The Surprising Benefits of Being Unemployed 1053
SimuAndy writes "David Dvorkin, a programmer and writer of some repute, has published an essay on The Surprising Benefits of Being Unemployed. Well worth the reading time as a small break in a busy day."
Yeah right. (Score:5, Insightful)
Excellent (Score:1, Insightful)
Unemployment is not fun no matter what a book or an article may say. Myself, and the other 10 dozen Slashdoter's need jobs.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A thinly veiled political rant, actually (Score:2, Insightful)
Bitter much? (Score:4, Insightful)
Notice how he blames it on everyone else, as if some puppetmaster controls his destiny? (evil corporations, GW Bush, supervisors and managers). Sheesh, guy... I hate to sound like your dad, but that's life. Lots of people have been screwed out of jobs before, and lots of peolpe have had jobs that frankly sucked, but there's always work out there if you are willing to swallow some pride, and make some sacrifices. Go back to school for god's sake.
I wish I hadn't read that depressing little piece... I'd say it was a lot higher on the despair scale than the humor scale.
What I really want to know... (Score:2, Insightful)
I've been looking at my monthly budget for ways to save a few bucks and dsl is costing a lot, but I feel I can't let go of it.
Re:Yeah right. (Score:1, Insightful)
What good is 15 years of Netware experience today?
How about someone who knows that the original PC had odd size ISA slots, so that 286 and later cards wouldn't fit?
Who cares that you spent a million hours with DOS and QEMM getting an extra 60K of base memory so somone's blasted Autocad machine would work correctly?
It's turning out that spending 20 years working with computers has been a really poor investment.
I should have been a pharmacist and spent my weekends, evenings and not-having-to-wear-a-pager time doing anything else... it would have been more productive, economically speaking.
Re:Been there, am doing that (Score:2, Insightful)
Why be loyal? Your employer is scum. (Score:3, Insightful)
Ha ha ha! What shock when you're fired or laid off. Does it matter how much you sacrificed for your employer? Nope, not a damn bit. All those pep talks about being in it together.. they're complete bullshit. You may as well have gone home on time every day instead of missing out on quality time. Of course now there is no way I'm going to believe any employer when then make promises and ask for loyality and a little extra effort. Two words.. blow me. I'm not going to be gungho to finish projects ahead of schedule anymore.
Re:A thinly veiled political rant, actually (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bitter much? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A thinly veiled political rant, actually (Score:5, Insightful)
So, I find myself in a situation where there is no work in my field(computers, and it's really, really dead), I don't have enough experience to work at a different trade(machinist or welder, for example), AND I know too much to get a job flipping burgers. Of course, the idea of an apprenticeship is completely out of the question, those are almost impossible to get these days. Employers *will* *not* train people. Period.
Re:A thinly veiled political rant, actually (Score:3, Insightful)
In short, life isn't fair. Blaming it on other people just isn't going to help.
Re:Kind of unimaginative.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey -- are you the one spying on me from the adjacent building? :).
I lost my job (with a company often associated with the properties "blue" and "big", not necessarily in that order) nearly two years ago, back in January 2002. Since then, I've Open Sourced my PalmOS data synchronization project [jsyncmanager.org] (v3.0 final is due out in the next two weeks, so go download it!!!), run about 20km per week, and do about 60 push-ups, 80 sit-ups, and 12 chin-ups a day. I completely kicked the caffiene habbit (switched from regular Coca Cola to caffiene free Coca Cola... :) ), and am eating quite a bit better (and a whole lot cheaper!).
The only things in your list I haven't done is any volunteering (unless you consider administrating and leading development on a large Open Source project every day to be volunteer work ;) ), or going to the library (I already have three bookshelves of books here, so I've been re-reading them all).
Oh, and I haven't kicked the beer habit -- having never picked it up in the first place, I haven't really seen the point of starting, just so I can quit.
Yup -- unemployment is the best thing that ever happened to me. More time to work on important projects, read, eat right, and get more excercise. If only I had an un-exhaustible source of money, things would be perfect (or, barring that, a decent job would do...).
Yaz.
Yes but could you actually quit? (Score:3, Insightful)
Given my skill sets I'm sitting down and telling myself I need to leave the corporate world and go my own way. I even have a large cushion of cash to fall back on. Plus my significant hours have resulted in a minimalist livestyle anyway. I estimate I could live for 5 years on my current savings at my current lifestyle, less the costs of other activities I take up (especially significant if you try to start a business). I just don't have time to piece it together while working. And I'm pissing away valuable years if I try.
Only one thing holding me back. My attachment to having a stable respectable job that pays decently. All the skills are there, I could easily acquire support from skilled friends in any profession I could want. I could probably scrape together 50-100K for starting money if I begged a bit without approaching professional lenders. But it's pretty hard to actually quit to do nothing and take a huge "risk" on possibilities coming through. I'm much more the type of person to try to set it all up before I quit, but I just can't seem to get the time together for that unless I quit first.
