7 ms·

Sergey's challenge looks like is not in retiring early or with non-work. We had a high performing co-worker who was scared witless after a lay-off episode and

Sergey's challenge looks like is not in retiring early or with non-work. We had a high performing co-worker who was scared witless after a lay-off episode and this was not because he was worried about lacking money or loss of prestige., but because he could not come to terms with the simple fact of facing the 9 am on a Monday morning with absolutely no expectations. It freaked so much to not feel the hustle and the adrenaline rush of experiencing the blues Monday morning!? Another colleague used to drive up to the parking lot of their previous employer, post lay-off., so that he could feel normal., and he did this for well over 6 - 8 months. Pack bags, wave to his wife and family, drive up in his Porsche to the parking lot and I guess feel normal !?

unsupp0rted 8mo ago
Mental illness. They tied their entire sense of self to some job at some company. Their body belongs in some parking lot on somebody's schedule.
- fuzzy_biscuit 8mo ago
  I hear what you're saying, but routines, especially long-lived, are difficult to break/change. It's normal to have phantom limbs when they are cut off.
- heyjamesknight 8mo ago
  A mentally healthy person wants to be helpful. They want to be seen as helpful and they expect others around them to be helpful as well. This is the foundation of "pro-social" behavior: I benefit the group as much or more than the group benefits me. Tying your identity to the place where you're helpful and where that help is appreciated and acknowledged isn't mental illness.
  - WJW 8mo ago
    But this person was laid off. His help was (apparently) not appreciated, and he's not helping anyone by sitting alone in his car on the parking lot. Do you think it is healthy behavior to go to a parking lot at 0900 every day and do nothing because you mentally cannot face the idea of not going to an office?
    - heyjamesknight 8mo ago
      Coping mechanisms are complex and diverse. The individual in question lost a major source of meaning-making in their life and was struggling to cope with that loss. I don't believe this is any less healthy than other common responses, which range from societal withdrawal to substance abuse.
    - fragmede 8mo ago
      > His help was (apparently) not appreciated That's just your take. We don't know where he sat in the team, so we can assume the idea that he wasn't appreciated by his teammates as incorrect. He didn't make the cut based on unknown metrics from upper management, but they have their own reasons for doing things. Getting in to the parking lot of the old office sounds way healthier than not making it out of bed at all.
      - unsupp0rted 8mo ago
        > Getting in to the parking lot of the old office sounds way healthier than not making it out of bed at all. Missing your ex and lying around depressed in bed is less unhealthy than getting into the car and sitting outside their house.
        heyjamesknight 8mo ago
        You've cherry-picked a situation where there is an obvious social norm being broken. A better example would be going to the park and sitting on the bench you used to sit on with your ex. I agree with GP that this is healthier than lying despondent in bed.
      - Melatonic 8mo ago
        They could go anywhere though - why not go to a coffee shop at 9 with a laptop or on a morning hike? I agree sitting in bed depressed would be bad but it seems like avoiding the issue to specifically sit in the parking lot of an old employer. At minimum I think it would be healthier to tie part of your identify to an aspect of your career you enjoy rather than a specific employer itself.
brnt 8mo ago
[flagged]
beambot 8mo ago
Sounds a bit... Neurodivergent.
- csomar 8mo ago
  I am guessing if you have been doing this daily for a couple decades then the neurodivergence is not going through this. I assume any normal person will find it hard to not do any kind of work and if you spent 20 years of your life doing tech, how useful are in the "real" world. Unless you have been doing handy work on the sides, spoiler alert: not much.
- mr_toad 8mo ago
  ‘You don’t have to be neurodivergent to work here… …but it helps!’
marcus_holmes 8mo ago
I took a career break and was weirded out by the question of "how do I introduce myself?". So used to saying "Hi, I'm Marcus, I'm IT Director of <business>" that suddenly having nothing to say there was strange. When people asked "what do you do?" I had no good answer, and that felt like I had no good identity. I guess for Sergey Brin it's a little different, he will always be "Founder of Google" even if he leaves Google. But that "work as identity" may still be a problem. For a lot of us, what we do is who we are, and so not having any work to do is like not having an identity.
- dmitrygr 8mo ago
