alt Hacker NewsReads to me like the author is trying to elicit some empathy. It just sounds like he was just fine leaving his family for a job. Not getting paid couldn’t have factored into that decision.
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The assumption with taking a contract is it's better than what your other options will be to get the same total income/time worked. Especially for specialized work like this, taking the contract means you can get multiples of the time back in the following months. When you don't get paid you end up without that time back the income was supposed to provide (and you're in 1 months less of savings to boot).
They work within a niche space, as others have said, they follow where the work is, So they are able to charge more which I hope is able for them to survive in modern economy and be able to give more time to their family.
atleast that's my interpretation of it of how logic might follow if they are working in niche space, many people seem to be applying the logic onto themselves into completely standard situation, but I don't suppose that is the case here.
Hope this helps in genuinely understanding their situation, from my reading/thinking about it.
> It just sounds like he was just fine leaving his family for a job.
Or... maybe he needs income to exist.