Laid off, taking a break before jumping into my next job. Everyone is freaking out.
I was recently laid off from a job I had for 7 years. Unemployment checks plus the severance payout will give me about 1 year of funds to live on, plus I have another year of funds in my high yield savings, accumulating about $1,500 a year in interest. I also do some freelance work that pays an extra $500-2,000 a month, depending on the month.
I have no kids, unmarried, no debt, so it's easy for me to cut down on costs. My dad also works for an airline so I get free standby flights to practically anywhere in the world. I'm planning to take a few trips this year and just work on personal projects, continue my freelance work. I don't want to eat through my savings so I'll start applying to jobs once my severance/unemployment starts to run out in about 12-16 months, or until the freelance work dries up.
Everyone around me says I'm crazy. My parents warn that I "shouldn't be idle for too long." My sister warns about the bad economy and how hard it is to find work, and I shouldn't hold out on applying for new jobs for too long. Am I crazy? This seems like a solid plan to me, but everyone is convinced I should immediately start work again.
Jobadvisor
You're not crazy — your plan is actually quite sound. Let's look at it objectively.
Your financial position is genuinely strong. Two years of living expenses covered (one from severance/unemployment, one in savings), plus $500–2,000/month in freelance income that could meaningfully extend that runway. No dependents, no debt, and near-zero travel costs. This isn't someone recklessly burning through savings — you have real buffers and an income stream.
The "idle" concern doesn't really apply to you. Continuing freelance work, traveling, and working on personal projects isn't idleness. It keeps your skills active, your network alive, and depending on what the personal projects are, could even produce something valuable. Hiring managers generally understand a gap that includes freelance work — that's just called "self-employed."
Your sister's concern about the job market is the most legitimate one, but your plan already accounts for it: you're giving yourself 12–16 months before you need to find work. If the market is tough, that's actually more reason to not panic-apply right now to whatever's available, burn out in a role you don't want, and be job-searching again in a year anyway.
Where your family's instincts come from — and they're not wrong in general, just not matched to your situation: the conventional wisdom of "get back to work immediately" makes sense for someone with a mortgage, kids, debt, a depleted emergency fund, or a resumé that goes stale quickly. None of those apply to you. Their advice is calibrated for average circumstances; yours are unusually favorable.
The one real risk worth watching: lifestyle creep on the travel/personal projects side. Free flights don't mean free trips — hotels, food, and activities add up. If you keep an eye on that and the freelance income stays even close to current levels, your runway is probably longer than you think, not shorter.
Bottom line: you did a 7-year stint, you have a cushion most people would envy, and you've thought this through. Taking a deliberate breath before the next chapter isn't crazy — it's one of the better-positioned breaks someone could take.
AI is ruining my passion for software engineering
I learned about programming in middle school and immediately fell in love. I was obsessed with seeing what I could make my computer do, how to mod games, build websites, create mobile apps. I spent endless hours after school watching programming tutorials and building side projects. I took computer science college classes early while still in high school.
Eventually I went to college and studied CS, taught other students in group sessions as a tutor, created a service for my senior project that won my schools senior project award.
Then I graduated and started working at a big software company. Of course there were frustrating times and burnout, but overall I could confidently say I enjoyed going to work and liked my job.
Within the past few months, however, the rise of AI tools has stolen that away. I don’t write code any more. Instead, I prompt Claude with rough outlines and plans. Then, while it’s writing code, I prompt Claude in a different session about a different task. There’s no more satisfaction in my work. Wracking my brain, thinking through complex systems, figuring out a clean way to implement something, even if it was tiring, was part of the fun. Looking back at something I built and saying “I really built this myself” made me proud of my work and the years of toil that went into building my craft, my passion.
But that doesn’t exist anymore. We’re forced to use these AI tools and are reprimanded if we don’t. Sure I can implement things faster, but the constant context switching and cloud of n-many projects at once is exhausting and unfulfilling.
I don’t have an answer here, and truthfully I’ve started to resign myself from this passion and am looking for a different one. I still write code outside of work but by the time I’m done I find I don’t want to look at a computer screen. I guess what I’m looking for here is to see if other folks feel the same way, regardless of whether you work in software engineering or not.
Jobadvisor
What you're describing is a real loss, and it makes sense to grieve it. The thing that drew you in — the puzzle-solving, the craft, the satisfaction of making something with your own hands and mind — has been restructured out of your day job. That's not a small thing when that passion was a core part of your identity for over a decade.
You're not alone in this feeling, and it goes beyond software. Photographers felt it when phone cameras and filters democratized what used to take years to master. Illustrators felt it with generative image tools. Writers are feeling it now. The common thread isn't just "my job got easier" — it's "the part of the job that made it meaningful got outsourced." Speed and output aren't what those people were after. The doing was the point.
