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The Surprising Benefits of Being Unemployed
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."
Becoming a Slashdot Addict
I have time to become intimately familiar with all of the Slashdot memes like FP!, GNAA, In Soviet Russia, and CowboyNeal. I know all of the rules for them and when they're just being faked by copy-cats. Sure, sure, I can stop any time.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
Yep, according to my dad, one of the best books hes ever read... well worth the read
Well worth the reading time as a small break in a busy day
;)
He has no job, way to rub it in, you inconsiderate clod!
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This man is my idol, and anyone who has ever been unemployed should appreciate "staring at the wall for an hour after waking 'early' up at 10:17, drinking a pot of coffay." I donated a few bucks to help his cause, and you should too, after all, he is unemployed :)
But now I have less stress, met a girlfriend online and I am going back to school.
I feel I am working towards myself and not a greedy souless corporation.
People work to hard today. I think the divorce rate might have something to do with people doing the work of 2-3 in order for bigcorp to boast its stock price for productivity increases.
I love programming and want to do it. However I do not want to work more then 55 hours a week. I also want to learn and better myself. Its hard with such high demands. Also young college kids are willing to work 80 hrs a week so if you don't then they steal your job!??
In other words its now the new norm to be underpaid and overworked where 40 hr work weeks are considered "not meeting expectations".
http://saveie6.com/
Time to read up on any obscure or interesting subject that sprang to mind.
I think I advanced my self-education more in the last few months than I had in years previously. I know a whole lot more about our legal and political systems, can tell you all sorts of fun things about Wicca and Buddhism, know more about more obscure European bands than I care to name, and I'm even getting closer to really understanding why the Middle East is the way it is.
But things are looking up. Getting out of the cube farms seem to have freed my mind. I've been taking on odd freelance jobs. I've just gotten hired by a tutoring company which'll let me more or less make my own hours. Been doing some freelance writing. I'm not out of the woods yet, but if things keep going the way they are, I may be able to build up enough contacts and experience to make a good enough living without ever stepping foot in an office, and 3/4 of it from home.
I feel oddly like the Campbellian hero having passed through the Cave. (Week of May 15th: Read "Hero of a Thousand Faces")
So, just to chime in with the message of this article, if you're unemployed, take heart. Look at it as an opportunity. If you've got the money to ride on for a bit, DON'T spend all your time looking for yet another cube. Use the time to boost your knowledge or skills.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
I try to convince myself I've gotten out of the rat race of Upward Mobility, and it's morally superior to have Downward Nobility. But I just want a fucken job. I helped build this industry in the early 1970s, now I'm supposed to be in the peak earning years of my career, but I'm locked out due to the bad economy. It sucks. There is nothing good about being unemployed.
Popcorn is actually an ideal foodstuff if you're on a very tight budget. It's SO cheap!
I bought myself a popcorn making machine for $20. Basically it's a big "hot air generating machine". You throw your popcorn kernels in, they get heated up and blown around for five minutes, then they all pop and out tumbles the popcorn.
You can buy a bag with two lbs of kernels for about a dollar. Lasts me about 15 gigantic bowls of popcorn. Keeps your regular too. High in fibre.
So you pay about 7 cents a bowl, which is a good stomach filler in the evening, and a cent or two for the electricity needed. Popcorn is a bargain, particularly if you like it plain, or with some salt thrown over it (as I do). Just make it YOURSELF.
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Surely I'm not the only one who finds a dark amusement in seeing both "The benefits of being unemployed" and "Where do I find an honest headhunter?" showing up simultaneously on the Slashdot front page.
"Freedom is kind of a hobby with me, and I have disposable income that I'll spend to find out how to get people more."
Actually, it's harder to get a job when your unemployed then it is when you are employeed. Because, when your unemployeed, any future employer will want to know why and how long you have been without work. But, if you already have a job, then you have a much better reputation for current skill status and thus a better chance of swiching over to a new company.
Life is not for the lazy.
What about,
- working on that interesting open-source software project. Good for the resume as well
- do some volunteering (hey - just go to the park and pick up garbage for an hour or two, till the unionized city employees chase you off)
- 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)
- go to the library and get out all the "classics" (whatever your definition of a classic might be) and read them. No essay at the end required, unless you really want to.
Time like that should be used in a positive way. The silver lining around the dark cloud. And when you go for interviews, let them know what you've been doing - makes you look like a well rounded person who knows how to organize his/her time.
The article runs the gamut, from the mildly amusing:
Some of those benefits are obvious, and I could have anticipated them even before a supervisor tapped me on the shoulder and said he needed to talk to me about something. ("Do you have a minute?" he asked. What would have happened if I'd said no, that I was too busy?)
To the not at all funny but trying really hard (Snuffy Smith! Egads):
There was a character in the Snuffy Smith cartoon strip of many years ago who retired but would still get up at the crack of dawn and go down to the mill every morning just so he could thumb his nose at the place as the get-to-work whistle blew.
It does include a few good, creative ideas useful even for the gainfully emplyed:
Back in the glorious paycheck days, I used to think about telling [telemarketers and salespersons] I'd just lost my job. Actually, sometimes I really did tell them that, because I'm a cowardly kinda guy and it's easier to fib than to be firm. Now I don't have to fib. When I tell them I'm unemployed, they hang up or back away quickly, terrified of infection by the job-loss virus.