  > When people asked "what do you do?" I found that outside of CA, this is asked a lot less often. In CA people ask that so they can mentally rank you as worth their time or not. Elsewhere, people ask you how your weekend went, or how your family is. One of the awesome parts of moving to Austin was not hearing that as the first question as much.
  - alexjplant 8mo ago
    > I found that outside of CA, this is asked a lot less often. I moved to California a few years ago from the Least Coast (insert shaka, surfer, wave emojis here) and had multiple other out-of-towners in the same situation as me say the exact opposite at a party. They all were adamant that they had yet to hear "what do you do [for a living]?" since they'd moved as they did ad nauseum when they lived on the other side of the country. I've not noticed either way. My pet theory is that people hear this frequently if their social and professional lives bleed into each other which they do if one lives in a town dominated by a specific industry or profession. Those moving westward during COVID and remote work suddenly had to contend with this much less.
    - zippyman55 8mo ago
      Never hear that question either. I don’t ask it either. I’ve actually been pretty successful but asking that question seems to rank someone on a scale that does not reflect their amazing contributions to society.
scotty79 8mo ago
[flagged]
- stavros 8mo ago
  When you define yourself solely by work, you lose your entire identity when you retire. Most people don't have hobbies, so work is literally the one thing they have in their lives.
  - renegade-otter 8mo ago
    This is why people should have an opportunity to semi-retire when they are still young. A year or two. United States safety net does not really allow that unless you are loaded already. It's very helpful to zoom out and do LIFE for a change. I got laid off three years ago, started my own project. Didn't take off, but also two mini-mes showed up during that time, and I am infinitely grateful that I could punt on work and just be there. Hashtag blessed and all. That backrent I owe now, well, that's a bitch.
- le-mark 8mo ago
  English surnames would seem to indicate being identified by one’s work has a long history (smith, miller, cooper, …)
- scotty79 8mo ago
  It's really interesting that my comment here where I said that employment can inflict brain damage got flagged even though previous comment described behavior that would be obviously significant clinical symptom if it was caused by anything else as it is irrational and detrimental.
amelius 8mo ago
I don't get this. Just find a coworking space and work on a FOSS project.
- cheschire 8mo ago
  Seriously. There are so many opportunities to give back to society. One does not need formal employment to be fulfilled. I will say in Sergey Brin’s case, he had the unique opportunity to go back to work with the best and brightest without any friction, and nobody could tell him “hey maybe your credentials don’t quite stack up high enough for this department yeah?” But for the rest of us, there’s FOSS, there’s computer repair, home automation, day trading a small fraction of your wealth, volunteer work at hospitals and libraries, gig work apps like taskrabbit… If you are bored after being away from work for even a month, I’m not sure I could be friends with you.
- wslh 8mo ago
  I think it's difficult for a normal brain to live with the low impact of another project while you created Google. Also, the speed of a personal developer is nothing compared with the speed of a software engineering area or company. You can easily feel like a turtle even working on an interesting project.
- jart 8mo ago
  I left Google to build an open source project a long time ago. A big part of the appeal was being able to have something to work on that's truly mine. Sergey already has something that's his and it's called Google. So I think he belongs there.
  - fragmede 8mo ago
    The world thanks you for your work. Which one of yours is your favorite?
    - jart 8mo ago
      Cosmopolitan has been my baby for a while. It may not be my most popular project, but it's the secret sauce that powers everything else.
wartywhoa23 8mo ago
> drive up in his Porsche to the parking lot I wonder if that'd still be the case should he drive a Ford Focus.
- freehorse 8mo ago
  If he drove a Ford Focus and did this everyday, I bet they would have called the police.
lesuorac 8mo ago
Wasn't sergey forced out for hitting on employees? It seems pretty reasonable for him to be unhappy with a forced retirement and ultimately unwind it now that meeto is pretty much over.
YeahThisIsMe 8mo ago
That must be what it's like to have a job where you feel like you're doing something interesting and meaningful.
renegade-otter 8mo ago
That is really not healthy.
kshacker 8mo ago
