1) has the savings such that they aren't a wage slave (applies to any income level)
2) has any dignity
People willingly put themselves in situations where they have no autonomy and no options by living their entire lives paycheck to paycheck or close enough to not make a difference.
That’s a pretty judgmental take. The only people with dignity in your formulation are independently wealthy.
If I stomped out the door as soon as I had to curb my tongue, I would never build the social and reputational capital required to be effective on bigger projects, and those are fun (to me).
We're in tech and this shit is happening in big tech companies. Yes, there's many of us who are not getting those wages but every one of them is independently wealthy.
Regardless, you are not a slave. Have a backbone. If you do not stand up for yourself you make it harder for others to do so. Your actions don't just affect you.
People at ALL wage levels put themselves into wage slavery by setting up their finances in a way where they have very little buffer. Mortgage, car payments, savings levels, and all sorts of things combine into being even briefly unemployed is a terrific burden.
In that state, you can't say no, you can't stand up for yourself or anyone else, you can't make choices because choices have significant life effects. You don't have to have a $10MM trust fund to escape this. You just have to live far enough under your means that you have the savings and spending profile that allows you "fuck you" privileges.
Everybody living so close to broke all the time makes everything more expensive, particularly the competitive things like housing.