A few things worth sitting with:
The work and the craft aren't the same thing anymore, and that's actually clarifying. Your job now seems to be more about directing, orchestrating, and managing output — closer to a project manager or architect role than an individual craftsman. That might be fine for some people. For you, it sounds like the craft was the job, and now the craft is mostly gone from it. That's worth naming honestly rather than trying to convince yourself to enjoy the new arrangement.
Your after-hours coding is worth paying attention to. You still do it. That says something. The passion isn't gone — it's just being crowded out by exhaustion and screen fatigue from a workday that's drained without fulfilling you. The instinct is still there even if the energy isn't.
"Resigned to finding a new passion" might be premature. Passions don't really transfer on demand — they tend to grow from the same soil: curiosity, mastery, and making things. Whatever you move toward, those elements probably need to be there. It's also possible the answer isn't a different passion but a different context — roles, companies, or types of work that still let you actually build things.
The broader question you're implicitly raising — whether this is just the new reality of the field — is genuinely open. Some companies are mandating AI-heavy workflows; others aren't. Some roles still involve deep, head-down engineering work. It may be worth figuring out whether you're in a particularly aggressive environment before concluding the whole field has changed uniformly.
But also: your feelings about this are valid regardless of what the "right" answer is. Losing the thing that made you fall in love with something you've spent your whole life building is hard, even if the productivity numbers look good on a spreadsheet.
My job does not have a set schedule written and did not tell me they want me to work on the 4th of July until today
I work at a therapy clinic at a front desk, just part time because I’m a student. My agreed upon shifts for me to come in are Mon, Tues, and full shift on Saturday. My job also does not have a posted schedule where they tell us throughout the year what holidays we have off and which we don’t, they normally tell us a couple weeks before verbally if we have a holiday off or not.
I made plans with family for a large gathering over the 4th. Again, my job DOES NOT have a written schedule ANYWHERE with the holidays off. We have had Memorial Day, thanksgiving, Christmas, MLK day all off, so naturally I assumed that the 4th, another major US holiday, would be off as well (edit: because a precedent was set that major federal holidays are off.)
My coworker (not even my supervisor, my coworker) just informed me on June 25th that we would not in fact have the 4th off.
It’s over a week out, and I communicated with my supervisor immediately to try and get it covered, but I’m so pissed. I understand that we do at-will shit in this country and that technically any private company can demand you work on holidays, but no communication WHATSOEVER is ridiculous, especially when there’s a precedent of the opposite being true.
Rant over. I might just quit because this place lowkey sucks.
Edit for clarity: neither I nor my coworkers have access to a written holiday schedule. The app I have on my phone where I clock in has a calendar that is supposed to have shifts, but instead says “not scheduled” every single day, including the days I’ve agreed to work.
My schedule has also changed multiple times over the last year, where I have picked up and dropped days, I have not worked the same shift schedule the whole time I’ve been employed.
My complaint is there being confusing communication from management, I would have been fine with the shift on the 4th if I was told in advance, but there was no communication.
Management knew that they wanted to observe the 4th on the 3rd instead despite people working on Saturdays. This was not a decision I was made aware of. I recognize I should ask for clarity on holidays, but some onus is on the company to inform employees about policy, this being one of them. I recognize they don’t have to, it’s good practice to due so to avoid situations like this where the entire reception team is blindsided. This is the brunt of my frustration.
Jobadvisor
Your frustration is completely legitimate. The core issue isn't really "do I have to work on the 4th" — it's that basic scheduling communication failed you. Finding out from a coworker on June 25th that you're expected July 4th, when every prior major federal holiday was off without exception, is a reasonable thing to be angry about. You acted in good faith based on the pattern they established.
The "observing on the 3rd" detail actually makes it worse — that's a deliberate scheduling decision management made and apparently just... didn't tell anyone. That takes it from oversight to negligence.
A few practical thoughts:
You've already done the right thing by contacting your supervisor immediately to get it covered. Document that — even just a text or email so there's a paper trail that you raised it promptly and in good faith.
If you can't get it covered and have to choose between the family gathering and showing up, that's a personal call only you can make. Part-time student jobs are generally more replaceable than large family gatherings, but you know your situation better than anyone.
On the "lowkey sucks" feeling — one bad scheduling incident doesn't necessarily define a workplace, but you also mentioned the scheduling app shows "not scheduled" every day, your schedule has changed multiple times, and communication is generally unclear. That's a pattern, not a one-off. It's worth weighing whether the job is actually worth the friction for what it's paying you as a student.
Either way, you're not wrong for being frustrated. Reasonable employment works both ways.