If had a platform read by people in tech too young to have gone through a downturn before, here's what I'd say.

1. It sucks, and I'm sorry. Even if it's a good layoff for you, that works in your favor, and that you knew was coming, it still sucks. It's okay to feel some kind of way about it.

2. Keep up old the ex-old-job people social networks that aren't actively dangerous or toxic for you. I got my first post-layoff job when I went out to lunch with former colleagues from the position where I was laid off and they asked me to work at their new place. Every ex-old-job community is going to be full of people who successfully leapt to a new place which, by definition, is hiring.

3. Don't sign anything without a lawyer's eyes. When I got laid off the second time, a local labor lawyer gave me a free consult on the severance package. And really think about the math; especially if you have medical insurance from another source, the severance the offer you is often not worth the NDA, non-disparagement, and arbitration clauses.

4. You will get a good job again. You have skills and connections. It might be rough in the meantime, but you will.

5. There's still plenty of remote jobs. And contrary to what VCs will claim, most companies don't actually think you're smarter just because you live near them. If your needs, family, or support networks don't tie you to living in a place where the cost of living is unsustainable for you, you don't need to live there. The rent is too damn high everywhere, but you'd be amazed at how far a tech salary will take you in most parts of the country.

6. Every large company hires tech people, and bigger companies are often much better employers than startups. Companies that are great employers, especially for people from underrepresented groups, are often stodgy and boring, with no interesting vibe. Show me a company with an established HR department staffed by professionals and a risk-averse legal department, and I'll show you a place that nobody on social media thinks is interesting at all. Look for lists put together by polling actual employees, not by random PR departments.

   • America's Best Employers For Women 2022
   • Best Places to Work - 2021 - Disability:IN
   • The World's Top Female-Friendly Companies 2022
   • America's Best Employers For Diversity 2022
   • America's Best Large Employers 2022
   • 100 Best Companies to Work For | Fortune

7. If you're young and in tech, there's a reasonable chance you've been paid in Ludicrous Mode for your entire career, and may never really have struggled for cash. It's fine if that's you! Just know that there are skills you can learn. If you have friends on the other side of our economy's awful divide, they might have good advice. But there are plenty of little things you can do to save money. They can't move someone up a tier in our fucked up economy, but they can help you learn to budget. For example, the tech industry has taught you to buy subscriptions things that already existed free or cheaper, in some cases (eg. audible vs. the library).

8. Don't do a bootcamp to get more skills; many of them are ridiculously expensive scams that don't teach much. Look into your local community colleges, which often teach more for a fraction of the cost.

9. You don't owe the old place any loyalty. Leak to the press if it gives you satisfaction. Just, leak to someone with a track record of not throwing sources to the wolves. You don't want a rep and you don't want to paste a target on your back, especially if you're dealing with the world's richest man in the middle of a spite-fueled tempter tantrum.

An interesting side effect of being at the intersection of Epub standards, publishing, programming, librarianship, children's/YA literature, and open access is that I am absolutely positive that I have many colleagues who have always gotten along wonderfully with one another professionally and philosophically who nonetheless have vehement, diametrically opposed opinions about Hachette v. Internet Archive.

(Disclaimer: I wrote a package for the IA which (at least at one time) was part of their pipeline for making their scanned books accessible: abbyy-to-epub3. I don't know if they're still using any variants of that code.)

In any case while I have my own opinions about the case,^[1], I find it absolutely wild how many authors are defending the current library ebook-rental model, which is unsustainable, unaffordable for many libraries, and is not a massive royalty generator for most authors (in the US, anyway, which doesn't have a Public Lending Right). Regardless of the ethics and legality of the IA's model -- which is not at all an easy answer! copyright in the digital realm is hard^[4], as we all know! -- the current library ebook licensing model is awful for libraries.

[2]: It's worth noting that many of the IA's CDL books are out of print and have no ebook edition, and unless the reader has access to the NLS (in the US), the IA is one of the only ways to get a vaguely accessible Epub or DAISY copy, or a copy in your location at all.

(You're welcome. Or, I guess, I'm sorry, if you've seen the quality of the theoretically-accessible epub, which is the best you can do in an automated pipeline with limited budget, because accessibility costs money.)

There's no other way you can see my dad featured in this very out-of-print book from the Boston Children's Museum, unless you have access to one of the 145 libraries with a copy, that's for sure.

[3]:

Indeed, the publishers have not offered any evidence that Internet Archive’s digital lending, or anyone else’s, has cost them one penny in revenues . In fact, their overall profits have grown substantially, and sales of the works at issue in this case appear to have increased . Plaintiffs’ own witnesses admitted that their theory of harm is “speculative” and simply an “inference one could make.” And tellingly, Plaintiffs specifically instructed their expert not to try to measure any economic harm.

Hachette v. Internet Archive - Internet Archive's Memorandum for Summary Judgment

[4]: It's not clear what the repercussions to the rest of our online lives would be if the US government decided to rethink the First Sale doctrine, but it would certainly be extremely far-reaching to all of us.