As well as a few really stupid comment that make me wonder about this guy's sense of self:
My Beard It's still growing! Well, of course it is, you say. Let me explain that, on an emotional, irrational level, I still feel relieved every morning when I realize that I still need to shave. It's still growing! Despite the way I frequently feel, I haven't really been unmanned.
But, it also has quite a bit of offtopic, annoying, and really rather insulting partisan political nonsense:
These [fake-job advertising scammers] are rotten enough to be members of George W. Bush's cabinet. Encountering them has taught me something about the depths of human nature.
But perhaps the greatest benefit of being unemployed is this. I now feel absolutely free to despise George W. Bush. Oh, of course I despised him before I lost my job. But now I know I'm not alone.
And it closes with a really stupid anti-Bush link. Sigh. Bring a salt shaker if you're going to read it all.
everything in moderation
the other day I caught myself telling a fellow slacker "you are trolling the unemployment line you should be mod'ed down" of course I got a blank empty void look on his face. also, I really ought to move out of my mom's house soon.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
No, the CATO institute would probably have a paper on the moral duty of the unemployed to increase downward pressure on wages and how the recently homeless have merely chosen to realize capital gains by selling their houses to pay for food. The Heritage Foundation would no doubt follow up with a paper on how eliminating the capital gains tax would then be in the best interest of the future homeless population. It's the compassionately conservative thing to do.
The boss told me that if I'm late for work again tomorrow, I shouldn't bother turning up on Monday.
Woohoo! Four day weekend!!
"Smoking helps you lose weight - one lung at a time" -- A. E. Neumann
For all the perks of being unemployed without the guilt, frustration and lack of income that it brings with it...Do a PhD! ......back to the grind, another day of back-breaking research ahead...ooops...dont feel like working, i think ill go home and sleep instead....better tell the boss...wait...there is no boss...hehehe....my paper is not due till next month, ill just do it the night before.
After all, they're smart enough to realize that articles about being unemployed are likely to be of great interest to a large proportion of those people spending the most time reading Slashdot.
Way to go after your core readership guys !
There is actually an entire movement of people that have discovered this. Look for "simple living" on Google. "The Simple Living Guide" by Luhrs is pretty nice reading, too.
Even if you don't want to adopt frugality and simple living right now, just knowing that you could can make you worry a lot less about the future.
Most of his "benefits" seem to have been writing with a smirk. One friend of mine who has been unemployed for about 9 months has been catching all hell from his wife. However, even she has to admit that his being unemployed and his consequent stays at home with their 2-y old son has made them much closer. For instance, before the son never ran to his father for comfort (only ever his mother), now he does. I think my friend has become a much better father largely because he is unemployed. (Of course, that doesn't stop him from wanting to leave the kid alone while he's sleeping so he can go checking out the satellite dish store down the street, because he thinks the baby monitor will reach halfway to the store, but don't tell his wife).
Sheesh... a few of flashes of insight in there, but it's mostly bitter, sarcastic, angst-ridden despair... quite depressing read, actually.
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.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
...is at what point he gives up his monthly internet bill.
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.
damn, this guy is OBSSESSED! Check out the link at the bottom of the article page. I can totally agree with people wondering about the policies of the president, and even not liking him as a person, but insulting someone's daughters and his family is going a wee bit far... hard to agree with his "I'm a nice guy" comment after reading his list...
Didn't have the money to fix a 25-year-old furnace shaking itself apart with a horrible delayed ignition problem (Kaboom!). Did later sell the condo at a nice profit.
The condo had large single-pane windows that always drew comments, but did nothing for insulation. The lowest temperatures at the first floor thermostat hit low 50's (Thankfully there was a heated space below that did some good). It actually became bearable although I wouldn't want to do it again. Wore a hat, couple of long john tops, couple of t-shirts, sweat top. 2 long-john bottoms and sweat bottoms. Would sit in a chair or at my computer with a blanket (was still paying for DSL till the end!!). The worse part was my hands and face. With my nose being the worse. Should have got one of those face mask things. Sleeping was fine. Showering was avoided at all costs. Going to the bathroom also involved the shock of cold as you had to get all those layers positioned or off.
I had very few pipes and they all ran through a heated space to me. Your pipes may break before you do. If you do the no heat thing make sure you insulate pipes. Take a small room and make it your heat space. Crank up the TV and computer and confine you activities to that area. Your own body heat can raise the ambient. You need all the help you can get.
I like what he says about his expectations about being loyal to the company you work for. Most of us, at least deep down, expect that those days we come in sick or work a 20 hour day will show loyality to our employer that will be repaid with loyality right back. Then wouldn't fire you.. you're as good as best buds afterall. You're in it together.
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.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I recently had quit a job at a large fortune 500 company developing systems software for a shaky startup. I figured, I'm young, so why not give a less structured job a try where the fruits of my labor would come back and benefit me. Well, long story short, this particular startup had some issues; there wasn't a decent chemistry, and the management was somewhat capricious, fickle, inexperienced, and unaware of just what was involved in having a legitimate, organized business. (In fact, I think unemployment caused me to realize the importance of great management.) So, with legal dilemmas and financial dilemmas at hand, I decided maybe I made a mistake joining this particular venture. So, I ended up unemployed. I stopped going out because of a lack of health insurance, and COBRA didn't really cut it, because the insurance premiums were ridiculously high.
