Ep. 02: Tech Ain’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be
Ten years ago working in tech was all the rage. Now, you’re probs among the 180k+ laid off in the industry.
From my perspective as someone who has been gainfully employed as well as unemployed multiple times in my career, working in tech doesn’t really live up to the hype associated with it. The massive layoffs aren’t surprising, and hopefully this shifts the elitism and “dream job” mentality associated with the industry, since you can love what you do but you can’t take any job with you 6 feet under.
This episode about the tech industry was kinda cathartic for me to process and then spill all my thoughts out without a filter. I feel like it was yesterday that I flew from London to NYC to San Francisco to start my first real tech job back in 2013. I felt like I had “made” it because of all the things I’d gone through up to that point to get there. I didn't realize how much more I would learn by being exposed to more white spaces, white pandering, and elitism. To me, the massive layoffs of the past two years have been like an alarm finally being heard, yet it’s been ringing for years.
No one seemed to think it would be possible right? Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, and the like laying off thousands of people at one time. Hundreds here and there don’t make a splash, but 5 digits on up definitely do. And the decades-long postulating of why it’s so important to work in tech, and you gotta get a job in tech, and tech is 🔥 🔥 🔥.
It truly has had me think about how people spoke about working in tech 10 years ago, compared to what they do (if they’re being honest with the state of tech as it always was) say now that their friends, family, and selves have been laid off — in what probably was not imaginable to them.
Why? Maybe the elite safety net of working at a FAANG? That sense of untouchableness from the oppressive and capitalistic nature of the society we all have been living in this whole ass time.
Cognitive dissonance is a helluva beast. As a Black cisgender neurodiverse woman, I don’t have that privilege. I also have done a great deal of unlearning to be able to call a thing a fucking thing. I try not to feel this sense of “I told ya so!” but it’s there because of the trauma others caused when I did work in a variety of different tech organizations. When I finally did get a chance to be in leadership roles, I did my best to be better than what I saw as “managers” in these predominantly cishet white male spaces.
I did my best to mentor people who reached out to learn more about me and my experiences, and encouraged them to think beyond the “dream job” of being at one of these tech darlings that are imploding like any other industry in the global economy.
Elitism is a helluva drug, even when you’re a historically excluded member of society gains access to these spaces. Was my entire time in tech an abysmal nightmare? No. Life isn’t a binary experience. There was good, bad, and very, very ugly. I can be honest and acknowledge what positives I took away from working in tech the last 10+ years, whether that has set me further on a path to living in peace as my full self or not.
I truly hope that this historical point in the 21st century makes Gen Z and those younger generations rethink what they value when it comes to career and technology. I’m not concerned for those who will always bounce back because that’s literally backed into the privilege they exist within. I’m concerned for those who saw tech as the opening to that privilege — despite it always being a mirage.
Are you listening?