I took a four-year break from work (2009–2013) and moved to India. The reasons were simple: some family health issues required downtime (though probably not as much as I ended up taking), and I could afford to do this in India in a way I couldn’t in the US. This happened to coincide with the market bottom, but I wasn’t laid off—it was entirely voluntary. I didn’t experience an identity crisis for a single day. I didn’t feel insecure or anxious about not working. The only real friction came from my family. One big difference was social life. In India, I was constantly meeting people—connections were easy and organic. In the US, maintaining a daytime social life felt much harder. Everyone is on a treadmill—insurance, income, careers—often not by choice. I know there are ways to build community here, but in India it just happened naturally. My extended family struggled more than I did. Once it became clear the break wasn’t temporary, there was a kind of quiet depression around it. I initially framed it as “taking a breather” by doing an executive MBA, but the break never really ended. What eventually brought me back wasn’t overt pressure, but practical limits: my spouse’s mental health, and the constraints of India’s education system for our partially disabled, special-ed child. Those realities mattered more than any career concern.
- janandonly 8mo ago
  I am 1,5 years into a break. Haven’t had time to feel bored yet. But I do look forward to a 9-5 job again, just for the structure it provides.
  - kshacker 8mo ago
    If you can afford it, why get back? Now after a dozen years I am bored of my 9-5 but running the race to make my FIRE numbers plus provide some cushion for my son with disabilities but if I had a choice I would quit again ( but I am much older now )
- ericmay 8mo ago
  > One big difference was social life. In India, I was constantly meeting people—connections were easy and organic. In the US, maintaining a daytime social life felt much harder. Everyone is on a treadmill—insurance, income, careers—often not by choice. I know there are ways to build community here, but in India it just happened naturally. The primary reason for this is the built environment we live in here in the United States. It's very difficult to organically build connections when you have to drive a car somewhere to have basic social interactions. Even some of the items you mention, like insurance and income are very much informed by the requirement to have a car to participate in society.
compsciphd 8mo ago
he should have carved into the parking lot "Brooks Was Here"
looperhacks 8mo ago
It's not THAT bad for me, but I really can't take vacation days for "nothing". I struggle if I don't have plans and work really forces one to have some structure. If you need the structure and don't have any plans post lay-off, I can believe the struggle to "let go" and do something better.
tempsaasexample 8mo ago
These people could have bought a dirt bike or mountain bike and had the time of their life. I don't get it.
- melling 8mo ago
  I think I’d take directing big things at Google over riding a dirt bike… I’m not actually sure what you don’t get. I’m all for not living a lower level grind and riding a dirt bike. Most jobs simply aren’t interesting.
  - throwaway132448 8mo ago
    It’s the lack of imagination that’s sad.
  - Xiol 8mo ago
    Regretting not being able to create more shareholder value on your deathbed. So very sad.
    - fragmede 8mo ago
      Depends on the shareholder. At Sergey Brin's level, that shareholder value shapes the future of humanity, a legacy affecting many more people and will last far longer than spending time with single, or even double digit number of children.
      - __jonas 8mo ago
        I can't really tell what you're trying to say, do you really think the shareholder value of Google is positively aligned with the future of humanity? As in: If Google builds a really good AI and makes a lot of money from that, this will be a net positive for the world?
        Klonoar 8mo ago
        You’re shifting the goalpost to be positive influence or not. That’s not what they were saying though. Their point is that the sheer allure for many people of that level of influence is powerful and makes other options likely less appealing.
shadowgovt 8mo ago
Human beings tend to enjoy patterns. Being pushed out of a pattern engages a lot of survival instincts.
twalichiewicz 8mo ago
I recently rewatched a Tested Q&A where Adam Savage discussed his post-Mythbusters life; his framing of that duality was very similar: https://youtu.be/2tZ0EGJIgD8?t=322 https://youtu.be/2tZ0EGJIgD8?t=322. It aligns with a common design principle: constraints often make a problem space easier to navigate. I suspect life is similar. Having limited time creates a "specialness" that is easily lost when you suddenly have an infinite amount of time at your disposal.
skeuomorphism 8mo ago
What a sad way to live life, for a man to miss the chains he wears in enslavement, for he knows nothing else

