The Position of Fuck You (John Goodman in The Gambler)

I can’t speak about the current job market. But once you get experience and build a network and a reputation, you can start being real picky. On top of that, once you “get in a position of f*%# you” ( ▶ this video ) your shit tolerance level starts going way down.

> Anyone have tips to avoid this Never depend on your job for your livelihood. Depend on your network. Make sure your skills are in sync with the wider market. Keep your resume up to date and your “career document”. Always be interview ready. Of course, save and invest money and live in a position of f%%% you. ▶ this video

No matter where you work in any major city in the US, whether you are working for a major tech company or your run of the mill enterprise shop, you should be making at least twice the median household income of your local area if you have at least three years of experience. If people making half of what you make can manage to survive and it be homeless or go hungry, you should be able to save enough “to live in a position of f%%l you” ( ▶ this video ). You may not be able to put little Timmy in private school and he may have to gasp go to a public college.

Are they? 300,000 units * $30 = $9M - 30% Steam tax = $6.3M in a single year take out federal taxes (just gonna call it 36% and ignore SFJ/MFJ), leaves them about $2M each. I'm sure they're some sort of a legal entity in WA state and will owe the b&o tax too. They deserve it absolutely but $2M each does not put them in a position of "fuck you" [1]. [1] ▶ this video

Then don’t have above average outgoing expenses that put you at the mercy of a tyrant? I’m 48 now and I learned a long time ago after my first job to always live in a position of f*^k you ( ▶ this video ). I believed in living like that from 1999 when I was making $60K a year, for the next 20 years when I was bumping around as your bog standard journeyman CRUD Enterprise developer and after that when I pivoted slightly to get into BigTech. You are seeing the consequences right now of what happens when you let lifestyle inflation happen.

Simple. In 25+ years of working professionally, I know two things. 1. No company has ever gone out of business because I left. 2. If I got hit by a bus tomorrow, my employer would send my wife “thoughts and prayers” and they would have a req open for my position before my body was in the ground. My job affords me the ability to work from anywhere in the US and I am going to be taking advantage of that for at least the next few years to fly across the country and do the “digital nomad” thing. But I also “live in a position of f%%% you” ( ▶ this video ). It’s been over 15 years that I haven’t been confident that if the pay/bullshit ratio got too low that I could get another job.

I’ve been working as a hands on developer [1] for over 25 years between 8 companies. I’ve worked for companies with 20 people all the way to AWS. I’ve always strived to “live in a position of f%%% you” ( ▶ this video ). Why would I let a company “burn me out”? When the pay/bullshit ratio gets too low, I send my always updated resume out, review my “career document” to prepare for behavioral/informal interviews (I don’t do whiteboard coding interviews), talk to people in my network and I get another job. Before my current job, I was a dev lead and then the de facto “cloud architect” at smaller companies. My current job is much less stressful. [1] currently my official title is not “software developer”. But for all intents and purposes, I still develop user facing software along with a crap ton of yaml, HCL, diagrams and PowerPoint slides.

If you’re “living in a position of f%%% you” ( ▶ this video ) which you should be in a couple of years making a Netflix salary, a layoff is just an inconvenience. Heck how many software engineers at any of the top tech companies have trouble finding a job quickly?

Independence, being in great physical shape, and sharing as many meals as possible with friends. Having interesting friends outside of tech. Enough money to never worry about money, which varies widely from person to person. Never, ever worrying about hierarchies of any sort. I need to fit this in here somehow: ▶ this video (Note: That's what I want, not necessarily what I have atm.)

I own my own home and this idea being pimped to millennials that they should lease everything from car rides, music, movies, bicyles, and shelter is a fast curtain to a bad "third act." (read that as old age) John Goodman said it best while playing a loan shark in the the film "The Gambler..." Frank: You get up two and a half million dollars, any a-hole in the world knows what to do: you get a house with a 25-year roof, an indestructible [Japanese]-economy shit box, you put the rest into the system at three to five percent to pay your taxes and that’s your base, get me? That’s your fortress of Fucking solitude. That puts you, for the rest of your life, at a level of fuck you. Somebody wants you to do something, fuck you. Boss pisses you off, fuck you! — Own your house. Have a couple bucks in the bank. Don’t drink. That’s all I have to say to anybody on any social level... Did your grandfather take risks? Jim Bennett: Yes. Frank: I guarantee he did it from a position of f k you. A wise man’s life is based around fuck you. The United States of America is based on fuck you. You have a navy? Greatest army in the history of mankind? Fuck you! Blow me. We’ll fuck it up ourselves. ▶ this video

Ya, $10m is comfortably above fu money even in silicon valley or NYC. ▶ this video The size of the house you own and get to say fu from will vary, but the sentiment is the same as long as you own it.

This clip from the Gambler summed it up pretty well: ▶ this video (NSFW language) It's more about personal independence than anything and being able to take risks.

It's also known as "fuck you money", and there's a really good scene with John Goodman in The Gambler about it - ▶ this video So many people, especially in tech, work jobs that pay really, really, really well compared to most people and piss it away on stupid shit. You can choose to save a lot of that money instead and still have a very good and fulfilling life. Eventually, when you have enough savings/investments to cover you for a few years, your life changes. You don't have to worry so much if people are getting laid off, or if your job starts demanding unreasonable things. Here's the article that brought me to that video, and goes more in depth about the concept. I highly recommend it - link

So can you (or me), or all the lucky ones above a certain threshold. We all have the same time! Which is the biggest leveler. Our only handcuffs are our own making, say after you have FU money[1]. (e.g. having a million dollars net worth is not safe enough. Got to be at least 10s of million dollar networth. And this would keep changing. ) [1] ▶ this video (NSFW. Had seen if shared on HN few years back, can't recall by who)