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Hi-Tech Repo Man
jhaberman writes: "MSNBC has an amusing article.
It is a ride-along with a Silicon Valley repo man. You know, those guys who swipe cars from people who can't pay. He is taking cars right out of all the big players (Apple, Intel, Cisco, Sun) parking lots! Needless to say, he has quite a bit of work right now. Hilarious."
Why not? They chose to work in a high-risk speculative field for the chance to make it rich. It was their personal choice to do this rather than a more stable, boring job in a more average community. If you want to gamble everything on living high, you have to accept the responsibility for loosing big.
Has he taken the Andover Slashdot cruiser yet?
The problem is that we here in America rarely take the long view. It's always "Buy something, hope it lasts a few years, buy something else to replace it." I grew up in a part of the country where keeping old cars running for a long time was a part of the way of life. For some reason we've lost that part of our culture in our "buy buy buy" consumer feeding frenzy.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
"...Dynamic 601-b self-loading boom..."
Interesting to see a geek at work in a different field. I'm assuming, of course, that Mr. Kevern told the reported the model number of the self-loading boom off the top of his head.
-Paul Komarek
Zillions of studies have been done on WHY millionaires are rich.
THE single largest factor has been a general disdain for extravagance.
Use less than you get, and you accumulate wealth. Simple. Why is this so hard for so many people to understand?
Extravagance doesn't inform the soul. It doesn't please your partner. It might get you laid, but that's all. Laid. NOT loved, which is infinitely more valuable.
It does only one thing really well..
The attractance of Jackals. Land Sharks. Sycophants.
Millionaires are generally rich because they possess and excercise something approximating a value system.
Dot Com bozo's were generally into status, and the getting of STUFF. Illusion.
THAT idea is the germ of self-inflicted brain death.
Brak: What's THAT?
Thundercleese: A light switch.. of TOTAL DEVASTATION!
Excuse me, but Shadenfreude is a (DUH!) German term, tangentially related to enjoyment at seeing the self-inflated succumb to their own hubris.
There's nothing 'only in America' about it.
These people *knew* they were in a speculative bubble, and just chose not to recognize it. They gambled that they'd cash out some tasty stock options befor the souffle' fell, and they lost.
I have ZERO pity for these people. None. Nada.
Having known some leeter than thou yuppie wannabe scum personally, I feel that these folks are getting off far too easily.
Eventually, the greedy have to pay.
The dotbomb debacle was swift, sure justice, and I've enjoyed every second of it.
Brak: What's THAT?
Thundercleese: A light switch.. of TOTAL DEVASTATION!
The sickening read of this article basically states what a high kick this guy gets off the human misery that is a round of layoffs, just so he can make a few bucks.
.com's own damn faults for going haywire when a much more modest care would have not got them in this situation.
Not really. What he was saying is that he feels bad when he has to repo a car from a mother of two that is doing the best she can, and that it's the
Not so much he gets a kick, as it's hard to feel sorry for them.
you just might think "i don't care, i want a #&*@ ferrari before i die!".
'cuz life sucks and then you die. or you just get too old and/or fat to get in the bloody car anyway. i mean, point well taken and all, but i find my toys are excellent motivation to get my ass out and working. besides, a little self-confidence and risk-taking is really essential at some point if you're trying to do something career-wise.
don't get me wrong, i have little sympathy for people eating $100 lunches while their car gets towed away, but sometimes you just have to make a fashion statement, and if it doesn't work out well hey, try again next time.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
I can afford it :-) Sure, I work for a 'dotcom', and we're doing pretty darned well, but I'm not stupid enough to go out and spend a lot of money I don't have. Heck, I'm about to take a honeymoon, and it's all paid for. Now, did that come from money from the 'dotcom' craze?
No! I saved this money into a savings account and some stocks for YEARS, just for either a honeymoon or a serious vacation. Go figure, I have a lot of 'dotcom' friends the repo man will meet, while I have no bills I can't handle on much above minimum wage, and I've even gotten ahead on most of the payments on stuff I do have (car insurance, house insurance, etc) so if I DO have to get a new job, I'm not scrambling for cash.
I have zero sympathy for 'dotcom' geniuses who dug themselves into a hole. Dad worked in a factory his whole life, and I learned what it means to have a backup plan for when it all goes to hell! Thanks dad!
only in about 3 bass-ackwards states buddy. Protecting your property IS NOT a valid excuse for homcide.