Anybody else? Could YOU quit?
Unemployed? Can't find a job? Try evolving. (Score:5, Insightful)
How about someone who knows that the original PC had odd size ISA slots, so that 286 and later cards wouldn't fit?
Who cares that you spent a million hours with DOS and QEMM getting an extra 60K of base memory so somone's blasted Autocad machine would work correctly?
It's turning out that spending 20 years working with computers has been a really poor investment.
Sad. I always thought of learning as something that makes you human (as opposed to insects? viruses?), not rich or job-secure. A lot of people specialize in some industry and when that culture/economy/technology/employer changes and they lose a job (or are about to), they whine as if they've wasted their life or they go cry to the government to try save that dying industry so that they may (selfishly) preserve their outdated niche in society.
Its called evolution. Its a way of life. Only the fittest will survive! And you know who survives? The beings who change. Honestly, if you feel your life was wasted because you specialized in something and the only thing that made you important was that job-field, then maybe you aren't really special. Sorry, but being an intelligent human means being able to use your knowledge for something beyond a stupid job. If all you are is someone who picks up knowledge with no intent to use it beyond the scope of its context, then you are not intelligent, IMHO. But I do not believe any human in this world is NOT intelligent, just someone who has a tainted definition of life.
So here is my suggestion to all you unemployed or job-security conscious people out there: Make yourself special, use your intelligence, and learn things with the intent of using them beyond the scope of their context. Not only will your expertise grow (hence becoming more of an asset), but you may end up creating something innovative.
Re:Been there, am doing that (Score:3, Insightful)
Note to moderators: I'm minding my own business and chatting with other
Re:Everything this man says is true. (Score:4, Insightful)
People that run successful businesses must be good social engineers.
And Social Engineering, being the most difficult kind of engineering pays the most.
Re:Yeah right. (Score:3, Insightful)
Warning! (Score:2, Insightful)
Corporate Loyalty (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny that, we got a nice speech today from our CTO or some guy who can walk around happily because he won't get outsourced. The speech focused on how we need to keep our performance levels "above the bar", or we'd be managed up or out. [Tangent: GOD I love that term, 'managed out' - HOW FREAKING AWESOME is that?! That's even better than right-sized!] then he goes on to tell us that no job is sacred, and that as a company who has to strive to cut a profit, if outsourcing is a more fiscal option, then they'll take it.
I'm pretty new so I didn't even think to point out the catch-22 he had presented us with. Work hard or get fired, but even if you do work hard, you may get outsourced.
Of course this is the truth, there's no two ways about it. Nevermind the questionable nature of a US company (enjoying US corporate laws, tariffs, quotas, et. al.) that has a majority of its workforce offshores, it's a simple fact that until something changes, be it now or thirty years from now, this is how it is. The flipside is that I have the right to work wherever the hell I want (provided they want me of course), and can leave them at any time.
Fresh out of college, yes, but I think I'll catch on to this twisted game soon enough. The question, however, is how do you maintain a sense of optimism in spite of all this?
Re:Why be loyal? Your employer is scum. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A thinly veiled political rant, actually (Score:2, Insightful)
Now if I let all the immigrannts in this country that are dying for McDonalds jobs, that brings down the standard of living for everyone. From the libeterian point of view this is a good thing, becasue the standard of living for the immigrants goes up. However, your not arguing the libeterian view.
As to working at McDonalds or not working at McDonalds, obvisiously this guy has savings, or credit, or a shit job at McDonalds. The wonderful thing about shit jobs at McDonalds is you get to go home at the end of shift. No staying late to be a team player. He is surviving at the moment, and looking for a "real job." As long as its not off my tax dollars I'm ok with that. And if it is off my tax dollars than obvisiously Bush is doing something about it.
Its not governemts job to fix the economy. If they can help its nice, but the market as a whole always eventually corrects itself. Goverment is one of the forces of the market, not the only force.
Yeah it sucks... (Score:5, Insightful)
I was unemployed 2 years ago on Oct 16th I knew it was coming, around March I realized (when quarterly earnings showed 1.9 million burned 4 million in the bank, can you say dot BOMB?). So I moved back to the small town I came from figuring it'd be easier to pay a $350 a month rent payment on unemployment than it would a $1300 a month payment in the Bay Area. I moved in July and telecommuted until the end.
I immediately started planning on starting my own business I was hoping to last until about Christmas 2001 but I got axed on Oct 16th instead. Oh well. Started my company, did some consulting here and there, made ends meet, got some customers, a few more, no more consulting was scraping by on the business, more customers, and more, and then tax time comes and I realize I owe uncle sam $13,000 in taxes (YIKES!).
Long story shorter, I get up when I want, go to bed when I want, leave when I want and stay at home with my 3 year old son (well he'll be 3 next week). I run my business from home.
I've always been a unix geek/linux nut/internet addict so why not make a business out of it, web hosting is the perfect job
My wife also just lost her job of over 10 years, company sold out and that's that (they were dying anyway so sell out or bankruptcy they chose sell out). So she stays home draws unemployment and plays with the kid too, a kid with two stay at home parents how lucky can he be? She also is doing some volunteer work.
When the unemployment runs out she might start her own business, she likes decorating cakes, or maybe open a daycare. Or get into real estate she likes going out and looking at nice houses, so why not sell 'em for a living. I told her don't look for another "job" do something you LIKE instead, the money isn't important the satisfaction is.
The economy truly sucks right now and I really would hate to be trying to find a job, but sometimes you might have better luck making your own job instead of looking for one.
Look a few articles below this one. (Score:2, Insightful)
Not a bad idea for those with an abundance of time (I have a 2.5-year-old to take care of and entertain, so I wouldn't be able to take advantage of this).
Company != family (Score:4, Insightful)
I suggest that you look at your company in a different manner. The company can provide you and your family with opportunity. The opportunity to earn a paycheck and possibly learn something. When the company has no need for the job that you do or can find someone to do it better or cheaper you will not have a job with that company. On the flip side when the company is no longer offering you a good paycheck or opportunity you will quit. The relationship is really no more than that. The company is not a family, clan, or tribe, just an opportunity.
Somehow touching (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Company != family (Score:2, Insightful)
She found it out in July, they sold out, no warning, not even a WEEK before they closed up shop they were spouting off on how they had some good contracts coming up, etc etc etc. Less than a week later she's being "laid off" to make matters even more lovely the bastards quit paying their share of the Cobra health insurance so on Sep 1 that went away too! (luckily for us Alabama has a state run group health plan for people losing cobra or other group coverage, and our premiums are only $790 per month, yes sarcasm is implied).
Now she's telling me how she's not getting emails every day from her friends (surprise remember how you said these people are like your family and they love you? well who's emailed you at all this week?). Not pretty to see a 29 year old woman have to learn such a hard lesson. Hey I learned it 4 years ago myself when I was 26 so I wasn't much better off.
People know corruption when they see it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Al Franken said it best (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't fix it (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't point out the problems you say, just let the rich eat the poor. The economy is bad, and your solution is to ignore the corruption. Don't compalin, just keep your chin up. Great idea. Yes, you're real "optimist".
Yes, go back to school you say. Never mind if you're still busy paying back your loans for the first time around, and you're still trying to catch up on earning money. Simply spend more. That's just great. That's exactly what America needs, is a middle class that's in even more debt, that is ever more willing and subservient to employers that don't wannt to drop a dime on education. My response to employers is "Fuck 'em." Let 'em rot, burn and implode. Why should I spend the rest of my life worrying about what their needs are? I've got a bright future without them.
Re:Bitter much? (Score:2, Insightful)
Been there, done that...
This comment obviously comes from someone who has never actually experienced the joys of unemployment. I actually agree that it is important to become a useful employee. I was unemployed for nine months last year and took the time to go back and actually read through RFCs, play with network equipment, do some volunteer work, take a few classes, and so on. And I did eventually get a job.
On the other hand, it is as though someone else was controling my destiny. Afterall, was it my fault that the upper management of my former employer decided to divert corporate revenue away from the business (and stock holders) and into their own bonuses and golden-parachutes? Is it my fault that the stock holders often see lay offs as "trimming the fat" and reward these same executives for their "bold moves to improve the bottom line" with even larger bonuses?
Capitalism itself may not be to blame, but surely the corrupt cabal that runs most American corporations as well as our political system should be held accountable.
Perhaps if unemployment benefits were paid directly out of executive compensation, the unemployment rate would drop.
Re:What I "Learned" from being out of work (Score:3, Insightful)
Very true -- but. External commitments and priorities aside, if you're learning a lot at your current job, and get fired, it's still better than learning nothing, and getting fired.
If you're lazy, you don't learn as much.
Re:Kind of unimaginative.... (Score:2, Insightful)
But whenever I'm involved the hiring process, those candidates who have been involved in volunteer work of _any_ kind will always get extra points from me.
I'd rather have someone working for me who isn't soley interested in their _own_ bottom line and that Escalade they've been lusting after. Someone who's a pure mercenary seems less likely to put their heart into the project they're working on, and more likely to rip off my company any chance they get. Funny, when I worked at a certain large corporation, that could have described my boss. Nope, I wouldn't have hired him either.
So you don't like people who are willing to contribute to society while further developing their job-related skills?
Let me guess. You wouldn't hire some slacker like Linus Torvalds in a million years, would you?
Damned hippie programmers. Look what the 'great unwashed' have done with that kernel he gave them!
I'm looking to hire someone who will put in the effort to grow our business and boost our stock price.
Right, that'll also help those super-valuable (some day...) stock options you're offering them? Oh wait, that trick doesn't work any more does it?
Oh, I get it, you're looking for slaves. Me, I'd rather have human beings working with/for me. I pity your little hirelings.
ta GN>
Re:A thinly veiled political rant, actually (Score:5, Insightful)
It doen't pay nearly as well as unemployment.
Re:A thinly veiled political rant, actually (Score:4, Insightful)
Remember, when you see the unemployment rate go down, it's not because people are finding jobs, it's because they've abandoned hope and are no longer trying to get a job, so they no longer get counted as "unemployed" - they're removed from the equation.
However, for those who are still looking, yeah, maybe it is starting to get better. I've got an interview tomorrow.
You have to laugh, don't you (Score:1, Insightful)
On the positive side I've done the other things that people have suggested
I've got involved : restructured the local borough's service delivery and IT structures..
I'm setting up a (hopefully) useful website www.opencouncil.org to promote open source in local government and, in particular, assist in the process of persuading the decision makers, not the techies, of the merits of open source.
I'm creating an open source product
I keep trying to write that book
And I'm keeping myself up-to-date with new technologies.
Actually I was able to do more when I was employed and busy. Having so much time makes it so difficult to concentrate on individual projects.
Staying up all night does let me discover old programs on cable (2hrs of Dr Who most nights) and catch up on the episodes that I missed decades ago..
The availability of instant messaging and email to keep in contact with old friends would take up all my time if I let it..
The bad bits : I am annoyed that my 35 years IT experience is considered a problem - "we have a young team". That being able to understand business systems and problem solving doesn't count if you experience only covers up to version 3.475 of some software that has just released version 3.476.
Seeing job ads that want people in "mid-career" and define that as 2 to 3 years experience. Being unable to apply for lesser jobs because they'll think I'll leave.
And then recently watching a TV ad campaign conning people into spending their money on computer training that will guarantee them high earnings "even if they have no experience".. You have to laugh don't you ??
Paul
-------------------
www.opencouncil.org
Re:Yes but could you actually quit? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ive worked in computers since 1969 and have only
a heart attack to show for it. I can never retire and will probably die at my desk.
Dont do this to yourself. Take off for a long time, learn photography, go to culinary college, volunteer as a computer mentor at a local school, etc.
I'd give anything to have trained as a plumber growing up. But no, I had to be the geek and go into computer shit.
Re:Yeah right. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ever try to get a minimum wage job when you have a BS degree?
Have you tried working at a bookstore? They crave people like that because they're smart and desperate. Sounds like a joke; it's not - I used to work with a guy at Shakespeare and Company who had a masters in english lit and was making 6.25 an hour like the rest of us. :)
Triv
You do understand.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm supposed to believe that your way of "not taking it for granted", is to promote an ideology that trivializes the plight of that 10+% that doesn't have a job? In other words, those poor people whose plight you are using, ironically, to trivialize their plight. You have to be the stupidest, most superstitious fool that I've met in a long time. Just because you worked in a children's hosptial and a job magically appeared doesn't mean that the same magic trick is going to work for everyone else. I know people that have been out of work for YEARS. I bet if you hopped on one leg and got a job the next day, you would be telling people to do that too.
Re:A thinly veiled political rant, actually (Score:1, Insightful)
I got my $400 "advance" on next year's tax liability. So what. There's no real reduction here; if you think there is, you're drinking the kool-aid, Karl.
a removal of dividend taxes
Oh come on now.. you can't be serious. The folks to whom a removal of this type of tax makes a difference are those who have MILLIONS of dollars invested. Those who have that kind of money to invest are those who need tax reductions the least. And don't even THINK about trying to mention Bush's re-do of Reagan's "trickle down". It didn't work then, and it won't work now.
all sorts of extensions to unemploymet insurance
This, in lieu of an actual job-creating economic program? No thanks. I'd rather work for my money. However, I'm not able to thanks to the ignorance or just plain disregard of your buddy in the White House.
and a crackdown on Wall Street corruption
Hmm.. two years and counting since Enron and no one seems to be going to jail, much less having a trial. If you mean the recent indictments of Kozlowski and Quattrone, a big yawn to you as these cases are just the tip of the scapegoat iceberg and will probably result in little more than "community service". Meanwhile, the rest of the scandals go unpunished. By the way, what's going on with Bernie Ebbers or John Rigas?
Its not governemts job to fix the economy
Uh, actually, yes it is. And so far, nothing is being done about it. The economy was softening prior to Bush. However, because of Bush's greed and neglect, it has continue to flounder much longer than anyone predicted. And it really isn't getting much better, despite what Fox news insists.
but the market as a whole always eventually corrects itself
That type of free economic thinking did well in the '30s... Thankfully a stronger engine was built during the 90s which could withstand a few years of neglect (even if a few million citizens have to bear the burden).
The contract route can work (Score:3, Insightful)
Glad I never signed that non-compete!
Anyway, it's important to note that the business didn't really take off until I decided it really was a business, not just what I was doing until I found another job. Once I decided this is what I wanted to be doing for the next ten years, I was motivated to go out, take out some loans, spend the capital to get some marketing, and that kind of thing. The average service business like this isn't really profitable for the first two years. If you accept that and plan accordingly, that's not a big problem.
