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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
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.
Paul Anderson
"I drank WHAT?!" -- Socrates
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...
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."
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 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
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.
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.
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.
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
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