... unemployment taught me to have more respect for having *a* job. I just am wondering how long it will be before the pendulum swings from "job is good" to "fuck it, maybe I need the fear of unemployment or business failure to drive me into a state of action again."
I ended up finding another job, but I went through everything the man who wrote the featured article went through. I was dating a girl at one point; when she knew before that I had been making money, things were fine. However, as soon as she found out that I was in trouble and that I needed employment, suddenly I became a lot less attractive and we went our separate ways. (She's now dating another guy with a nicer car and presumably more money in the bank.) Everyone kept insisting that my failures were somehow my fault. Perhaps they were, but I like to think that in the grand scheme of things, this little experience of unemployment was to teach me a lesson about the value of a job.
In college, you'll hear a lot of talk about how engineering is worthless because it only pays some petty 5 figure salary. People like to talk about how you should start a business, and how real losers become engineers. Increasingly, there's a trend for good American engineers to try and get their MBA or JD. All in all, I find the situation really disappointing and hard to cope with. I got into engineering thinking that I would be able to build cool things and be creative. Instead, I found insane market deadlines, invasive work spaces, no offices, ridiculous cubicles, no room for creativity. But, one thing is for sure,
Anyway, I wish the best of luck to anyone else out there in the same situation.
I haven't been this depressed since I read "Nickel and Dimed." Excellent book, btw, but don't read it expecting to be cheered up. Anyone who's out of a job, I wish you well. (Been unemployed a bit before; now I've got two.)
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I have worked steadily every single day of my life since I was four years old. That coal mine taught me to be a man, and it put hair on my chest.
--- Ban humanity.
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?
First, I don't think this article is irrelevant, unlike a lot of the people that posted replies so far (uh, what's this... I'm a (-1, troll) already? dammit...). Some guy's musings about his lack of a job are probably not front-page material, and posting it to Slashdot seems like shameless self-promotion, but the sad truth is that there are more and more people out there who are either unemployed or, almost if not equally as bad, underemployed (McJob, anyone?). People who went to school at the height of the late-90s high-tech boom (like me) are entering the workforce to find it flooded by people who worked through that boom, are more experienced, at least equally skilled, and are also looking for jobs. Even seemingly trivial jobs have substantial requirements of experience and obscure skills because employers know they can easily get overqualified people. At the same time, older people find themselves being edged out by the young'uns, who are willing to work longer and compromise more for less money.
This leads to depression, sarcasm and cynicism, all of which seem come across in that writeup; most of the things he lists there are not really benefits of being unemployed but benefits of having lots of free time, which is a byproduct of unemployment but not the only way to get it. Philosophical insights and beard growth aside, you can get this stuff and still work. The trick is to have a good job, and by that I mean one that affords you lost of free time and enough money to get by. Working for the gov't is good, at least in Canada - pay's ok, hours are fixed, and the boss isn't particuarly evil. Getting into a union, though those are increasingly rare, is even better. My father always complains how lazy those union guys are - I envy their laziness, and weep every time unions lose out to big corporations.
Personally, I've been without a job since April and haven't had much success finding for one. All I'm really going on right now is sarcasm and cynicism - the money's all gone (I guess, then, I'm also going on the good nature of my parents). I'm even starting to become cynical about my own cynicism. I go nutty periodically and produce "great" works of prose (beware of popups, and I promise that my resume is nowhere to be found), but how long can I go on? The end is not in sight...
Even as you read this, your pants are strangling your loins! Aaa!
Sounds like a good Poll Idea.
How many Slashdi are:
Employed In Tech
Employed In Retail
Employed In Fast Food
Contractor
Unemployed
Cowboy Neals My Surgar Daddy
When work feels overwhelming, remember that you're going to die.
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.
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.
...small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri...
He left out the mst important benefit of all: the grapes are sour, anyway.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
... He knows how to live despite having been laid off!
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Unless you feel like opening a vein don't read this article. I am officially depressed.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
If you contribute to your company's success and help it to advance its interests and financial health, often making sacrifices of your own time to do so, then your company will reciprocate by making sacrifices in bad times to take care of you by not depriving you of your paycheck and benefits. That's the way I thought it worked.
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?
Moo
1 - That while average Joe Worker makes 66% more salaray than he did in 1980, Joe CEO is making 1996% more than _he_ did in 1980.
2 - that having to sell your house after 8 months of being unemployed, SUCKS, worse than anything you can imagine.
3 - That moving a thousand miles away from a place you consider home for a job fixing Windows boxen is about as fun as it sounds.
4 - That companies do job postings with no intention of filling them.
5 - That of all the oddball things that helped while having a mortgage, a newborn and no job, Wife's Unionized insurance plan is at the top of the list.
6 - that I can now be lazy at work, and get fired, or bust my ass at work, and get fired.
7 - that startng over is as shitty as you think it is.
"See, we plan ahead! That way, we never have to do anything now."
To risk sounding like Seinfeld: What is the deal with anti-capitalists? Seriously. There's so much of it rampant on slashdot and elsewhere: those evil businesses, those greedy businessmen. When confronted with the alternative, though, people rarely have the gumption to be consistent in their beliefs: Don't like 'big business'? Think everybody should have equal paying jobs? Read up on Marxism and it's success this past century. If you still think 'free enterprise sucks' then at least be logical and apply that belief to your life- move to Cuba.
Sure, I feel for anybody who doesn't have a job, but consider for a second all the people who not only have no job, but no roof over their head, no water or food- or heaven forbid- no internet access to publish essays on. Where are they? In the dictatorial, socialist, and communist countries for the most part. Clearly, if you really want to do this guy and others a favor, the right thing to do is support free enterprise.
Ok unemployment sucks, but this article is.. not that good but I digress.
:) Now I have a decent sized income bills are paid, and I get to play around with over 50 linux boxen hosting over 11,000 web sites.
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.
--- www.f-theocean.com
This sounds like nothing but a 14 step program. 14 ways to look at a glum problem. Well you can look at it this way there are always jobs out there-it just depends on how much pride you have.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
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).
This is one of the most depressing things I've read in atleast a month. This guy lives in Denver, an hour away from me.
His resume is filled with the same buzzword bullshit as mine, only more of it and with more experience.
I feel right now like I just lost everything in the stock market. 4 years ago when I started college (investing in a skillset), those skills were climbing in value at a good rate. I remember being told that I'd be making an easy 50-60k right out of college - as in the day I graduate.
Now the prices on my skills have collapsed. What once went for $60/share now goes for $2.50. Everyone knows Java. Or Perl, or SQL, or blah blah blah.
I want a real career. Without computers. Without the corporation.
Fuck this.
no comment
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.
Stuart Eichert
Is America even "free enterprise"? Are you fucking kidding me? A country where a corrupt government regularly bails out it's richest? And gives billions of dollars to corporations, which immediately pay off corrupt CEO's. A country that doesn't give a shit about educatingg it's youth, because it's too busy gutting social programs and giving that money to Enron, Haliburton, et al. That's "freedom". Freedom means picking on the little guy. Apparently I'm supposed to understand that supporting a corrupt system is "freedom" to you. Call it what you want, I won't support it, and neither will a growing number of Americans. Let's not talk about fantasy land, I'm too busy trying to deal with the real world, I don't know what country you're talking about, but the country I'm living in is corrupt, and has problems that need fixing, and "freedeom" is the last thing that our business leaders are after. If you're too stupid to realize that, then I'm sorry for you.
Consider all of the years that Bush I and II were in the White House. For each and every one of those years, you know how many net new jobs were created? None! After each year of them being president, fewer people were employed at the end of the year. Bush recovery my ass.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Being unemployed and/or underemployeed is really kind of cool. You really ought to try it for 6 months or so. I don't live in a ghetto, I'm not next to prostitutes or crackhouses. My needs are really pretty modest I've found. If I was trying to raise a family, and if someone with those kinds of responsibilities has lost a job, you have my sympathy. I live with roommates. I drive a 12 year old car. I cook most of my meals. I steal music. Oops. I mean, I infringe copyrights. =) I do occassional low stress jobs to pay the bills. My standard of living has plummeted, but I really don't care. I'm much happier. Let the Indians or the Chinese work their asses off for a change. They need the money more than i do.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
I suspect that, a year from now, people will be talking about the "Bush recovery," and whoever emerges from the Democratic primary is going to be scrambling for issues to run on.
For the last two years I've been telling myself that things would be better by this time next year. Now I really doubt it. With the Gartner Group saying that over the next 18 months 10% of the remaining IT jobs are heading overseas I really don't think it'll be any better next year at this time. With consumer confidence back down where it was just before the war started because so many people are afraid they'll lose their job, I really doubt things'll be much better next year. With us spending hundreds of Billions of dollars to rebuild Iraq, I really doubt it. But maybe I'll be wrong again this year?
Nah, I doubt it. Bye, bye Bushie, looks like it'll be a democrat next time.
Read "Suriviving without a salary" by Charles Long. Make sure to check it out from the library instead of buying it(as mentioned in the book itself). Charles Long is the true penny pinching non-salaried person. Some of his ideas can be far out such as when he comments on how he started to shower in the rain(that is until he almost got hit by lightning).
It's a good guide for learning how to end the daily consumer culture grind.
Because, when your unemployeed, any future employer will want to know why and how long you have been without work.
(First off, I'll avoid making any comments about the difference between "your" and "you're")
I think you are thinking pre-2001. Seriously. I've hired over 15 people for a medium-term project in the last month or two. Lots of qualified people. Some were amazingly over-qualified. But you know what? We all know that the job market sucks right now and really could care less if you have a three or six or nine month employment gap on your resume. Seriously. Listening to people spend five minutes trying to explain "why" they are currently "between jobs" gets old.
Interview tip: Hold your head high and don't worry too much about your current employment status. Make your cover story short and to the point and then move on.
Personal Aside: The project I have been interviewing people for is so atrociously foul that of the people we have hired, the best have already quit or are in the process of doing so. People's fears that you will jump ship because you are overqualified are justified by real world experiences.
I would have to say that explosives are the most abused technology in all of history.
It got the weekend, the forty hour week. (Unless your exempt). It got rid of Monarchy (unless you're british etc.) It got national health care (well, if you are british). Blaming stuff on other people has helped in a lot of cases.
He said that dedication to a company deserves reciprocal dedication from a company. Is there a problem with that in particular?
