You aren’t superior to everyone else. Maybe you aren’t passing the vibe check rather than the tech screen if this is your level of humility in interviews.
The Midwest includes some amazing and really nicely affordable cities like Chicago. You would even find mental institutions like the twin cities, Milwaukee, Madison, Columbus, Detroit, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh to be really nice places with lots to do.
And I’m not even telling you that you’re resigning to being a plebeian with median income, but you can’t help being snobby anyway.
You've had already several replies commenting in your attitude issues; but it seems you are still to young to see them. I really, really hope in my heart that you can still keep the way of life you are used to. Although, from what I've seen in the US and the world currently, it will be quite difficult.
It is a reality that us people from Xenials (myself), Millenials and Z have have lived our work lives in a generally confortable era. I myself ended my BSc in 2004, way after the dot-com bubble burst, and fortunately the 2008 crisis didn't hit me.
But, the advice you are calling "boomer coping" (or similar) has some experience in there, most likely from people that suffered the 2000 dot-com bubble burst. From the accounts I've read of older friends, there were people with plenty of experience and great CVs washing dishes at local restaurants.
Right now, the way things are moving in our field, with AI, outsourcing and everything else playing, it looks like the skillsets are getting cheaper. So, we are getting punched by reality and I believe it will only get worse.
> But, the advice you are calling "boomer coping" (or similar) has some experience in there, most likely from people that suffered the 2000 dot-com bubble burst. From the accounts I've read of older friends, there were people with plenty of experience and great CVs washing dishes at local restaurants.
Also the early 90s weren’t great: the Cold War ending meant that a lot of defense contractors laid off very specialized workers. For an example of that circa 1994:
