The best analogy I can find, if not a tired one, is the equivalence of software engineering to tool-and-die making.

In prior generations where manufacturing was king, it was a necessary operational skill set in order to produce things at scale, yet is much less (if no longer) relevant in the age of additive or subtractive manufacturing, where quantities can be varied according to immediate requirements.

Along the same lines, a skill set in traditional software engineering is less enamored in the age of AI agents that can better regurgitate boilerplate code.

The corresponding next-level-up analogy is the tool-and-die maker that learns 3D modeling + additive manufacturing, with FE analysis and CNC skills as a fallback. For software engineers, it's AI agent prompt engineering and data modeling, according to use cases defined by business needs.

You need to put on your entrepreneurial hat and figure out how to do things faster, with greater accuracy, relevant to business needs - not navel-gazing at package management and build automation exclusively.

This is, of course, an extremely naïve view of the state of things, though I cannot imagine, as a generalist, how one could survive with increasingly niche skills that, a decade ago, would have commanded six-figure salaries.

Good luck!

In other words, you wasted time and energy becoming a programmer/software developer/whatever.

Should have done something else.

But more importantly, this is only relevant for vomiting boilerplate code. I don't know about you but I always did a lot more than that.

I do 100% agree with you, thanks for the good wishes

Also 3D printing is good at making unique objects, but if you want to make ten thousand of the same object, you definitely need someone who knows the "old" ways. They're not irrelevant at all. And you can even use a 3D printer to help make your tools and dies.

Please feel free to reach out, and then we can see if there is a good match.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mario-gintili-software-engineer/ https://github.com/shellandbull

I'll send an application over. my contact email is code.mario.gintili [at] gmail [dot] com

I don't know if companies are just in a "wait and see" stance to see the effect of AI coding agents, or if it's the sign of a wider slowdown.

100% remote is also a tough ask. I've noticed increasingly job roles are listed as 2-3 days in the office as companies awkwardly transition back to the office.

Keep in mind that at some places this is general policy, and that tech is given an exception. For example, my company has 2-3 days in-office, but everyone in tech is allowed to be 100% remote, even though that’s not written anywhere.

At least, that way you know it’s not the remote work portion that’s keeping you from a job.

I’m in the US and everyone I’ve talked to who wants to move have been discussing the challenges of getting a foot in the door anywhere.

> I’m in the US and everyone I’ve talked to who wants to move have been discussing the challenges of getting a foot in the door anywhere.

Really? I thought the US was doing extremely well

Your best bet to find a job in this market is to have some connection to the hiring manager. It might be a friend of a friend of a former colleague. Or both having membership in the same semi-open community. But you need a way to say “hey, I’m a real human being and especially interested in this job; please at least take a look at my resume!”

That being said, this is about unemployment not affordability. I can afford where I am, if I had a job

Hypothetically being able to afford something if things were hypothetically different is not an indicator of what is affordable in reality.

unemployment is an extraordinary circumstance for me. Extraordinary circumstances affect affordability in an extraordinary way.

even with employment far below my usual pay I can afford where I am.

The company I work for is a medium sized business, in residential and commercial construction. For example, a recent react native mobile dev position my company posted had about 300 applications in the first hour, with about 500 total in the first week on indeed. Of those applications, 90% didn’t have most of any of the requirements for the position. The job description says that we don’t sponsor H1B visa’s (because it’s stupidly expensive now). Of the 10% that somewhat met the minimum qualifications, all but 1 required sponsorship. This was listed as a hybrid role, only 20 people applied from the region where the office is.

We already know from previous roles that a huge percentage of people with resume’s that say they have the required skills, actually won’t come close to making it through the interview process.

While as a company we like AI/ML tools, and encourage our staff to learn them, and use them where appropriate, we want to invest in everyone’s skills with new tools. We try not to use AI where a human connection is important (hiring, sales, etc). We’ve had to resort to AI for dealing with the massive influx of low quality job applications and it sucks.

Basically anyone who goes above and beyond at this point automatically get’s at least an interview.

I do understand why so many people are just applying to every job that shows up, it makes sense. But it really does make the prospect of finding those few great people very difficult.

We aren’t a ruby/rails shop otherwise I’d reach out to OP.

Thank you

Is there a particular specialisation you have, and then how does someone who needs that specialisation find you?