:)
:) A shitty job but it DOES PAY WELL.
Also if the repo man is ANY good the only way you'll find out is when he honks driving out of your driveway or when the dead-beat tries to drive his car again
I say this as a retired repo man from the Bay Area Calif
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
My family is from Latin America. I have relatives that, I assure, have studied as hard and worked twice as hard as you do, and never even had a chance at the kind of lifestyle you were enjoying. There are physicists and doctors from the former eastern bloc that drive cabs in the US. During the boom, folks like you (although not necessarily you) smugly claimed that they *deserved* their wealth, which (since wealth is relative) is an implicit claim that others deserve their lack of it. That is what makes the comeuppance so sweet.
Since a lot of people refer to the plates themselves as "tags", its not a big stretch to assume the "dealer tags" are the cardboard advertisements that would be sitting in the license-plate frame.
D
That's not good at all. If these companies really wanted to help they would encourage their people to give the cars back and help out with the carpooling.
-- Remember: Wherever you go, there you are!
Okay. Yes, options have a time limit, usually several years, or near termination of employment. I don't believe it is common practice to have options that must be exercised soon after they vest.
Holding onto stock in a hot market is smart, yes.
Not having the cash to cover a tax liability you cannot escape is *stupid*. You should at least sell enough to cover the tax on the option benefit, else you simply put yourself at greater risk.
This is not about foresight, it's about risk. If you invest in some hot company on the market, you only risk your investment, no matter how volatile the stock is. Better even, if the stock bottoms out, you can at least use the capital loss against your other capital gains.
A stock option benefit is a different matter altogether. the moment you exercise, you incur a taxable benefit. You WILL have to include it in your income for tax purposes, and WILL have to pay whatever tax you owe on it. So it only makes sense to ensure that you can pay up, otherwise, you are taking a big risk.
At the company I work for, you can only hold options for four years after you receive them. They have some additional screwey properties that mean you might very well want to exercise them long before the time limit, but I won't go into that here...
I really wanted to address the point of selling enough stock right after you excercise to pay for the taxes. The issue I have with doing that (and I think one reason why perhaps a lot of people didn't sell stock as soon as they exercised) is that then you pay short term capital gains taxes if you sell the stock right away, whereas you only have to wait a year to pay long terms capital gains and a LOT less in tax! If I had exercised anything last year I'm pretty sure I would have been screwed over as well, since I would have figured just waiting one year was probably safe...
Now that we are all wiser, what I would do after exercising is to set aside a certain amount of stock with a sell limit set at an amount to cover my tax liability should the stock price drop. That way I potentially get the benefit of selling all my stock at the long term rate, but also am covered in case the stock really tanks. Of course, using that system you could be hosed by temporary dips but I figure you could set the selling point fairly low if you had some other savings or assets you knew you could rely on to cover losses (though of course as the original poster said, it's pretty painful to have to pay for money you never saw).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Lottery tickets in the glove boxes of expensive cars purchased by once-rich executives. I love it.
like most other repo men, he owns his car outright.
Too bad I can't say the same about all the code I've written...
Well, actually he is restoring the cars to their rightful owners, which might make it a bit better (remember, if those people default on their loans, _you_ will get the pleasure of paying for it one way or the other).
And the systems built by a lot of the bombed dot.commers were neither beautiful nor sophisticated, nor used by very many people apparently. Paid for by money conned out of the inexperienced and gullible in a lot of cases too.
So the choice isnt exactly as clear cut as you might think.
when they still work for someone else?
I wouldn't call this work.
when they still have to act a certain way,
Havn't noticed any change.
dress a certain way,
t-shirt and shorts, no shoes, same as always
or be in certain places at certain times?
Meetings suck, but if I didn't go I wouldn't cop too much shit.
when being without a few paychecks would mean losing your toys, or even your home?
have neither a home nor toys I own (well, there is that laptop..)
when I started enjoying success in a high-tech job I didn't go out and buy a bmw.
me either
I drive a 60's model volkswagen.
dont drive.
I didn't "buy" real estate in california either.
why would you want to live here for longer than you have to? It's a fucking suburb, everything is too far apart, there's nothing to do here, the pubs close at 2am, and most of em only serve beer and wine anyway.
what the fuck were you people thinking?
