This absolutely happens in real life. Guy I worked with was at a large telecom company that liquidated in the 2000s. Dude was high up and had a beach house… you know, rich people stuff.
After the 2000s recession he had major trouble getting hired because he earned too much before and potential employers would think he would leave if they gave him a lower offer.
He ended up working for me building hydroponic farms for about a year making shit pay.
You paid him in shit? Why not use that shit as fertilizer?
I have a friend with a PhD in linguistics, worked for years in the SF tech world in i18n, not quite a PM, not an engineer, not a CX person but somewhere between the three. He got laid off and found it impossible to get another role, I think in large part because he’s super over qualified by education and years of experience, but in such a niche skill set that doesn’t really fit into traditional tech company roles. He ended up taking a job at the airport doing plane loading and such!
Let me introduce you gentleman to Doug Prasher.
https://www.science.org/content/article/man-who-wasnt-there
He was years ahead of the field in molecular biology but was parking cars when his work won a Nobel Prize…for other people.
This was also the plot of The Company Men, where Ben Afleck’s character took a construction job to make ends meet. It was a good movie.
This guy: “There you are!”
He grabs some tubing and starts squeezing the air out of it.
“You’re gonna pay!”