Particularly if the job is 100pct remote, you’re participating in a global market.

Or if there’s a local company that needs you… even if the work isn’t the most challenging… Can at least leverage the real-world relationships? Anyone at prior jobs who can help with connections? (Never hurts to ask).

I hope you are able to find something that provides at least an emotional boost while the broader search continues!

Being a generalist and having experience delivering products all the way its what makes me stand out. That being said, I've done some cool pieces with backoffices and dev tooling and developer experience

> Or if there’s a local company that needs you… even if the work isn’t the most challenging… Can at least leverage the real-world relationships? Anyone at prior jobs who can help with connections? (Never hurts to ask).

I've done my best and decided to take any job even if it doesn't pay as much. I have exhausted all of my prior connections

Thanks for the good wishes

I wish that rto was being handled with more flexibility and empathy, and I appreciate that travelling to work can be very difficult to reconcile with location and parental/caring responsibilities, but this is unfortunately where we are.

I'd also recommend looking beyond startups and pure software/tech companies. There are many businesses in eg manufacturing, or in less mainstream locations, that struggle to hire decent devs.

For context: I'm a UK-based developer and have recent experience of a fairly substantial period of unemployment. I now have a job with a great business, but also with a substantial commute.

That's where I'm aiming for.

I know there's a million companies that would benefit from my work and can pay well, but they're just not the ones that find you on Linkedin, or post on Hacker News

Good luck, really. Its a whole new year.

What covid did to office work lasted many years and now there is finally a reverse reaction where people (not just office managers) are rediscovering that hey we actually get things going if we sit in the same room, at the same time, working on the same problem.

AI is a bit like outsourcing / off-shoring. Best results are on tasks that are well-defined, of a fair size, and well-documented. Incidentally the tasks that used to go to someone sitting remote.

Intelligent people are cutting costs instead of trying to earn more money

In the UK you're usually "discovered" by a company's talent team or independent recruiters.

I've had very little to no success with direct applications

There are still plenty of jobs at local software shops, banks, consulting firms, hospitals, government agencies and more, and you are at the front of the line for all of those. A lot of them enforce as little as 2-3 days in the office. Apply there instead.

I've come to learn that your salary as an engineer is more directly tied to your company's success rather than your personal outcomes as an engineer.

I've seen people padding buttons for £700/day working for large brands

I've seen people train open weight models for £350/day trying to ship an MVP.

The last permanent role I negotiated had a TC of £160,000/year. I'm open to go down to £90,000/year or even less for the right opportunity

As for contract work, my last 3 projects were £600/day, £700/day and £550/day. Again, I can go down for something stable.

If you want that £160k+/year, you might as well either go to a quant firm like Citadel or Jane Street (But there is a 0% chance it will be remote) or build your own startup.

> I'm open to go down to £90,000/year or even less for the right opportunity

£90k is not bad, but not the best either, but anything higher than 120k in the UK means you lose 45% of that.

But the risk is that someone else will go even lower than your offer until the role can be done internally by another person using an AI agent.

The point is, most businesses that are non-quant and non-big tech, non-big AI do not want to pay the extortionate level of taxes in the UK and it makes SWEs in the UK look very expensive and the jobs + office move off-shore.

I have assessed various AI models & agents. I don't think I can be replaced by them, so I feel safe on that end.

That being said, I don't think my potential employers fully understand that.

> The point is, most businesses that are non-quant and non-big tech, non-big AI do not want to pay the extortionate level of taxes in the UK and it makes SWEs in the UK look very expensive and the jobs + office move off-shore.

Yes, this is where contract work came particularly handy. But the government made a big deal about taking them offshore due to IR35 pushing them out

Isn't the idea of the site to "hack" as in thinking outside the box, building your own projects and companies, doing things in interesting new ways?

Right now(specially looking at the world economy) It's all about getting yourself a nice, stable placement.

I haven't stopped hacking away, but I need an income

I do believe in the 1 man SaaS legends. Any of us could build a little app overnight and watch it succeed.

I just don't have the sales/marketing muscle to my efforts

It's all fun and games until the bank takes back your house.

Also, while I love programming, I have zero interest in owning a business.

1) No family to support 2) A set of assets to support not having income?

disclaimer: we are 7 days a week in person

Edit: To answer your question I work at least probably 14 hours, but there are times when it's less and times when it's more, depends how hard I can push given the constraints. It varies.