They weren't, they were reacting to the wants and needs that have been driven into them by society.
that you shit gold and pee perfume?
Indeed.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Heehee...
"Sun Microsystems. We put the dot in 'OH SHIT, WE'RE BROKE!'"
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Learn life
Want Root?
We've enjoyed the longest peacetime economic expansion in our history, but it's over. The saying is that a recession is when someone you know loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. There but for fortune...
Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold...
While right now the tech industry is in a slump, and I'm lucky to be one of the techs who was intelligent enough to live within my means, I still have to resent the tone of the article.
- --------
"Whenever another company announces layoffs, we get all excited". Straight from the article.
Yes, it means you get more business, Mr. Repo man, but slow down for a second and realize that the 8,000 layoffs mean two things. 1) They mean that 50 workers who lived too lavishly will pay for it. 2) They mean that the other 7,950 workers who were just trying to get by in the most expensive place on this coast to live, are now probably apartment/home-less.
The sickening read of this article basically states what a high kick this guy gets off the human misery that is a round of layoffs, just so he can make a few bucks.
The article portrays the tech workers in a very bad light by focusing on the lavish, stupid guys. But frankly, when I read the article, it puts this repo guy in a FAR worse light.
-----------------------------------------
Funny, even before the dot bust one of the perks I got working for a chip maker in colorado springs is "repo man protection".   Seems some of the fab workers had/have credit trouble so about the only thing security actually does besides endangering all donut species is chase tow trucks out of the parking lots.   Since some of the good ones can get in and out faster than security can respond, and w/o leaving license plate images on the security cameras (so trespassing charges can't be filed) there is a special locked parking area for those that really don't want to take chances.   Sounds like this practice may become more common
I worked my way up from the bottom of Silicon Valley. When I started as a programmer here, I was making a salary below the poverty line, because it was the only company that would hire me. (I didn't have experience.)
After a year and a half of that, I finally got my first 'break': a major company wanted me. I moved to them for a year, and I was miserable. Better salary, but a lot more bullshit on the job.
I got my second, and what I thought was my greatest 'break'. A small company would hire me for the same salary that the major company was giving me. I didn't change over for the money. I did it for the chance to do something more intesting, less boring, and with bosses that didn't have Redwoods up their asses. (The business was a consulting business. No one expected to get super-rich from any stock options, even if the company ever went public.)
For eight months, the small business thrived. It was the best time of my life. I was creating software that was helping people. I was working with creative, intelligent people. Then the dot-com crunch hit everything.
I was renting a house with two other geeks. The owners were relocated back to the Bay Area, and they needed to move back into their home.
The small business had a 15% layoff. Then an 80% layoff.
I'm now crashing at my girlfriend's house. All that I own, except my car and my computer, is in storage, and I'm living off my savings. The crash is keeping me from getting a job, even though I'm writing more than twenty companies every week.
Now listen to me. I fucking studied hard, I fucking worked hard, I fucking kept on learning, and now I'm on unemployment insurance. What the fuck justice is this, you asshole?
Never play leapfrog with a unicorn. Or a juggernaut.
Mr. Kevern is offering prizes to all dealerships to hand over the names and addresses of all Microsoft employees buying 'clean' cars (ones without payment protection plays).
While Mr. Kervern does not believe all Microsoft employees intend to default on their repayments, he feels he has a right to be ready just in case.
Meanwhile, in other news... Bugs Bunny episodes are going to be banned for being "racially charged." Now that's news for nerds, stuff that's interesting, I'd think. I may be wrong.
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Still their own stupid fault. I'm young, slightly immature, and certainly inexperienced...yet I have the intelligence to realise that borrowed money is expensive money, and living beyond your means is risky business. The repo man won't get my vehicle because I paid cash for it. I'd rather have a less expensive used car that's cheap to insure and paid for than a luxury vehicle or big SUV that I have to make payments on. I get sticker shock from the depreciation cost of driving a new car off the lot, so I don't do it ;-)
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Actually, there is a difference.
Silicon Valley attracted a whole lot of scum in the past decade. Some of us, who knew about Silicon Valley fifteen years ago, maybe even know the difference between TTL and CMOS logic gates, are a little pleased that some of that scum is now being hosed off the pavement.
It's not really 'revenge' or a manifestation of envy so much as the satisfaction of knowing that in the end everything generally does work out fairly.