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by phil21 1463 days ago
The grass is never greener, it's just a different shade of brown.
1 comments

I think if I were homeless, a FAANG SWE job would definitely be greener.
Ah except it doesnt go directly from brown -> (supposed) green in one step :) It is a whole bunch of slightly browner shade transforms. (Missing a few intermediate steps and no dissing on any of the stages) it might be something like:

Homeless -> Volunteer worker -> Govt job -> Non Faang -> Faang -> Enlightened that you missing out on life.

A lack of ability to imagine something shouldn't cause someone to believe it can't happen. There are any number of ways someone can go homeless including under the conditions of having the skills to program. I've been able to program since I was 12 and definitely could've gone homeless any time between now and around 3 years ago (which is nearly 2 decades of time).
You are spot on. The "progression" I gave an example is (mean to be) fully free of any judgement or superiority etc. Any of us can go homeless in an instant (eg FAANG eng buys a crazy expensive house on a H1B, suddenly looses job in a bad market). My point was that when someone is going through those stages, assuming you had never been in a advanced stage etc, a linear path means you are incrementally loosing a part of yourself and you dont realize it until the end. Does that make sense?
I remember when homeless employees working for Google made headlines. People had good paying jobs, couldn't afford housing - or at least didn't desire to put the entirety of their income into housing. Looks like things may be headed back that way again.