Interesting fact: PhD grads can live on stardust

There seems to be a teeny-tiny yawning chasm between some peoples' realities. What's that? You want evidence? Okay, I'll explain.
At a university job-advice meeting last year, a well-meaning Prof quipped that we really shouldn't worry so much about the job market. Jobs would come, he said, and in the meantime, 'it's a rite of passage to live off pot noodles for a couple of years'. Hmm. 
Caveat: this Professor really was well-meaning (is still - he's still alive, despite the heart-attack-inducing stress of academic life). Somehow, he always managed to make time to advise PhD students. He was a human, in a mostly not-human environment, where most supervisors were as cuddly as a gravel bed, and Prof-bots masqueraded as actual people with functioning blood-streams, pumped by living hearts.  
But this does shine a light on the gulf between different peoples' experiences. Maybe it was easier, back whenever he was an aspiring academic, to make that leap between 'notice me: I've got a PhD' and 'I'm a Professor now: bow before me and tremble'. But now, it's about much more than managing your food budget. Don't get me wrong: I like pot noodles as much as the next broke gourmand. But it's about so much more than our dinner choices.
No matter how many pot noodle dinners I choose over Wagyu Beef, the pennies saved are not going to pay my rent for the maybe two (maybe more) years it will take me to build a publication profile deep and extensive enough for me to make the shortlist for all those over-subscribed Assistant Professor/Research Associate/Post-Doctoral positions.
It's not about tightening your belt or cutting your coat to suit your cloth. It's about there not being enough jobs, so that after dragging yourself on your elbows for five (six, seven) years to get those skills that make you credible, you find that bar set another notch higher than you can reach.  

It's cold and lonely out here...