-pyrrho
That people are unemployed because there AREN'T ANY FUCKING JOBS TO BE FILLED, DON'T YOU? If there is a 7% unemployment, which is an understatment, it's really above 10%, then that means, that no matter how hard those people try, they are SOL. There just aren't jobs for that 10%, period. They can throw there shoulders back all they want, they can quack like a fucking duck for that matter, it's not going to make a bunch of jobs appear, stupid. According to your logic, all America has to do is throw it's shoulders back, and corporations are going to pull out of India, move back ashore, the government is going to clean up it's corruption, start investing in education, and everyone will be happy again.
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.
After I got laid off 2.5 years ago, I decided to go the contract route, and it has been pretty good. The key is to have existing clients, and unique skill sets. I was the lead consultant for my former company, but a lot of the potential customers for that kind of service had competing products. So once I was on my own, a lot of my initial clients made products that competed with my former employer's stuff. My billable hours actually went UP.
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.
My video compression blog
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 :)
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
How much it really cost to keep a light on while you have a shower?
... I did do this exercise once to defeat an annoying co-habitant, but I can't remember the exact result. It really was not worth talking about, even for (at the time) starving students :) 20 cents to run a light for 24 hours, or something like that. I remember giving her one dollar, and requesting that she therefore never bug me about lights again, as those few minutes I leave lights on are now covered for at least a year.
The obsession people have with not leaving lights on even for a few minutes has always bothered me, because it's really the last thing you should be concerned about. I'll have to look at my electricity bill when I get home and work it out
And then there are flourescent lights. In that case, they are cheaper to run, *but* it takes a lot of electricity to start them up. The equivalent of about 30 minutes worth of running time IIRC. This means that if you walk into and out of a room switching the damned flourescent light on and off, you are actually costing much more money then just leaving it on! And yes, the ex-roommate kept switching the flourescent kitchen light off, and then back on again, every ten minutes.
1. Capitalism sucks as bad as communism. It just takes a little longer to realise...but you realise it well when you are fired and you can't find a job.
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
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
4 years ago my company lost 95% of it's revenue generating contracts (programming consulting at the time) in a 3 month period, 35-40% went to India. As an added insult we had to train them while laying off our staff, and keep 1 person around on an el cheapo retainer just in case they screwed up badly down there and needed help. We helped ensure there was no risk to them while they screwed us. Course, since then we rebuilt and have recovered significantly by creating different products. But man did that period of time suck. Remember that 10% isn't evenly spread out.
I was a March layoff. Funny thing, I never thought I'd be let go since I was young, relatively speaking.
The usual thing you hear is, "better you than me, you'll have no problem finding a job." This from co-workers and other middle-aged employeed people.
I didn't see it. For the last few months I pushed real hard to get a job, particularly in a prospering market area. It was a no go. The only responses I've got were from staffing firms. So, I gave it another ultimate go, handing out revised resumes to friends and all the jobs I took an interest in.
My friend told me he was jobless for 8 months, so he suggested, just get used to the empty ride. I figured employees wouldn't be knocking down my door, so I picked up a few things.
I learned how to do wood flooring, installed wood floors in all my rooms. I taught myself how to do home improvement skills, painting, texturing, adding trim around walls and such. I taught myself how to do tiling. I burned a bit of cash to do something I always wanted to do, but never had the time. I also made a website, re-learn web making skills. I also got back to exercising and eating right, lost a lot of weight.
I got a lot of things done, but I only see it as keeping myself from going crazy.
- Experienced personnel
They are not:
- Providing training programmes
- Entry level jobs
Apparently the overhead involved in training new personnel or hiring somebody with less than a minimum of 5 years experience is too great for this to be a viable option for modern European companies. Just getting an engineering degree is insufficient. They only ray of sunshie here is that they are prepared to hire you, even if you are not especially experienced, if you have a set of cetificates the length of your arm. Unfortunately most certificates are obscenely expensive to get, they are slightly less obscenely expensive to maintain and in Germany at least, where I used to work, many companies seem to expect you to pay for your vast portfolio of obscenely expensive certificates out of your own pocket and to do the studying on your own time. And with all of this plus the ever present danger of being dropped like hot potato (ie getting your ass fired) every time one of the CO's feel in a mood to draw the magic cost cutting sword from its stone and go on a crusade, they expect you to be loyal to the company. It kind of makes me glad that after 6 months of being unemployed I finally found a job with one of those haples idiot companies that will still hire people with limited experience.Have karma will burn it!
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
bashing article in the guise of post-employment enlightenment.
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-)
Pretty odd really, his entire set of "benefits" were almost entirely negative, or at least presented negatively: for example, not needing to wake up to the alarm clock, yet waking up anyway at the crack of dawn owing to a sense of dread. That seems to stem from a less than positive outlook on life, and it isn't really all that consistent with the title of the essay.
... as long as you don't fall for the hype, and you keep the telly firmly switched off, and you do your own thing.
... same square format, no evil hype. :-)
As a freelancer, I go through long periods between contracts as part of normal operation, and yes, one does turn down the spending knob to its lowest setting, but it's entirely a positive experience. One simply doesn't need to keep up with the Jones's every time they go out to the restaurant, buy a new DVD, or upgrade their car. Life in the affluent west is great
And as a programmer, assuming that it's in your blood and not just a job, then "your own thing" really means being creative with computers.
So, I'd have expected a long list of new technologies that he'd always meant to catch up on and now has the time, and a long list of personal projects that he always wanted to develop and at last has the opportunity, etc etc.