unsupp0rted 8mo ago

Mental illness. They tied their entire sense of self to some job at some company. Their body belongs in some parking lot on somebody's schedule.

fuzzy_biscuit 8mo ago
I hear what you're saying, but routines, especially long-lived, are difficult to break/change. It's normal to have phantom limbs when they are cut off.
heyjamesknight 8mo ago
A mentally healthy person wants to be helpful. They want to be seen as helpful and they expect others around them to be helpful as well. This is the foundation of "pro-social" behavior: I benefit the group as much or more than the group benefits me. Tying your identity to the place where you're helpful and where that help is appreciated and acknowledged isn't mental illness.
- WJW 8mo ago
  But this person was laid off. His help was (apparently) not appreciated, and he's not helping anyone by sitting alone in his car on the parking lot. Do you think it is healthy behavior to go to a parking lot at 0900 every day and do nothing because you mentally cannot face the idea of not going to an office?
  - heyjamesknight 8mo ago
    Coping mechanisms are complex and diverse. The individual in question lost a major source of meaning-making in their life and was struggling to cope with that loss. I don't believe this is any less healthy than other common responses, which range from societal withdrawal to substance abuse.
  - fragmede 8mo ago
    > His help was (apparently) not appreciated That's just your take. We don't know where he sat in the team, so we can assume the idea that he wasn't appreciated by his teammates as incorrect. He didn't make the cut based on unknown metrics from upper management, but they have their own reasons for doing things. Getting in to the parking lot of the old office sounds way healthier than not making it out of bed at all.
    - unsupp0rted 8mo ago
      > Getting in to the parking lot of the old office sounds way healthier than not making it out of bed at all. Missing your ex and lying around depressed in bed is less unhealthy than getting into the car and sitting outside their house.
      - heyjamesknight 8mo ago
        You've cherry-picked a situation where there is an obvious social norm being broken. A better example would be going to the park and sitting on the bench you used to sit on with your ex. I agree with GP that this is healthier than lying despondent in bed.
    - Melatonic 8mo ago
      They could go anywhere though - why not go to a coffee shop at 9 with a laptop or on a morning hike? I agree sitting in bed depressed would be bad but it seems like avoiding the issue to specifically sit in the parking lot of an old employer. At minimum I think it would be healthier to tie part of your identify to an aspect of your career you enjoy rather than a specific employer itself.

brnt 8mo ago

[flagged]

beambot 8mo ago

Sounds a bit... Neurodivergent.

csomar 8mo ago
I am guessing if you have been doing this daily for a couple decades then the neurodivergence is not going through this. I assume any normal person will find it hard to not do any kind of work and if you spent 20 years of your life doing tech, how useful are in the "real" world. Unless you have been doing handy work on the sides, spoiler alert: not much.
mr_toad 8mo ago
‘You don’t have to be neurodivergent to work here… …but it helps!’

marcus_holmes 8mo ago

I took a career break and was weirded out by the question of "how do I introduce myself?". So used to saying "Hi, I'm Marcus, I'm IT Director of <business>" that suddenly having nothing to say there was strange. When people asked "what do you do?" I had no good answer, and that felt like I had no good identity. I guess for Sergey Brin it's a little different, he will always be "Founder of Google" even if he leaves Google. But that "work as identity" may still be a problem. For a lot of us, what we do is who we are, and so not having any work to do is like not having an identity.

