The job that laid me off is demanding to know if I’m interviewing elsewhere.

Here’s all you need to say to that: FUCK YOU.

That’s it. You own them nothing. (That’s basically what this person did, but more politely than I would have.)

I think Systems is one of the hardest jobs in IT because we are expected to know a massive range of things.

Yup. Just looking at my work password manager, there’s 200+ systems I am supposed to be the SME on. And a few hundred more that don’t have password listed in there either because they use SSO or some other method of logging in that I am also supposed to be where the buck stops.

That’s just systems. I am also supposed to know these things to an expert or near-expert level: networking, Azure (all of it), Entra/AD DS, Active Directory, AWS (all of it), infrastructure design, network design, network security, endpoint security, helpdesk levels 1-3, vendor management, SAML 2.0, OAuth, MSP management, contract bidding and negotiation, server hardening and security, security architecture, business relationship management, containers and Kubernetes, infrastructure as code, Terraform, Python, PowerShell, SOC 2, GDPR, ISO 27001, TX-RAMP, FED-RAMP and other compliance frameworks.

And believe it or not, that only barely, barely scratches the surface. That list above could have 500+ entries. And yes, I (not my team, me) is expected to know all of that.

That’s fairly typical for systems folks. We have to know more in more areas than any other job that I am aware of. And if not, to be able to ramp up quickly enough to get it done.

People wonder why I get paid so much because I “just click on things.” That’s why.

I know where to click and when to do it.

I'm tired of adult fighting men whining.

"Women sometimes say no!"

First of all, that's healthy – if at a reasonable level. Makes you go out to train and earn money. Nature is real.

But also, what percentage of my junior exec followers ARE married with kids, so that that even…

— Wilfred Reilly (@wil_da_beast630) June 17, 2025

Exactly. Besides the obvious misogyny, my main problem with the incels is that you definitely do not attract women (or anyone) by sitting around carping and complaining like a four-year-old. That gets you nowhere. Anything is better than that and is more likely to lead to success, romantic or otherwise.

Being out in the world and doing things has an infinitely-greater chance of good experiences as compared to sitting in a basement somewhere and posting on Twitter all day. You don’t even have to do traditional “manly man” stuff (if you are a man). Go to a painting class! Take a course at the local community college! Go do pottery! Join a hiking group! A book club! The possibilities are quite literally endless.

As I’ve said before, incels are not wrong about the nature of the problem. What they are wrong about is punishing women for their (mostly) self-caused deficiencies. As with desperation, complaining is attractive to no one.