Being positive is in the mind, and has almost nothing to do with external circumstances, and definitely has nothing to do with financial circumstances.
Just keep that telly firmly switched off, as it's the primary instrument of evil hype and distorted goals, and it will not help you to feel happy in yourself unless you have the cash that the advertisers implicitly require viewers to have. The messaging is largely subliminal or implicit too in "entertainment" features, so it's not enoough to simply avoid the adverts. Stick to online games
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
There is actually an entire movement of people that have discovered this.
There is at least an entire continent that has discovered this: Europe. Industrialized nations all of them, the top nations on all quality of life rankings, little violence, though a bit crowded. Now check the hours they work. Now realize that, by law, they have weeks and weeks of vacation time -- if I remember correctly, it is 20 days by federal law for Germany. You have 35 hour work weeks in a lot of places. You have paid maternity leave and sick leave. You can't be fired at the drop of a hat.
Why does this work? You don't buy every piece of crap that some ad throws in your face. Consumer spending is two-thirds of the U.S. economy. In Germany (to stick with the example), it is about one third. You don't pay your CEOs so much money that a company's pay chart has to have a logarithmic scale: Read up on what the Daimler managers at DaimlerChrysler get and what the Chrysler managers get. Try to explain -- with a straight face -- why some Chrysler manager who couldn't keep his company from being de facto swallowed gets more money than they guy who is now his boss.
It used to be that the U.S. economists pointed to all of this and said, yeah, sure, you have universal medical care while we have children who can't get antibiotics, you are home with your families while we are putting in more hours than the Japanese, and you are getting tan on Spain's beaches five weeks out of every year while we don't dare take those pitiful few days of vacation we have. But your unemployment is high and not coming down.
Well, guess what: This is basically going to be a jobless recovery. Maybe some of Europe's prices can't compete with the U.S., but nobody can compete with India, and even India can't compete with China, or government-sponsored slave labor in Burma. Your job is ending up in Asia just like everybody else's. And do you really think that it is going to come back in our lifetime? Fool.
Tell me again why you are spending all that time at work while those Europeans are at home after 35 hours and playing with their children. What is the justification? More to the point, what is wrong with you? Why are you supporting, maybe even defending this system instead of trying to change it?
Remember when Tyler Durden told you that you are not your job?
Fight Club, book (which this quote is from) and film, are so hated by the establishment not because of the violence, but because the CEOs and such ilk are deathly afraid that the American middle class will figure out that it isn't worth it -- that the Europeans (though politically they might be loathsome cowards), might have the right idea here. That you don't need to by the latest gadget, follow the newest fad, buy the newest gizmo. They might decide that quality of life is more important than blowing their paycheck on crap just to keep the GDP up by one more decimal point. They might decide they don't want to be bombarded with ads morning, noon, and night.They might not want to make their carreers the center of their lives anymore. They might not want to define themselves by the job they have. They might not be content anymore to start living only after they have stopped working.
It's you choice, really. The U.S. is just about the only real democracy on the planet (ironically, all of those Europeans are living in republics). You can change the system, and get this country's priorities straight -- once you have gotten yours straight.
Hey, we won't be alone for long:
a /P 62115.asp?Printer
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/invest/extr
Management, legal, sales, and even regular office staffers will be joining our ranks soon!
What I think is funny is how Management people in particular have seen themselves as invulnerable as they happily gobbled up bonus after bonus for doing the layoff dirty work of the even higher-up than themselves. The thing is, when there's nobody left to manage they too are out the door. Surely, they saw this coming?
I had lunch with my girlfriend's dad the other week where he was in full silverback glory:
"I don't know anything about computers," he said, looking squarely down his nose at me, "I just run the IT department for the whole corporation."
Maybe not for much longer, y'old fart!
I've made the same realization. Good tech jobs requiring what used to be not-so-popular skills and paid 50-60k were everywhere. Now it seems everyone and their dog can write code and the employers know that -- no more 50-60k jobs.
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.
I was out of work for a while when everything went under. Actually, I was out of work twice, once right at the end of 2000 and once in late 2001. The first time was because a major corporation decided to trim the fat and clear out an assload of consultants. I don't blame them for that, and I wasn't really sorry to go. The second time, I was working for an HMO provider, and they went belly-up because of shady accounting practices. Neither time was really related to the bubble.
However, the first time I was only out of work for a month, and the second time for about three months. During the inbetween times I kept studying software development, cleaning up my resume, and tossing it off. In the end, I got those new jobs because I actually had the skills necessary for "senior"-level positions.
This guy's resume is exactly the kind I walk away from. He's floated from language to language, technology to technology, and doesn't have a mastery of any of them. I won't go into specifics, but this looks exactly like a guy that doesn't learn anything he doesn't pick up from his current job. One job leads to another only by virtue of what odd jobs his former employer required him to do. A single one-off project in language X produces a marketable skill? I've been doing server-side Java development for 7 years and the market is still a tough nut to crack.
Learn how to do something (software development or tech writing, for example) and learn how to do it really well..the jobs will follow.