Show me the most impressive thing you've done so far. 14 hours a day should result in something important right? Something valuable?

Let's all see what it took you 14 hours per day every day to build. Show us, because so far you have a placeholder website with no product and zero customers!

LOL 14 hours a day to have not even a single customer and NO PRODUCT to speak of.

You might be WASTING your time Sam.

Is this sarcasm?

Says the company with no product, no customers.

7 days a week, 14 hour days, and nothing to show for it.

Imagine working every single day with no days off and you don't even have a product.

The CEO and CTO of Corgi must be complete morons to pay that much in salary and hourly wages to get NOTHING for it.

After the post-COVID boom, companies started laying off people in large numbers. Couple that with tightening restrictions on remote work, most US companies now require work authorization, EU companies have tax compliance requirements, etc.and remote options without a formal employment relationship have become nearly impossible to find.

I don't think learning new programming languages will make much difference at this point. There isn't a new shiny technology that everyone's chasing, and AI companies are hiring very few people. Your best bet is probably finding an in-person job and relocating.

Idk how I'm supposed to talk about the last 2 years in interviews and every move up and out. I would have left earlier but it's challenging

Hopefully future employers are sympathetic to the situation some of us (alot of us?) are in

Rather try to reduce hours to 75% if possible, or in the worst case: Smoke a joint in the morning :-D

But do not quit right now1

And my Github https://www.linkedin.com/in/mario-gintili-software-engineer/

Unless the company is a FAANG company or hedge fund, the UK tech scene is dead.

I don’t see any good UK startups worth joining in the UK. All the good ones are in SF / NY, etc.

Try to look beyond startups and pure software companies. There are many businesses in eg manufacturing or in less fashionable locations that struggle to hire decent devs and will often pay pretty good† money.

† obviously not London/SV/NY/FAANG money

> Unless the company is a FAANG company or hedge fund, the UK tech scene is dead.

That is VERY, VERY true

> I don’t see any good UK startups worth joining in the UK. All the good ones are in SF / NY, etc.

There's a few popping up all over the EU too but from my search a single hub in the US(Say Austin, TX) has a bigger and better ecosystem than the entirety of UK+EU.

Funding is better over there too

What's actually going on within the UK tech jobs landscape? What about certain sectors like fintech? What about all the recent AI startups hiring? What are your on-ground observations?

Within my LinkedIn feed bubble, things are not that bad in the UK, but what is actually happening?

The primary difference is that many expect on-site and they pay is generally not US-startup scale.

Many companies also expect you to at least have some knowledge of their local language (e. G., German, Spanish or Polnish) and not just English. One has to adapt to be competitive here.

And programmers haven't gotten any better in the last 5 years

Software Development Lich. Does have a nice ring to it.

Maybe my old Nintendo Switch can be my phylactery. I have a particular fondness for it.

I have ~20 years of experience. I wrote a book about Ruby. I have GitHub repositories with thousands of stars. I have my own successful projects written in Ruby/Rails. I’ve spoken at conferences and contributed a lot to the Ruby/Rails community. I was a perfect match — and I still wasn’t hired.

This wasn’t a one-off. The same thing happened with several Ruby/Rails startups.

You know what I did next? I switched to Gen/Applied AI. And the difference was huge. The feedback became much better, and salaries were 25–50% higher. The tech itself wasn’t that different — mostly dynamic languages. I had to learn new things, but it took months, not years.

I also pushed myself deeper toward understanding AI properly. I genuinely enjoy this space. I started learning the fundamentals and even built my own learning materials (for example, howllmworks.com). You don’t need to go that deep to get hired, but I wanted to. The field is fascinating.

What’s funny is that many companies hiring “AI engineers” don’t really know what they’re doing. I’ve had interviews where they openly said: “We don’t really have AI expertise, but we know we need AI.” That’s how things are right now. It’s both good and bad. They can’t really judge your skills properly — but that also means your chances of passing are higher.

As for the Ruby/Rails world — I’m honestly very disappointed. The market feels completely saturated. There are too many experienced engineers competing for too few roles. Being good is no longer enough.

One company literally told me my interview performance was too good. They suspected I was using AI. That was the feedback. Twenty years of experience, open-source work, a published book — none of that mattered. “You’re too good, and there are too many candidates like you.” That’s how I understood it.

