@sumpnlikefaith That is absolutely awful. It seems like this is becoming such a common thing now and its scary as hell. I remember when the "tech" industry was like the most "sure thing". It was like ... get into computers and tech and you'll always have a job ... but that is really not the case, not just in gaming but in different areas of tech and not just because of AI stuff. It just seems really volatile now. I'm sorry that has happened to them ...

@thewebrecluse It's a lot for this particular person -- facing that sudden reality, while also trying to navigate it on their colleague's behalf within their role...which no longer exists.

Sigh.

@sumpnlikefaith This happened to my tribemates and I last year ... with no employment in sight. We were looking at RVs because homelessness was incoming. We went down to one income and couldn't afford where we live anymore ... and companies take like 6 or 7 months to even followup interviews and it was just really a problem. We could be in the same situation again at the end of this contract too ...

@thewebrecluse Oof. That lag is brutal!

When I was in IT, people moved fast. Here one week, at landed at a company the next, usually with some kind of a financial incentive.

What you're experiencing can't be regarded as a sustainable way to continue an industry!

@sumpnlikefaith It used to be like that ... if my tribemate finished a contract there was always something there afterwards. Nowadays ... it's so bad. Fake jobs. Companies wasting people's time. Not to mention experience in tech isn't always in your favor ... companies hire newbies who know whatever the newest, greatest tool or language is. It seems like age and experience isn't always on your site in tech if you can't keep up with every shiny new thing companies want to try.

@thewebrecluse And fixation on the latest, shiniest tool makes everything even more volatile.

I remember friends of mine diving into Flash's ActionScript because Flash had such high market saturation, and they were finding such rich potential in it.

Then the iPhone came out, and to the shock of the whole industry, Flash suddenly evaporated.

All of that research, learning and work was rendered useless in an instant.

@sumpnlikefaith Ohhhhhhhh you should hear my tribemate RANT about that EXACT same thing! Oh he can go on and on about that. He dabbles in everything and he LOVES learning new things but he also constantly talks about how momentary things are, how they limit development instead of expanding it ... and as you said .. make things more volatile. It's ideal to have people who can think in more than just one way, one language, one platform ... especially for development. Things are really bad. 😭

@thewebrecluse I would actually like to hear that rant.

I hadn't realised how far things have devolved.

I was employed in IT in 1997-1999. One of my friends at the time was making good money in an older language -- I think it was Fortran -- when companies were scrambling to mitigate the Y2K bug.

He'd thought he'd pretty much aged out of the industry, and then he received this massive windfall.

IT is a weird world!

@sumpnlikefaith Been trying to get him on CoSo for a long while but he doesn't so social media at all. He builds a lot of his own apps to be able to do the stuff he wants to do. He hates being limited by software and hardware.

I still know my COBOL and I am glad. 🤣 You just never know ... 🤣