The mistake I've seen others make is to blow their whole nest egg early in the process, not leaving enough to live on as things start to get rolling. What a business is evolves a lot depending on what clients you actually land, so you need to keep enough money in reserve to be able to keep adjust the plan mid-stream.
Re:A thinly veiled political rant, actually (Score:3, Insightful)
I can've believe I'm responding to an AC.. but, just to clarify my point:
It is also apparent that you love this country and are quite pissed for the current situation the nation is in. How can your stance be what it is yet you disagree with the war in Iraq & Afghanistan?
Afghanistan I had no problem with. There was acknowledged direct involvement in the events of 9-11 and with the perpetrators thereof. Iraq, on the other hand, was a trumped-up load of bullshit which has cost us all of our international political capital and goodwill, not to mention almost 400 US military lives (I'm not even counting Iraqi civilians). Saddam, while a despicable human, had nothing to do with 9-11 or terrorism in general, obviously in hindsight had no WMDs (either to use or give to terrorists) and was effectively bottled up in his little locale doing nothing but making laughable press releases which the rest of the Muslim world largely ignored.
I'm glad that the Afghanis and Iraqis are free from oppressive governments. It should have stopped at Afghanistan. Where is Osama these days? Is he bunked up with Saddam in some Baghdad suburb?
How is it not worth the money to know the US freed them from a life of horror
How about spending 1/4 of that money here at home making sure US citizens have jobs? I'm sorry, but when I'm constantly facing the loss of MY home and MY standard of living, I have to think about MY family first. A McJob wouldn't even begin to allow me to provide for them without uprooting everything we have built in the last decade (a decision, as a family, we have made not to do).
So I take my job as a Patriot seriously enough to speak up against the transgressions of my current government, and seek to change the persons currently in power and responsible for those transgressions.
Btw: Read some American history. Start with Nixon, and then go back to King George (18th Century).
Well duh! (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're unemployed you don't have any money, if you're employed you don't have any time.
If you're retired, you have (some) money and time, but you're old. If you're young and independently wealthy, you suck and i hate you :)
Re:Why be loyal? Your employer is scum. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't confuse the two. The days of corporate loyalty are long gone. Even very popular and successful business leaders of large and successful companies can not guarentee a job.
I view my employment as a mercenary contract. My loyalty is linked to my compensation. Don't get me wrong... I am loyal to my employer. But I don't do things for free.
Re:Yeah right. (Score:3, Insightful)
These guys are desperate for talent which can feed through to more senior management, and even for 'talent' that won't forget to order the bread and wine for the weekend rush. They'll start you on a decent salary and put you in a position of relative power, pensions and healthcare should all be in there too if its a big company.
When the market in IT picks up you can hop over and answer the 'Last position' question with something a hell of a lot better than 'Pizza delivery boy for 3 years'. 'I took a fasttrack management position in retail to get some people management under my belt - within 18 months I was running my own store with responsibility for 3 satellite stores - as the IT sector is picking up I've refused a more senior management position in retail to come back to where I think I can truly kick some ass - I want a board position within 5 years'.
Try it kids - it might just work!!
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Kind of unimaginative.... (Score:2, Insightful)
- working on that interesting open-source software project. Good for the resume as well
Apparently you didn't read his resume =). He has the a very impresive resume! Worked at NASA back in the day and has been busy with lots of wonderful jobs and experience.
I think he too over-qualified.
Quote:
- get in shape (running is cheap, and so are push-ups)
- eat better; too broke to eat out, so buy lots of veggies; kick the coffee and beer habit (too expensive)
Apparently you didn't read his page. He said he has been doing this.
Sorry, just bitter =)
pball
"My kid reads your honor kids e-mail"
Re:Simple truths (Score:5, Insightful)
Making a comparatively huge wage for years, then spending a while unemployed before making another (comparatively) huge wage is much better than being forced to work in a tedious, menial, or back-breaking job for your whole life with no hope of ever escaping abject poverty. If that isn't clear to you, maybe you could use a stint in a poor country to help you see the real world. If you've never lived outside of the U.S., you've never seen what a hard life really is.
3. Companies sell their products with up to 90% profit, especially those that outsource production. And the profit fills the pockets of their owners
If you think that many companies make 90% profits, you obviously don't understand the costs of doing business. Any market where a company can repeatedly make a profit anywhere near that level is a market that will soon be flooded with competition. For a company to make actual profits even in the very low double-digits is very, very good.
7. If you ever realized how good rich people live, a revolution would be started in a minute.
If you've ever lived in a truly poor nation, you'd realize that you, by virtue of the fact that you're even posting on Slashdot, are likely within the wealthiest 5% of the entire world. The lifestyle accorded to an American working for minimum wage is literally an impossible dream to hundreds of millions of people.
