’all wouldn’t even see me as human.

I have no accomplishments, nothing to be proud of. Freshmen at MIT have more potential and prior accomplishments than I do.

The "under" class that makes more than ninety-five percent of US households?

You might need a refresher on the meaning of the word "under".

Mah bro, such is life. In fact the entirety of humanity is like that. Unfairness is everywhere.

There is nothing wrong being under accomplished. Let me tell you a secret that helps with mental sanity. All humans are sinful creatures. We indulge in lot of these sins. If you go through this chain of thought you arrive at conclusion, everyone is inferior to one another. The material superiority you yearn for is a momentary fleet in the river of time.

Sometimes just reflect on yourself. One perspective of life is your world governs you. If you are happy in your own world, try to let go of it. Just enjoy the moments and don't hold on it.

You are the actor and creator of your reality. Your objective reality is making you feel inferior. Define your role, change your actions, and act accordingly.

The inability to act according to your role is the probably reason behind your feeling. You probably see yourself through some different lens where your actions and objective reward do not align. All you can do is control your thoughts and actions. So act.

As Percy Shelley said about Ozymandias, "Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!" We're all sand on a long enough time scale, and getting a TC 800k+ will not save you from that fate, in the same way that conquering an empire will not save you either. Other people have pointed out that you likely make a decent wage, but understandably that does not address your concern. If you feel that your only value is your accomplishments, then no matter how much you achieve it will never be enough. You get to decide your own goals, and whether you're reaching them. Don't let these proxies for ability and class decide what you want or how fast you should get it.

>makes $220k+ a year

>"i have no accomplishments"

give me a break

You make more than $220k. Holy fucking shit that's a giant ass pile of money!

Objectively, you. are. not. a. failure!

Ninety-five percent of US households earn less than that. Ninety-five!

The material fact here is you have this made up story in your head that's not supported by the limited facts you've given us. I'm not going to change your self image by yelling at a stranger over the Internet; if traditional talk therapy with a human didn't work, discuss it at length with ChatGPT, or go see a sex worker, they're surprisingly good for talking to. You're also welcome to email me, link in bio.

Yeah that's okay. You're suffering from a common thing. You just need therapy and then you'll learn you're good enough without accomplishments. Right now you think you need to accomplish things to have value. That's a really basic textbook mental illness caused by parental neglect. Usually something like intermittent random love / neglect. Study attachment theory and you'll learn all about it.

Huh?? I know people doing gig work struggling to live paycheck to paycheck. People making less than $50k a year who do not think they are "subhuman".

Why are you equating money with self-worth and dignity? That's a losing battle since there's always a bigger fish.

For most technical people in most of the world making $220k in a year is a distant dream.

I see that your username is “laidoffamazon.” It seems that you are allowing the low points in your life to define who you are and what you think you can accomplish. Have you considered therapy?

Therapy, in this economy? I'm trying to cut pretty much all subsciptions just to pay rent.

To be fair, you asked someone with a zero experience to contact you solely due to MIT pedigree. You also didn't ask `parent` to contact you.

Even your gilded claim is breaking down these days it seems.

I started in state schools and leveraged that into one of the world's best (half the MIT professors had graduated from my alma mater when I was deciding where to go) for my MSc.

As [likely] one of the people you reference, I am a counter example to your guarantee. No one should fail who contributes in good faith. Live life well, be responsible, have fun, spread joy, and no matter what happens in your career you'll have succeeded.

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