I’ve seen this happen repeatedly. It’s not just one bad experience.

At this point, I genuinely believe the Ruby/Rails ecosystem is shrinking. The whole “one-person framework” idea that DHH has been promoting made sense years ago, but not anymore. The problems it was solving simply don’t exist in the same way today.

With LLMs, the world changed. You take the best tools available. Next.js with standardized React components instead of Stimulus and Turbo. Hosted auth instead of rolling your own. When I needed to integrate something like Clerk, I just dropped in a component and moved on. There are tons of ready-made solutions in the React ecosystem.

Now compare that to Ruby. Are there modern AI libraries? Yes, technically. Are they well-maintained? Not really. You’re often dealing with abandonware. LangChain officially supports Python and TypeScript — not Ruby. And like it or not, AI today is happening in Python.

The more time you spend clinging to Ruby/Rails, the further behind you get. That’s just reality. My advice is simple: if you can, move on. The opportunity window in AI is wide open right now, but it won’t stay that way forever. 2026 is probably the last really good entry point.

A lot of money is being thrown around at AI, it's a good time to open a company :) I agree.

> As for the Ruby/Rails world — I’m honestly very disappointed. The market feels completely saturated. There are too many experienced engineers competing for too few roles. Being good is no longer enough.

Ruby/Rails, and other platforms NEED deep AI integration. That wave is coming.

I am surprised that people don't do a rails new for their new startups. I still see it as the king of web frameworks.

> With LLMs, the world changed. You take the best tools available. Next.js with standardized React components instead of Stimulus and Turbo. Hosted auth instead of rolling your own. When I needed to integrate something like Clerk, I just dropped in a component and moved on. There are tons of ready-made solutions in the React ecosystem.

Show me those ready made solutions? I haven't used them commercially so I can't vouch for them

> Now compare that to Ruby. Are there modern AI libraries? Yes, technically. Are they well-maintained? Not really. You’re often dealing with abandonware. LangChain officially supports Python and TypeScript — not Ruby. And like it or not, AI today is happening in Python.

True, I should probably ship something in Python and just add that to my inventory.

> The more time you spend clinging to Ruby/Rails, the further behind you get. That’s just reality. My advice is simple: if you can, move on. The opportunity window in AI is wide open right now, but it won’t stay that way forever. 2026 is probably the last really good entry point.

I agree with you! time to move to new pastures

Technology never matters, but marketing does. Traditionally you had to use 'esoteric' technologies to attract top talent, which has long been held as an important factor in startup success. Rails had that moment in the sun, but that was decades ago.

Granted, it remains to be seen if the talent differential still matters in the AI era, but hiring norms haven't caught up either way.

It was $22 an hour. No benefits, not even healthcare. Solo, no other developers. Before AI. My theory - $22 an hour is better than school debt, and if it works, then I’ve got money + experience at a level I can’t get anywhere else, which will overcome the lack of a paper degree.

I stuck at that job for almost half a decade, under those conditions, building experience. It paid off - I joined a startup, doubled my salary, got a benefits package, and know some technologies we’re using better than anyone else on the team. The point though is that it took embracing conditions that most people consider themselves too good for, or almost unthinkably difficult.

My recommendation: I think you should entertain the idea that if there is a God who cares about us, praying earnestly is a good idea. He gave me that new job on my first application anywhere, a complete cold call, in a personal moment of weakness, in the Summer of 2025. With nothing but a solo project on the resume at a company nobody knows.

If there was such then no one would go through job loss, it can't be that such God can give you a job but not be the one who took it away if it's that powerful. So if there's a God it doesn't care about us.

No religion believes that. Every religion also has an explanation for suffering. Enough of the stupid cheap shots that were worn out centuries ago.

It's a cheap shot because those explanations are absurdly cheap in their logic on how a ultimately-powerful being is there to save us while also being the master of all suffering.

> “If there is a God, he automatically has a duty to ensure there is no suffering, of any kind, for any reason, from any cause, or he is not good.”

Yes? If there's an all-loving God then it also being the source of all suffering does say it's not good. Why would a morally good being with this power decide to give horrible diseases to innocent kids? Or take your job away, and force you to pray for it so you can get another? It's a bit sadistic.

So again, if there's a God it doesn't care at all about us.

"It's a cheap shot because it's cheap" is not an argument, the logic is circular.