9. If you ever realized that the rich people got rich by stealing,
Yes, we all know that poor people never obtain their means through criminal means.
steve
Re:A thinly veiled political rant, actually (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, a spending increase would definitely improve student performance. Spending more on education leads to more qualified teachers, better facilities, and smaller classes, all of which contribute to a better learning environment.
Re:A thinly veiled political rant, actually (Score:4, Insightful)
First of all who submits a resume to McDonalds? They have a little application you fill out and that's it. I have a ton of technical skills yet I still managed to get a job at Taco Bell. I was working their and fixing computers on the side. Fast food places are always hiring, and if you have technical skills they don't say "Hey this person is over qualified we can't hire them" they say "Hey this person is pretty smart lets hire them because they'll be a great employee."
The only time you'll ever give a fast food place a resume is for a management position, and the only way to get one of those is with past experience as a manager (or get hired as a regular employee and work your way up to manager.) If you really find yourself not able to get a fast food job you're too lazy to try, just show up and 99% of the time they will hire you and if they don't they'll send you to one of their stores that will (the taco bell I worked at was in desperate need of people, if anyone applied at one of the other 3 locations on staten island owned by our franchise they would be sent to where I worked.)
Re:A thinly veiled political rant, actually (Score:4, Insightful)
Rich people have much more influence over government than you do, and if you think that goverment is ever going to help you satisfy your envy, think again.
Believe you me, I was under no illusions there.. And I'm not saying "soak the rich". I'm saying "don't soak the rest of us to benefit the rich".
To get into making money from property today, you pretty much have to come up with the price of a house or condo that you can rent out.
Not really.. it just depends on how leveraged you want to be in the early going. It's actually much easier to break into the property market than most people think, and you have to start with shit-boxes with short-term neg-am mortgages hoping the value holds or increases. I shifted all of my invested money into property shortly before the bubble burst and my properties have so far held value (even slightly increased while others have dropped) but this was soley due to location. So far that is the only thing between me and a trailer park.
Dividends don't really help me here, only a capital gains reduction would (if I flip short-term, which I'm not doing).
Anyway, this isn't available to the majority of the populace. The middle and lower income folks just never see the benefit of a reduction of dividend taxes. This was intended to put more money in the pockets of business with the hope that business would spend that money creating jobs. In this economic environment, all it does is make business keep its cash reserves high for a little longer, hoping to ride out decreased revenue.
Another George W. Bush... (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't people have better things to do then live for every opportunity to bash someone...geesh...
Go hound the IRS or something...or join Al-Queda...
=8-)
Re:Depressing read. (Score:3, Insightful)
Not focusing on your income may help. Where's the need to earn 60k if you can live correctly with 30?
Let your job be only a little part of your life and you may be happier - there's so much more to do (you know, the "Real Life" people here often make fun of
Of course this is not very valid for unemployed people. (I've been unemployed for a few monthes, just long enough to be able to consider this as nice vacations, but i wouldn't have wanted this unemployment to last too long).
Re:Kind of unimaginative.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Transmetas success or failure is not up to Linus. He's but a one software-engineer at the company. You wouldn't hire anyone who has worked at a company that for some reason or another was not a huge success? Isn't that kinda stupid?
Re:A thinly veiled political rant, actually (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't get it. Are you saying that you don't think self-proclaimed President Bush and his "cabinet" are a bunch of crooks and liars?!! I mean, we are talking about people like Rumsfeld here, a man that happily sold Saddam WMD while he was know to be using them on the Iranians? Or Dick "Dick" Chaney, who's being paid by Halliburton 1 million dollars a year to be VP! Let alone the rest of the half-crazed ultra-rightwing nut cases from the Project for the New American Century.
Or have I mis-understood?
TWW
Re:Depressing read (I feel your pain) (Score:2, Insightful)
I got the boot from a good job only to find out they hired someone new at half the rate just a couple of weeks later. And now, having been actively looking for work for the past 9 months, I see that the few companies that *are* hiring are paying even less than that.
I'm no longer looking for the good tech jobs anymore. Instead, I've enrolled at the local university to earn a B.A. in English -- or maybe psychology -- or anything else that doesn't smell like IT or technology.
I figure I'll always have the tech experience to fall back on if that market recovers, but in the meantime I'll have earned a degree in something completely different with completely different opportunities.
Re:A thinly veiled political rant, actually (Score:5, Insightful)
It is evident that he HAS spent a substantial amount of time over the years improving his skills, to the end that he has better (certainly broader, likely deeper) IT skills than 99% of Slashdot readers.
And his reward for this? He's too expensive. The "improve your skills" meme is not successful when facing offshore competition at 10% of the wage rate.
The skills he has to improve in order to stay employed are those that cannot be shipped offshore, like becoming a plumber or an electrician. Of course, this means he is required to throw away a career he has invested over 30 years in, along with all that vaunted training and experience.
I would like to think there is a case for a domestic IT industry, but until the dismal sciences recognize the benefits of a diverse local economy over a specialized global economy, all the arguments are going to be slanted towards cutting business expense by gutting the middle classes.
