Tech Job Hunt Handbook: Career Management for Technical Professionals

Of Daddies, Downturns, and World of Work Dogma

It’s a far cry from the world we’d thought we’d inherit; it’s a far cry from the way we’d thought we share it.

—Neil Peart, Writer, and Rock Musician

Where your talent meets the needs of the world, there lies your calling.

—Aristotle

Four downturns in, this daddy takes a look back.

I was a teenager during the early 1980s recession, in my twenties during the early 1990s recession, in my thirties during the dot.com bust, and then, in my forties, when the global pool of investment money and financial algorithmic models melted down the world’s economic engine, I became a father to two beautiful little girls.

During the first two recessions I lived in and through, I had steady jobs—working in the produce ...