> Why would a morally good being with this power decide to give horrible diseases to innocent kids? Or take your job away, and force you to pray for it so you can get another? It's a bit sadistic.

If a parent tells you don't date somebody, they're a bad fit; and you do so anyway, and they were a bad fit; do you blame your parents for not locking you in their basement to prevent it? Permissive will versus active will is Philosophy 101.

So again, if there's a God, it doesn't care. If your God exists and makes you have to pray for it to solve the suffering it created, it's a sadistic one.

You're treating it as self-evident when there's nothing self-evident about it. The free will defense, soul-making theodicy, and skeptical theism all offer coherent responses. You don't have to find them convincing, but 'I don't buy it' isn't the same as 'it's logically impossible.'

Soul-making theodicy uses one of those cheap cop outs: suffering is necessary because humans need to learn.

Basically all defences use the cheap excuse "you don't understand because you are human", leaving no logical argument left for us to find and requiring just to accept that the all-loving being creates suffering for reasons we cannot know. Which, again, is sadistic.

Also, your arguments are hardly original. They are 2,300 years old, originating with Epicurus, older than both Christianity and Islam. Regurgitation of them with such certainty is Reddit 2013-era levels of uninspired; as though both religions did not address these arguments from their foundation. I also find it astoundingly arrogant, because it implies that religious people have never witnessed or endured intense suffering, lest it be self-evident.

It would be the same, in real life I have a social circle that includes quite a few woo-woo people (crystals, manifestation, etc.), and I challenge them the same way I did with you. I came from a country with many superstitions which heavily impact daily life, I don't care when people keep their beliefs and superstitions for themselves, as their own means to cope with life. I actually feel if it's helpful it's a net-positive.

I don't tolerate people who approach this as a truism and try to use their personal experiences with their spiritual practices to bring others into the fold.

> Also, your arguments are hardly original. They are 2,300 years old, originating with Epicurus, older than both Christianity and Islam. Regurgitation of them with such certainty is Reddit 2013-era levels of uninspired; as though both religions did not address these arguments from their foundation. I also find it astoundingly arrogant, because it implies that religious people have never witnessed or endured intense suffering, lest it be self-evident.

I didn't say they are original, and I don't present them as such at all. They still hold the same value, the addressing of these arguments is a thought-terminating cliche, they don't allow any logical system to challenge them because they are unfalsifiable truisms. That's the absolute cheap part of them, and in my opinion don't address at all the failures (because I reject the truism which they are based upon). If you believe them, it's yours to take but don't impose it for the non-believers because it requires exactly that: for you to be a believer. No logic in that, no way to be challenged.

You can keep your spiritual practices to the point it doesn't affect my reality, the moment you state that your God/entity is responsible for changing the world then it affects my reality, and you are arrogant in not considering that. If your God is real you can't know, by definition, since you are human, imperfect, incomplete, and by your own theisms incapable of knowing, so I don't understand why the need to impose unto others. Keep it to yourself, superstition has its place in your personal life.

just crickets, I get nothing!

Over the last two years I have applied to at least 150 jobs. For each application which would accept a cover letter, I wrote one. And I only applied to roles which I really believed I would fit into - I didn't just spray and pray.

I think I've had 4-5 companies that I got to interview with. The closest one to hiring ended up choosing another guy who had a little more frontend experience (this was for a backend role). But they said they really liked me. That's great, but it doesn't help :)

The rest were usually silent rejections. I'm actually grateful when I receive a rejection email (vs indefinite silence).

Along the way, I've built maybe 8 demo projects as part of the application process. I got to show off a few to the companies, and despite delivering what I honestly believe were clean, quality solutions, I didn't get the jobs.

Eventually I gave up applying for some months. It's just to demoralizing to keep trying and getting nowhere. Now I build things that make me happy (for no money), like my new web game, Vector Defense -> https://michaelteter.com/vector.html

I've started applying to companies again. If nothing happens in the next six months, I'll most likely walk away from my tech career and just get a "regular job". Maybe I'll open a gym in Bangkok; they don't have many, and the few decent ones have surprisingly high monthly fees. I could compete; and I love hospitality and providing nice experiences for people. So if anyone wants to partner with me, hit me up!

That's kind of a throwback. (I know these are different games.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_TD

Since this was intended to be a weekend project, I stopped myself after several days of effort so I can return to doing "productive" things.