A friend of mine, still living at home at the age of 29, got laid off from a major entertainment firm over two years ago. Got a six-month severance package, with benefits, AND unemployment insurance. Decided to wait a couple of months to really look for a job. Then the Sept 11, 2001 attacks really finished off the job market. Look, everyone's free to live their life as they see fit, but someone who collects that much money and doesn't seem to care about working is crapping on everyone that got a measly package and WANTS to work. He's even turned his nose up at fairly decent paying temp work ($15-$20) an hour, because it "wasn't what he wanted to do." So he's hurting his own chances of getting another job with a HUGE gap in his employment history. And setting himself up to not have the resources to start a family and retire well. He doesn't realize that these are peak earning years for us. In effect, he's retired at the age of 29 with not much in the way of assets. I'm sure he'll be working well into his 70's...
Look, you want a simple life, go get it. You want a short week, go for it. You want a 35 hour job and can't get one, start your own business and see if you can provide one.
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-$20/month.
All this meddling destroys economic growth, and is killing those of us willing to work 60-100 hours/week greating the economic engine that the rest of you live off of.
Alex
he said he had roommates. In some cities, rent is cheap even in the nice areas. If you have 2 or 3 roommates, you can find a 3 or 4 bedroom house or apartment that is quite afordable. Owning a house also helps, which would eliminate the need to pay rent (though other expenses would probably make up for this difference).
#!/
Boy can I relate to this one.. When I was unemployed I lost 30 lbs. I think from just sheer worrying about getting another job, increased activity around the house, and stress. Now that I am back to work I quickly put the weight back on, but being unemployed has taught me quite a few lessons,
1. SAVE!! (and I dont mean 50$ here and there) Hundreds of dollars or more a month if possible. You will need it if you are ever out of work for a long period of time. I just payed off my car so I am going to take every penny of that payment and put it in savings every month.
2. Unemployment doesnt pay shit
3. Its very easy to get used to living and eating well. Buy generic all the time if you can. Its just as good in most cases and every penny counts.
4. In this economy its not a matter of If a rainy day is going to come, its WHEN a rainy day comes.
While reading this article, which is really good, by the way, I clicked on the "resume" link and glanced at it. I figured he was a dot-com generation guy who had gotten out of school and started working for six-figured salaries until his various employers started showing up on f**kedcompany.com. You know, the same old story of the IT workers who didn't how much they had until they lost it. But Holy Astronauts, Batman! This guy worked on the friggin' APOLLO program. He worked at NASA from 1967-1971 (the year I was born).
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.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
As a student one of the most important things I've learned is getting up early. That is, not sleeping in. Getting up by 8am every day makes me more productive than I would have ever guessed. Any later than that, and my day is toast. It's strange.
;) Seriously, getting up early makes a big difference. Even when I'm fartin around on my computer. I though hackin code was all about stayin up late - it's all about gettin up early! It's just a matter of self-control. You're workin on somethin and you just wanna keep goin - but it's that much better with a fresh mind in the early morning. Some problems I've spent hours on the night before I'll wake up the next day and solve in 5 minutes. It's crazy.
An even better combination is getting up bloody early and going to the gym. My gym opens at 6:30am, and I'm there when the doors open. A jog and some good stretching is a great way to get fired up for the day. Some weights too, if I have time. I did this in the summer before work too. Makes my day much better.
I even did it when I was home from school and before I started work. You'd be surprised at how nice mornings can be.
Whatever you do, don't sleep in! (well, maybe on the weekends once in a while
Try it!
-kidlinux.
This article is mostly dead-on, but misses the mark in two respects on the loyalty question.
In the first place, it's wrong to say that companies are loyal to their Boards of Directors, or shareholders. The fact is that companies are loyal to nothing whatsoever, except possibly to the neurotic personal needs of their executives and managers. If companies were loyal to their boards or shareholders we wouldn't see the gross mis-management and poor corporate governance that is all too common.
In the second place, employees should not just not be loyal, they should be actively disloyal, in the sense that every employee should be in the job market all the time. Seriously.
That means keeping your resume up-to-date, and reading the job ads in your field (print and on-line) regularly. If you see something that looks particularly interesting, don't be shy about applying for it, and if you get an interview go for it. It'll keep your interview skills in shape, and you never know--it might be your dream job. Don't worry about wasting anyone's time: as mentioned by other posters, companies advertise jobs they have no intention of filling, so turn-about is fair play.
Furthermore, you should be fairly up-front with your current employer about this attitude after you've been with them for a year or so. You don't have to make a big deal of it--just mention casually now and then that you've seen that Company X is hiring (it helps if Company X is a well-known competitor, as your boss won't know if you're keen and keeping an eye on the market or thinking of jumping ship.)
No matter who you work for, you are your own boss. You are the only boss who will ever care about your career, your goals, your well-being or the well-being of your family.
After moving into the tech world from academia seven years ago, I've had five jobs. I jumped ship twice, companies folded twice, and I'm currently running my own business after a period of unemployment resulting from the last company folding, so I know whereof I speak. Both as a developer and a manager I pursued the policy I've outlined above.
As a manager, I encouraged members of my team to do the same--I wanted them to be able to walk in the door in the morning and ask, "What has the company done for me lately?" and be able to find an answer that would motivate them to work hard and well, which they did. Of course, part of the answer to that question is always, "Paid my salary", which is important to keep in mind.
Senior management, of course, did not like my attitude--amongst other things, they were unhappy that I insisted that every member of the development team actually take all the accrued vacation owing to them! But so long as my team kept mysteriously producing outstanding results they had to put up with it.