One of the major reasons Linux is so successful outside the US is that foreign governments recognize that it would be nice to have an IT industry of their own, one that does not send all the profits overseas. They're not switching to Linux to be better positioned to export IT jobs to India or China.
Re:Yeah right. (Score:2, Insightful)
As a 45 yr old Principal SW Eng., writing this from my cube, I'd suggest to you that peak earning years in the 40s are due more to age discrimination than to economical issues. Otherwise, you'd see the peak at retirement age. This economy is NOTHING compared to the unemployment we saw in '81. It's easy (I won't debate the merit in this thread) for companies to dump us higher paid folks and hire a couple of recent grads or H1B Visa types for less. Your best bet is to find a niche, do work that others aren't willing or able to do, keep current on tech issues, and make sure your boss is aware of the value you're adding to his bottom line (from his viewpoint, if you're not adding then your dispensible). Anyway, good luck to you...from my vantage point, it looks like things have started picking up over the last six months.
Re:Why be loyal? Your employer is scum. (Score:3, Insightful)
You forget that working hard helps the company and helping the company ensures it still has money to pay you.
And let's not forget to pay the boss his millions (or hundreds of millions) of dollars in bonus. The company could get much further in loyalty paying that money to help employees, if it hadn't written them off.I saw a dark side of unemployment first hand (Score:2, Insightful)
Leave the government out of it... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not enough that 46 cents of every dollar my company produces goes into a government coffer before hitting one of the employees bank acounts?
How many chains do you want to put on us.
Without excessive government interference, we'd be twice the size we are now (read that as "creating more jobs" for those of you that believe in our Marxist/Fascist economy).
The middle class is getting squeezed by your policies. The government bails out/subsizes the biggest businesses to keep the stop market rising, which shifts tax money to the richest Americans (because they own stocks). Then the tax code hits people generating income.
So: produce wealth, get it taxed away. Simply own wealth, and much of that money comes back to you.
The government taxes productive businesses to give it to unproductive ones to "keep existing jobs."
Sure, the Steel Tariffs saved jobs in the steel industry. For every job saved, how many jobs were lost/not created in the automotive industry because of higher steel prices. How many jobs were not created in corporate America because the company car-fleet costs more than it should? How many jobs were lost in the computer industry because consumers had less discretionary spending because their car lease costs an extra $10-$20/month.
All this meddling destroys economic growth, and is killing those of us willing to work 60-100 hours/week greating the economic engine that the rest of you live off of.
Alex
Re:What kinda 'diot would want to be unemployed? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A thinly veiled political rant, actually (Score:5, Insightful)
The evidence indicates otherwise. Across the board, the school districts that spend the most per student are inner-city, failing systems like Atlanta, Washington, DC, Richmond, VA, Detroit, etc. -- usually several thousand more per student than the neighboring suburban districts. The extra money tends to go toward (1) gigantic, corrupt administrative bureaucracies and (2) security.
The single most important factor for a good learning environment is the presence of interested parents. Money doesn't help that.
A rant that doesn't even make sense (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree, and I'll even say I don't understand how anyone of even lukewarm intelligence can blame the dot-bomb collapse on Bush. Don't get me wrong - I don't *like* Bush, and there's *plenty* that he directly answers for - but this isn't it.
The economy was already heading south by the end of 2000, and the crash was, by that time, completely inevitable. Christ himself (I mean Greenspan) couldn't prevent it.
So if you actually feel like blaming a President for the collapse, Clinton's your man.
Re:A thinly veiled political rant, actually (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have to worry about it I have three suggestions for you:
I'm sick of people complaining about how they are constantly facing all these great losses because they're too fucking retarded to learn that they just shouldn't be in the IT Business. If you are constantly facing the challenges of losing your shit, get out.
Make room for the people who deserve, love, and are good at IT jobs. I don't care if you love computers, if you are a retard, get out. If you can't hold down a job, get out. If you have been unemployed for more than a year, go to realty school and become a realtor.
There are two types of people that I hate in this world, those who aren't stupid but act stupid because it's easier and those who believe they're entitled to shit they don't earn.
You sound exactly like the latter, and I hope you are not.
Re:Leave the government out of it... (Score:3, Insightful)
I feel I must point out that some amount of government interference is a good thing. Good things (as well as bad) have come out of government interference (things like civil rights etc).
and when you say your bit about Tarifs
I say that's a bad example. I submit that there is such a thing as a strategic industry - an industry that a nation needs if only for it's own ability to defend itself. A strong nation must be able to provide from within, the tools that it needs to make war. Saving the American steel industry is a necessary evil. Now if you had mentioned that crap that we went through with that tarrif on wine and grape seeds I'd have agreed with you 100%.
europe style govt/living may be unattainable (Score:2, Insightful)
He must be a Democrat, too. (Score:3, Insightful)
What a trivial and superficial inference to make about a 4-year presidency which lies in the midst of much longer business cycles. The success of the USA really has little to do with Democrats or Republicans. Instead, it has to do with the US Constitution providing the essential freedom for people to seek prosperity. All the last several decades of government has succeeded in doing is slowing that progress through obsessive regulation that often trumps our original freedoms in favor of political ends.