But I have two more improvements on the agenda: personal and global high score list, in the old style of just three initials (and maybe let you choose your country flag); and more ambitiously, a map editor and public maps with vote/ranking.

Good luck in your search!

as it stands, I have now been unemployed(while searching) for 3 months.

I have decided to make some serious changes to my search and what I do with my spare time.

I'll post a follow-up to this.

1. The "hidden job market" is real - most roles never get posted publicly. LinkedIn connections and warm intros close more doors than cold applications.

2. Consider targeting specific niches where your Rails/Node/Go stack is highly valued. Fintech and healthtech companies often prefer experienced engineers who can ship reliable code over "move fast and break things" types.

3. Don't underestimate smaller companies (50-200 employees). They often pay competitively but get far fewer applications than FAANG-adjacent companies.

4. Your GitHub looks solid. One thing that sometimes helps is having a few short-form technical posts on your own site or blog - it helps establish expertise when hiring managers Google your name.

The market will turn. 10+ years of shipping real products is valuable, and companies that recognize execution skills will find you. Keep pushing.

Want to know a sentence that makes me fall asleep and die instantly?

"SWE with 10+ years of experience <list of languages>"

This headline is out of 2015... the generalist software engineer is not a super rare find anymore, and in the age of AI why bother listing what languages you know? If you're very good at 1, and are a decent tinkerer then you are pretty good at all of them with an LLM.

If you have 10 years of experience writing code, you should presently be of SUPERHUMAN INTELLIGENCE with today's tooling. Anyone who denies this, I wonder about their curiosity and capabilities because AI gives you the correct answer in any language you want.

But the main thing causing you to blend in with the sea of other interchangeable parts is the focus on your skills instead of your value

Imagine hiring a teacher who's bio is:

"10+ years experience teaching. Have spoken English professionally."

Or, especially the folks rating their skills with stars and progress bars:

"Pretty mediocre to high-end at English. Not very good at Spanish, but I have spoken it professionally... at a company"

Guys, guys, guys...

OP should do this:

1. Your LI profile is very obviously AI written, just remove all that "keen" stuff

2. Get some contributions to mainstream companies on your GitHub. Open Issues if you have to, something might get picked up then your github will forever say you contributed to "Apple" etc.

3. 1000% delete your "Failed Interviews" repo on github

4. Go by "MarioG" everywhere online, has a nice ring to it and make a Sublime plugin published under MarioG. The fact that you use Sublime is a differentiator at this point. I don't want to hire "SWE with 10+ years of experience <list of languages>" I want to hire the dude who made "MarioG"!!!! ... "what's mario-" Oh? The best AI plugin in Sublime for ruby devs? everyone uses it? it's a household name in the ruby world? (nobody will know lmao). Support HTTP "tunneling" and now it's a pun, it was that easy, they'll even say that they LOVE your plugin because of that pun, everyone's just trying to be liked and say the right thing is what this comes down to

5. Anyway just show this plugin all the time in video calls and interviews with your "Tools by MarioG" branding (with cartoon depiction of yourself as the avatar) cleverly in view, and tell everyone that Jack Dorsey uses it

5b. Any time someone detects your bs and tries to call you out just mention that Jack Dorsey uses it again (don't get carried away and say "Elon Musk" or "Kanye" they would not believe you, but Jack Dorsey is both believable and still impressive)

6. Make up another giant lie that makes your MarioG tool seem like it does something Claude or ChatGPT cannot, and then crucially post it as a Show HN, you will get a 1000 comments which might get you doxxed but will at least put you on the map

7. Find CTO emails in "Who is hiring" threads here, and send them a link to your post. They won't know/care what the overall sentiment was in the comments, just that you had a post on HN with 1000s of comments

8. At this point you are getting 2nd round interviews, when they ask about the code challenge or take-home etc. just ask if it's paid or not. They will say it's paid then never give it to you

9. Ask for "$205k". Any less they will start second guessing you MarioG! Do not give them the chance. Can't go too high because then a lawyer or someone kinda smart might get involved. 205.

10. Ye boiii welcome back

Not even remotely close, but I'm certainly not thriving in any identifiable way. I'm just leaving a comment in hope that things improve. I ain't there (UK) no more, but if I werzle, I'd say:

Best wishes from Pill.

Good luck and keep pushing! There's something out there, for sure.