The Color Specialist

The color specialist has no opinions about where to put the bikeshed, what materials to use, where buy the paint, or how to fund raise for its construction. The color specialist will never volunteer to help with construction, to leaflet the neighborhood about the bikeshed raising party, or to take minutes at the Bikeshed Design Group meetings. The color specialist will not buy the paint, drive someone else to the paint store, or look up the paint store's hours on the internet. The color specialist will, however, wait until the paint has been applied and then raise furious points of order about the use of eggshell over semigloss finishes.

The Serious Reader

The serious reader is up on all the terms. She reads the important bloggers and name drops them constantly. Sometimes she even reads print books and magazines, if she's old enough. She uses the vocabulary of her heroes' blog posts, whether or not it applies correctly or completely to the situation. The serious reader loves to rules lawyer any general philosophy or principle, turning a general guideline into an unbreakable rule. She disapproves of any technology that her heroes dislike, and loves what they love--unless they advocate against her favorite design pattern. Then she digs up some contradictory articles pointing out that they are wrong, wrong, wrong.

Émile

Émile has had a natural tech education, created by reading nothing at all. He learned on the job and is uninterested in any technology he's never seen before. If it has always worked before, it's correct, regardless of whether it's sustainable, accessible, or secure. Any thought of best practice is offensive to Émile; what we do here is best.

The Marginalized Apologist

The marginalized apologist jumps into conversations to tell other marginalized people they haven't experienced harassment or trauma. The marginalized apologist points to successful marginalized people as evidence that the harassment has never happened, while telling everyone else that they should get over it, be quiet, and take their complaints to private conversations. The marginalized apologist is an amazing gaslighter, saying things like "what do you mean a well-documented history of harassment?" about people who are on video being horrible at tech conferences for decades. The marginalized apologist just wants us all to get along and talk about the technology.

The Natural Born Expert

The natural born expert turns up out of nowhere in a small tech community, known to nobody in the community, suddenly running a consultancy or trying to replace an incredibly well-established spec. The natural born expert isn't trying to make change by learning the tech or networking or getting involved with the professional community. Instead, they are representing themselves to customers and the press as someone who knows what they are talking about. Actual experts, who can clearly see that they are lying, only sometimes make a dent in the natural born experts convictions and public positioning.

The Evangelist

Try telling the evangelist that she is as passionate about her religion in exactly the same fashion as adherents of the opposite religion. Try telling her that she sounds exactly like worshippers of That Other Founder, or The Enemy Product. She won't believe you. Then she will tell you she refuses to support your browser / operating system / assistive technology / car, because it's evil and bad, and also all the security problems with the product and people she perfers are irrelevant, because Reasons.

The Cat Herder Who Used To Be A Cat

The cat herder was a cat a long time ago, even though they spend all day herding cats these days. They are positive that they can tell actually cats how to eat kibble and meow and lick their own asses, but it turns out that former cats have forgotten how to do all those things. They keep lying down in the bowl of kibble and making a mess, then scolding the cats for eating their kibble wrong.

The Anti-Patternist

The anti-patternist has all kinds of words to tell you what you're doing wrong or what they're doing right. If they can link to a wikipedia page for that Absolutely Proves Their Unassailable Point, so much the better. The anti-patternist can happily explain how whatever your code is doing, it's bloat or creeping featurism or input kludge or not DRY or ignoring YAGNI or insufficiently KISS. If there's an acronym and it's obscure, it's great. If the anti-pattern has a very rude name (object orgy, code smell, cargo cult) that's best of all. The code doesn't have to be an example of the anti-pattern at all.

The Javascript Programmer

'Nuff said.

http://github.com/USER/REPO/compare/[START...]END

Where USER and REPO are obvious, and START and END are branch names, tag names, or commit SHA1s specifying the range of history to compare. If is omitted, the repository's default branch is assumed.

On the trip from the ballroom to the lounge I was stopped by three black hotel staff workers. I’m used to this. They are often older, but not always. Either way, they’ve worked in places like the Hilton for many years and they have rarely, if ever, seen someone who looks like me — like them — on the stage. They want me to know they’re proud of me. I’m a good southern girl so I mind my manners and my elders. I say yes ma’am, I’m in school. Yes, sir, my momma sure is proud of me. Thank you for praying for me.

Even my colleagues make a point of telling me that they are proud, of acknowledging my existence. A loquacious, entertaining, generous senior professor from Illinois bee-lined towards me as I found an empty seat. He didn’t even bother with introductions, as family is liable to do. He just started in with, “i sure did like seeing you up there.” I know what he means but he wants me to be clear. He goes on to tell me how long he has come to events like this and how rarely he has seen a brown face at the front of the “big room”

He asked what, by the end of the day, I was asked about half a dozen times: “how did that happen?!”

Kimberly’s daughter, who is currently in middle school, has been interested in technology and an avid gamer since the age of 8. Several years ago, after realizing her daughter would frequently get bored with videogames, Kimberly wanted to show her how to make one and enrolled her in a summer game development program at Stanford. “It was a great experience for her,” explains Kimberly. “But there were only about 3 girls out of approximately 25 students and she was the only person of color enrolled.”

As a result of these experiences, Kimberly decided to launch Black Girls CODE, a nonprofit that encourages young minority women to pursue a career in technology by providing them with workshops and after-school programs focused on a wide range of tech-related topics. “Our goal,” Kimberly explains, “is to address the gender and diversity gap in technology and to feed girls into the STEM pipeline as early in their development years as possible.”