dmitrygr 8mo ago
> When people asked "what do you do?" I found that outside of CA, this is asked a lot less often. In CA people ask that so they can mentally rank you as worth their time or not. Elsewhere, people ask you how your weekend went, or how your family is. One of the awesome parts of moving to Austin was not hearing that as the first question as much.
- alexjplant 8mo ago
  > I found that outside of CA, this is asked a lot less often. I moved to California a few years ago from the Least Coast (insert shaka, surfer, wave emojis here) and had multiple other out-of-towners in the same situation as me say the exact opposite at a party. They all were adamant that they had yet to hear "what do you do [for a living]?" since they'd moved as they did ad nauseum when they lived on the other side of the country. I've not noticed either way. My pet theory is that people hear this frequently if their social and professional lives bleed into each other which they do if one lives in a town dominated by a specific industry or profession. Those moving westward during COVID and remote work suddenly had to contend with this much less.
  - zippyman55 8mo ago
    Never hear that question either. I don’t ask it either. I’ve actually been pretty successful but asking that question seems to rank someone on a scale that does not reflect their amazing contributions to society.

scotty79 8mo ago

[flagged]

stavros 8mo ago
When you define yourself solely by work, you lose your entire identity when you retire. Most people don't have hobbies, so work is literally the one thing they have in their lives.
- renegade-otter 8mo ago
  This is why people should have an opportunity to semi-retire when they are still young. A year or two. United States safety net does not really allow that unless you are loaded already. It's very helpful to zoom out and do LIFE for a change. I got laid off three years ago, started my own project. Didn't take off, but also two mini-mes showed up during that time, and I am infinitely grateful that I could punt on work and just be there. Hashtag blessed and all. That backrent I owe now, well, that's a bitch.
le-mark 8mo ago
English surnames would seem to indicate being identified by one’s work has a long history (smith, miller, cooper, …)
scotty79 8mo ago
It's really interesting that my comment here where I said that employment can inflict brain damage got flagged even though previous comment described behavior that would be obviously significant clinical symptom if it was caused by anything else as it is irrational and detrimental.

amelius 8mo ago

I don't get this. Just find a coworking space and work on a FOSS project.

cheschire 8mo ago
Seriously. There are so many opportunities to give back to society. One does not need formal employment to be fulfilled. I will say in Sergey Brin’s case, he had the unique opportunity to go back to work with the best and brightest without any friction, and nobody could tell him “hey maybe your credentials don’t quite stack up high enough for this department yeah?” But for the rest of us, there’s FOSS, there’s computer repair, home automation, day trading a small fraction of your wealth, volunteer work at hospitals and libraries, gig work apps like taskrabbit… If you are bored after being away from work for even a month, I’m not sure I could be friends with you.
wslh 8mo ago
I think it's difficult for a normal brain to live with the low impact of another project while you created Google. Also, the speed of a personal developer is nothing compared with the speed of a software engineering area or company. You can easily feel like a turtle even working on an interesting project.
jart 8mo ago
I left Google to build an open source project a long time ago. A big part of the appeal was being able to have something to work on that's truly mine. Sergey already has something that's his and it's called Google. So I think he belongs there.
- fragmede 8mo ago
  The world thanks you for your work. Which one of yours is your favorite?
  - jart 8mo ago
    Cosmopolitan has been my baby for a while. It may not be my most popular project, but it's the secret sauce that powers everything else.

wartywhoa23 8mo ago

> drive up in his Porsche to the parking lot I wonder if that'd still be the case should he drive a Ford Focus.

freehorse 8mo ago
If he drove a Ford Focus and did this everyday, I bet they would have called the police.

lesuorac 8mo ago

Wasn't sergey forced out for hitting on employees? It seems pretty reasonable for him to be unhappy with a forced retirement and ultimately unwind it now that meeto is pretty much over.