Here's a hint: even the Democrats can't save us from GWB and his cronies, because their only differences are the causes they use to front their agendas.
Re:A thinly veiled political rant, actually (Score:4, Insightful)
Nowhere. Your government uses the "save the world" rant to get you onside whatever war you are in at that point; it's easier to get civilian support if they believe they are the good guys.
The world doesn't want us there, why are we interfereing all over the world.
The same reason that any other country interferes in another: personal gain. This can be in pure profit or political/strategic gain.
I agree wth you on Afganistan. It involved American lives. We had a right to retaliate.
It wasn't a retaliation. The Afgan war was in planning prior to 9/11. I believe it was around June/July when the Indian ambassidor was told by the US to expect a war in Afganistan "before the snow starts falling". 9/11 was used as propaganda to get the public onside.
The gain? Well, Harliburton, the company directly linked to the current US regime, has been attempting to build a cross-Afgan pipe line, to ship the oil resources of the former USSR states to the north to the Persian gulf. When the Taliban awarded the contract to an Argentine company instead, the adminstration fell out with them. Prior to that, they were best-of-buddies, always in negotiations etc for the lucrative contract. The pipeline was under construction by US interests before the war was over, guarded by US troops.
But Iraq? There was nothing going oon there at the time.
Ah, you miss the point there. Question: where did the majority of 9/11 hijackers come from? Saudi Arabia. Where does the US rely mostly for foreign oil? Saudi Arabia.
Back in the initial gulf war, the US convinced the Saudi's that positioning US troops in Saudi was neccessary in case Saddam advanced further than Kuwait. It is rumoured that the satelite inteligence shown to them of troops near their border was faked by the US. Previously, the US only supported the Saudi dictatorship with weapons and financing, in return, the US was able to access the oil. The US actually helped this dictatorship to power, after the previous democracy (yes, democracy) was toppled (again with US assistance) because it wasn't forthcoming to US interests.
When the troops arrived, that's when the anti-US terrorism there really kicked off, away from the purely religious fanatics that hate all non-Islam, and into a more mainstream position. Al Qaeda's stated goal is to remove the US from Saudi, allowing them to control their own government. The "hate freedom & democracy" thing is a US propaganda lie, to prevent you from knowing why they hate you so much. If anything, that's exactly what they want, although their idea of Freedom is a bit more strict than ours.
Anyway, back to Iraq. After Saudi, the second largest oil reserves are in Iraq. Under Saddam's regime and UN sanctions, this oil was essentially out of play for the west, increasing dependance on Saudi, a state with huge ties to terrorism and anti-US feeling.
With Saddam gone, and a democratic government in Iraq, this oil is now available. The Saudi troops have already mostly moved to Iraq, which will become the new US reserve of power in the middle east. There will be a large US army stationed there for many years to come, even if the guerilla war ends before then.
So, in essence, the west has actually conceeded to the terrorists goal. Of course, it's not going to work out. I estimate that the story of Saudi Arabia is going to be replayed in Iraq. There have been some good documentaries on recently on the BBC, and while there is some support for the war, the majority of the population were against it, and have lost family. Note we've never heard Iraqi soldier casualty figures on our news, they are very high. If the US is not careful, the hate for them could grow to the point that Iraqi becomes the source of a large amount of terrorism.
American history shows that it is neccessary to disagree with you government if it dooing wrong
And n
Re:A rant that doesn't even make sense (Score:2, Insightful)
Blame Yourself, Not the Government (Score:2, Insightful)
He'll find solutions to his problems much faster if he wakes up and takes responsibility for his career, instead of waiting for some populus pandering pollitico to come rescue him.
Re:Not really (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A thinly veiled political rant, actually (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sick of simple, bullheaded idiots telling me that it's my fault that the tech industry has turned into a gobbling bunch of MBA cannibals more worried about preserving their own 6 figure salary than jobs.
You keep on the platitudes, speaking about "deserving" and "earning," but the fact of the matter is, there is no hard and fast way of defining what exactly affords one the deservedness, or defines them as "good at IT jobs;" it's all arbitrary, and getting a job is based upon many other things than deserving or aptitude.
I don't know where you are, but out here in the real world, rarely is it what you know, but rather WHO you know that gets you in the door. So you can be a kickass coder or a great sysadmin, but it still won't get you a thing if you don't have an edge over the 500 other guys who are kickass coders or great sysadmins and also have their resume in the same pile.
You tell me; is David Dvorkin one of the retards who should be getting out?
I tell you what, there's two types of people that I hate: idiots who know better and greedy self-serving retards who can't see the world except through the shaft of their own ego.
You sir, sound exactly like the latter, and I hope you are not.