Yeah, and I mean, to a certain extent I can understand it. I mean, just looking in the mirror, I’ve gone through an extended period of time where I let depression kick me in the ass, didn’t seek help, didn’t try to help myself, and basically gave up on life while trying to keep it together enough to be a decent enough stay-at-home dad. I like to think I didn’t fail in the latter, but I can think of a lot of times when I fell asleep on the couch in the middle of the morning with my kid watching MLP for way too long. I’m sure the super-motivated tech crowd would look at me, conclude I was a loser, and I’d probably agree.
On the other hand, I can tell you that I’ve told people about my career path only to have people look at me dumbfounded and ask, “Well, why didn’t you just move?” Like it’s as simple as that. And I know people who did that, and it worked out great. And I know people who were more motivated than me, more intelligent than me, and have gone off to do that…and in a few years they move back home, broken. Usually it’s that their career didn’t take off the way they’d hoped. Maybe they’re like me and can’t interview for shit. Maybe they sat down with HR people who heard their drawl and thought, “I’m not hiring this hick.” Or they could have done just fine only to find out their spouse had a couple of lovers on the side and was spending all their money on that. Or they came home to an empty house, and one messy divorce later and they’re broke. Hell, I’ve found out before through the grapevine that I’ve lost out on job opportunities because I have red hair and we all know redheads are assholes.
Talking about such things, of course, is “whining” with this crowd.
Anything to keep it neat, simple, and to stay 100% in the right.