YeahThisIsMe 8mo ago

That must be what it's like to have a job where you feel like you're doing something interesting and meaningful.

renegade-otter 8mo ago

That is really not healthy.

kshacker 8mo ago

I took a four-year break from work (2009–2013) and moved to India. The reasons were simple: some family health issues required downtime (though probably not as much as I ended up taking), and I could afford to do this in India in a way I couldn’t in the US. This happened to coincide with the market bottom, but I wasn’t laid off—it was entirely voluntary. I didn’t experience an identity crisis for a single day. I didn’t feel insecure or anxious about not working. The only real friction came from my family. One big difference was social life. In India, I was constantly meeting people—connections were easy and organic. In the US, maintaining a daytime social life felt much harder. Everyone is on a treadmill—insurance, income, careers—often not by choice. I know there are ways to build community here, but in India it just happened naturally. My extended family struggled more than I did. Once it became clear the break wasn’t temporary, there was a kind of quiet depression around it. I initially framed it as “taking a breather” by doing an executive MBA, but the break never really ended. What eventually brought me back wasn’t overt pressure, but practical limits: my spouse’s mental health, and the constraints of India’s education system for our partially disabled, special-ed child. Those realities mattered more than any career concern.

janandonly 8mo ago
I am 1,5 years into a break. Haven’t had time to feel bored yet. But I do look forward to a 9-5 job again, just for the structure it provides.
- kshacker 8mo ago
  If you can afford it, why get back? Now after a dozen years I am bored of my 9-5 but running the race to make my FIRE numbers plus provide some cushion for my son with disabilities but if I had a choice I would quit again ( but I am much older now )
ericmay 8mo ago
> One big difference was social life. In India, I was constantly meeting people—connections were easy and organic. In the US, maintaining a daytime social life felt much harder. Everyone is on a treadmill—insurance, income, careers—often not by choice. I know there are ways to build community here, but in India it just happened naturally. The primary reason for this is the built environment we live in here in the United States. It's very difficult to organically build connections when you have to drive a car somewhere to have basic social interactions. Even some of the items you mention, like insurance and income are very much informed by the requirement to have a car to participate in society.

compsciphd 8mo ago

he should have carved into the parking lot "Brooks Was Here"

looperhacks 8mo ago

It's not THAT bad for me, but I really can't take vacation days for "nothing". I struggle if I don't have plans and work really forces one to have some structure. If you need the structure and don't have any plans post lay-off, I can believe the struggle to "let go" and do something better.

tempsaasexample 8mo ago

These people could have bought a dirt bike or mountain bike and had the time of their life. I don't get it.

melling 8mo ago
I think I’d take directing big things at Google over riding a dirt bike… I’m not actually sure what you don’t get. I’m all for not living a lower level grind and riding a dirt bike. Most jobs simply aren’t interesting.
- throwaway132448 8mo ago
  It’s the lack of imagination that’s sad.
- Xiol 8mo ago
  Regretting not being able to create more shareholder value on your deathbed. So very sad.
  - fragmede 8mo ago
    Depends on the shareholder. At Sergey Brin's level, that shareholder value shapes the future of humanity, a legacy affecting many more people and will last far longer than spending time with single, or even double digit number of children.
    - __jonas 8mo ago
      I can't really tell what you're trying to say, do you really think the shareholder value of Google is positively aligned with the future of humanity? As in: If Google builds a really good AI and makes a lot of money from that, this will be a net positive for the world?
      - Klonoar 8mo ago
        You’re shifting the goalpost to be positive influence or not. That’s not what they were saying though. Their point is that the sheer allure for many people of that level of influence is powerful and makes other options likely less appealing.

shadowgovt 8mo ago

Human beings tend to enjoy patterns. Being pushed out of a pattern engages a lot of survival instincts.

twalichiewicz 8mo ago

I recently rewatched a Tested Q&A where Adam Savage discussed his post-Mythbusters life; his framing of that duality was very similar: https://youtu.be/2tZ0EGJIgD8?t=322 https://youtu.be/2tZ0EGJIgD8?t=322. It aligns with a common design principle: constraints often make a problem space easier to navigate. I suspect life is similar. Having limited time creates a "specialness" that is easily lost when you suddenly have an infinite amount of time at your disposal.

skeuomorphism 8mo ago

What a sad way to live life, for a man to miss the chains he wears in enslavement, for he knows nothing else