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."

Comments

Another Benefit of Being Unemployed

[inertia187]

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.

Re:Another Benefit of Being Unemployed

[Billly Gates]

I was more of a slashdot addict when I was employed. Now I have more time on my hands to do other things then sit here all day.

Re:Another Benefit of Being Unemployed

[KingRamsis]

the other day I caught myself telling a coworker "you are trolling the meeting you should be mod'ed down" ofcourse I got a blank empty void look on his face.

Re:Another Benefit of Being Unemployed

[andyt]

Uh.. for the sake of those of us who haven't quite learned every new acronym, what is FP? :[

I am living the dream. Finally I can, without fear of being offtopic, do what I have always dreamed of but have never dared...

FIRST POST!!!!!!!!111!!111!1!!!!!!

I can now die happy.
Thank you :-)

The guy has no job and you say...

[JusTyler]

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! ;)

Odd Todd

[corz]

The greatest of all unemployed people will always be Odd Todd.

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 :)

Been there, am doing that

[JayBlalock]

Laid off in April. The usual. Have to say, pretty much everything on this list rings really true. Although in my case, the biggest benefit was:

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.

Re:Been there, am doing that

[JayBlalock]

But ultimately, it IS all about food. We're plotting to get food, one way or another. (and shelter, and sex)

The problem, ultimately, is that as we moved away from the insular village\tribal life, the idea of people's contributions to society became more and more abstract. At its heart, the most romantic definition of money is that it's a symbol of how much you have put into society. (I know, I know) Without trying to slip into some idealized Marxist fantasy of a world-tribal culture where everyone does exactly what work they want, and is rewarded with a decent lifestyle in return, money is pretty much the closest you can get.

Those people who have the ability to make money entirely on their own are, ultimately, in the minority. Not bragging here - I have a real problem with self-motivation that's a hinderance. Many people simply don't have the resources to work for themselves. But more than that, as our world gets more streamlined, more efficient, there simply are not enough "fun" jobs to go around. Once we were a huge nation of millions of farmers, now we have corporate owned farms with thousands of workers.

But you can't get rid of it without getting rid of all the infrastructure we take for granted - power, the Internet, running water, etc etc. Every modern convenience creates a new category of menial drudge work that SOMEONE has to do.

It's pretty much an unsolvable problem. If you have the resources to get out from under the corporate thumb, then more power to you. But for our world to function as it does, large numbers of people have to stay put.

Yeah right.

[sakusha]

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.

Re:Yeah right.

[Triv]

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

The reality of popcorn for the jobless

[JusTyler]

Speaking of things you don't need, what about that tub of buttered popcorn

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.

Irony deficient

[watchful.babbler]

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.

Re:Yep, the benefits of you being unemployed...

[DigiShaman]

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.

Kind of unimaginative....

[puppetman]

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.

Re:Kind of unimaginative....

[Yaztromo]

What about, ...

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 (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.

unemployment

[Unominous Coward]

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!!

For perks of being unemployed without the guilt...

[goodbye_kitty]

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.

Who said the Slashdot editors weren't smart ?

[tmark]

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 !

"simple living"

[penguin7of9]

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.

Bitter much?

[The Tyro]

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.

Re:A thinly veiled political rant, actually

[be-fan]

Here is where you are wrong. I'd rather that a guy like this spends his time improving himself and his skills, so he can be even more productive when the economy does improve, than that he waste his time flipping burgers at Macdonalds.

Everything this man says is true.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

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, ... 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."

Anyway, I wish the best of luck to anyone else out there in the same situation.

Re:A thinly veiled political rant, actually

[driftingwalrus]

But what if you have a lot of technical skills? MacDonalds won't hire you because they're concerned that you'll run off the first instance that a better job shows up! Of course you would run off, but it means that you don't get the job. They just look at the resume and say, "What is wrong with this guy that he's applying here?!".

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

[Golias]

I've been working shit jobs for two whole years now. Temping, laboring, substitute teaching. If you have any kind of education and experience at all, I assure you that you still feel unemployed when you are that badly underemployed.

Were it not for my sporadic tech consulting jobs, I would probably be forced to throw the last 15 years of my life out the window, and start pursuing a new career.

Thankfully, the job market is gradually improving. I've had more interviews for programming jobs in the last 2 months than I did in the previous 22, and I'm expecting an offer sheet in the mail from at least one of them this week. 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.

Unemployed? Can't find a job? Try evolving.

[protogoogoo69]

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.

What I "Learned" from being out of work

[SupahVee]

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.

Yeah it sucks...

[Grimster]

Ok unemployment sucks, but this article is.. not that good but I digress.

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 :) 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.

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.

Depressing read.

[zapp]

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.

Company != family

[seichert]

The real benefit of this recession is that more and more people are starting to realize the difference between company and family. Your family members love you and will remain loyal to you in good times and bad. They have a vested interest in your success and happiness. They want to see you succeed at work and enjoy the fruits of your labor. The company you work for does not love you and is not loyal to you. That does not mean that individuals at your company are not compassionate and loving. However, they are not your family members.

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.

Re:What kinda 'diot would want to be unemployed?

[Ohreally_factor]

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.

Re:A thinly veiled political rant, actually

[Phroggy]

But at least it's income.

It doen't pay nearly as well as unemployment.

Re:Yes but could you actually quit?

[cbdavis]

If I had 5 years cash I'd be gone in an instant.
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.

You do understand..

[composer777]

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.

Re:Why be loyal? Your employer is scum.

[_Sprocket_]

Several years ago, someone posted an interesting observation on this site:

Your employer owns your job. You own your career.

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:Simple truths

[NerveGas]

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

Americans who have work work too much

[Nice2Cats]

(I realize that my subject line might sound cynical to those out of work; sorry for that.)

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?

Advertising has these people chasing cars and clothes they don't need. Generations have been working in jobs they hate, just so they can buy what they really don't need.

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.

Re:A thinly veiled political rant, actually

[constantnormal]

You apparently failed to read the guy's resume.

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.

Leave the government out of it...

[alexhmit01]

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

Re:A thinly veiled political rant, actually

[VT_hawkeye]

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.

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

[siskbc]

And it closes with a really stupid anti-Bush link. Sigh. Bring a salt shaker if you're going to read it all.

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

[Xerithane]

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.

If you have to worry about it I have three suggestions for you:

1. Life insurance, accidental death.
   
2. New line of work.
   
3. Stop worrying.

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.