This last week was one of my most challenging weeks in my ~20 year work life. I work in big tech, but am a relative latecomer to it (6 years). I'm a manager, and someone who was a very senior IC, a mentor, and work friend of mine, became my manager 6 months ago. It was a "boiling frog" situation that blew up spectacularly last week. I had to talk to my skip-level manager about it and the only viable solution was me leaving my team behind to go manage another team. I'm still bummed about it and taking some time off before starting the new role.

Do I want to be fired? No, because the job market sucks, I make good money, and I live in a HCOL area with a mortgage, a wife and a young kid. I need to sustain (and grow) this for another 10+ years minimum before having any kind of financial independence.