And equally unsurprisingly, those outstanding results did not stop half my team from being laid off (over my objections) a few months prior to the company folding up.
--Tom
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
If you liked this article, then definitely must read Juliet B. Schor's "The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don't Need." She makes a great argument that Americans, by default, are caught in a see-want-borrow-buy-repay cycle.
The problem is marketers who traditionally appealled to the top 5% of income earners (e.g. Tommy Hillfiger) now direct their marketing efforts to all 100% of households. Whereas 95% of households never knew who Hillfiger was 20 years ago, everybody does does. And now that we see, we want, and borrow (because we're not among the top 5% of income earners) to buy, and repay. The repay part is a kicker. This means working longer hours in a job you may not even like because you have to pay back you $15,000 in credit card debt.
Ms. Schor makes a very well-researched article that explores the different influences that contribute to the desire to purchase. She also includes a discussion of how some people have bucked the trend to more by going less. She calls these folks, like the author above, "downshifters."
As a freshly minted "downshifter," I highly recommend the read.
America is too big now to be able to control our own govt. Look at what they are doing--cramming in every possible immigrant so as to continue to lower wages and increase real estate values, etc. With so fragmented a populace, how can we possibly fight back against our own govt?
eat shiat and bark at the moon
From his GWB rant: "Both men know that the Clinton presidency was the country's longest and most profound sustained era of growing optimism, wealth, opportunity, and hope!"
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.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
In my last job as a basic computer application instructor at a community college, I saw MANY people who were going back to school at age 50+ to 'learn how to use computers' so they could get a job. That nice nest-egg they thought they could live on disappeared with the stockmarket crash.
It is truely pathetic to see these people who worked most of thier life, saved, invested, did everything right, looking for some menial position to pay the mortgage.
Funny, many of these same people will support GWBush & Co. to the end.
There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
The article describes, sometimes in painstaking detail (and with a number of information-dense graphs), that this demographic issue is inexorable, and that the most serious problems will be in the skilled job market. Those retiring booomers are going to leave gaps in the job market the size of Meteor Crater, and those of us in Generations X and Y will have some sense of job security again.
The authors provide a list of the jobs that will be highest in demand - and their comments in the text indicate that the shortage of tech workers in the late 1990s was nothing compared to what's coming.
Here's some of the list:
Systems Analyst - approx 60% growth
DBA - approx 65% growth
Network/System Admin - approx 80% growth
Software engineers - between 85-100%
So hang in there.
If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law;
Dvorkin, like so many on both ends of the pollitical spectrum, places the blame for his predicament not on his own shoulders, but at the feet of the opposing pollitical party. Get real! 90% of all polliticians give nothing more than token lip service to the plight of the un- or under-employed.
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.
"Creativity is allowing ones self to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep" - Scott Adams
"The Surprising Benefits of Not Having a Girlfriend"
* No one complains about your lack of showers! (well, nobody important that is.)
* More money available for important things!
* No risks for pregancy!
* Plenty of room in bed!
* No need for showing your feelings!
Actually, manufacturing jobs have been hit harder than programmers. Imagine if Clinton had tried to mute the boom. The howls from the pundits would have been deafening. In hindsight, accounting standards should have been better enforced. It's a no-brainer what Bush should have done. It's a demand-side problem, a demand-side problem deserves a demand-side solution. Tax-cuts geared towards consumers would have made far more sense than capital gains guts and dividend taxes reduced. Creating demand should have been the goal. Bush should have cuts taxes significantly towards middle and lower income earners. We haven't been facing a problem with productivity and companies have a glut of infrastructure. Companies didn't need more money to invest in growth, they needed to get people and companies to buy more of their products and services.
But could you work up a solid shit while on your Ramen diet?
Web Hosting Reviews
Making a comparatively huge wage for years, then spending a while unemployed before making another (comparatively) huge wage
So you are in the 5% that makes a huge wage ? what about the rest ?
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.
But I did not say Communism is better. I said that in the long run, Capitalism is as bad as Communism. Since you don't seem to understand anything, let me explain it to you:
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
I am living outside the US. But I have lived in the UK for a year. I am in a position to judge clearer than you the benefits of a mixed system, where Capitalism is not so aggressive. I can go to work and be really open to people, much more than when in US. In the 8 hours that I work, I can steal a couple of hours once in a while and do nothing (because I am tired!!!), and I know that my colleague will not say it to the boss, because he is not an antagonist to me!!! The company can't fire me so easily without paying me some amount of money!!! and if I am fired, I don't have to go through the agony of not having health care!!!
Is it just coincidence that the poor people in the US are millions ? is it just a coincidence that you are a trigger-happy society ? which country has the most gun-related incidents ? which country has the highest rates in criminality ? is it a coincidence that more than 1 million people have been added to the class of poor people in the last year ? is it a coincidence that after the .net fiasco, there were huge scandals like Enron ? what did these
managers do ? they stole money!!!
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
But you don't understand that it's the production cost that allows this situation to rise, not the actual profit!!! For example, the pair of Air Jordans that one wears and cost you 100 bucks cost 5 bucks for Nike to make in a sweat shop!!! And that's true for other companies as well, like Reebok, Spalding etc... with asians working 16 hours in a day, with wages like 1 dollar, at shitty places, without proper air conditioning....yeah, this type of Capitalism is really good!!! wake up, buddy...
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.
This is because of the following reasons: