What caught my eye is the fact that the author is surrounded by well paid people in the same field but he is not leveraging the Network that is at his disposal because he doesn't want to tell them the truth. To me this is the key of the issue. Asking for help may bring you the help you need, while not asking at all definitely won't bring you anything.
The author acknowledges this paradox at the bottom of the article:
"That’s where the irony lies. I know that the way you get jobs is by getting out there and telling people you’re looking. Using your acquaintances as a network and strengthening social connections is the best way to eventually land employment.
One day I’ll work up the courage. For now, my desperation is a quiet one, hiding behind school soccer pickups and the glow of a computer screen. For now, it’s still my secret."
> That’s when the distraction starts. I promise myself, just a quick glance at Twitter to see what’s going on in the world, and then I look up and it’s 1:15 in the afternoon. Twitter is my heroin — it’s endless content, and if I’m bored by one tweet, I just go on to the next one.
I think the danger of unlimited news is understated. The addiction is as bad as other forms of drugs. Ok, maybe not as bad as heroin, but I don't think we are far form that.
Earlier this year, I read about the book Deep Work in a comment thread on HN. I bought the book and read it pretty quickly (it's an easy read) and it really resonated with me.
The author, Cal Newport wrote a piece a couple of days ago on digital minimalism that I think the author of the vox article should read:
My interpretation is that by compulsively refreshing Twitter (or HN), you're giving away your most valuable assets - time and attention. I'm working on spending my time more wisely and reading Deep Work is already paying off for me.
I agree. I used to browse the front page of Reddit endlessly, especially on days off despite only caring about a few subreddits. Now that I consume them through my Feedly, I'm on Reddit much less. I have trouble trying to consume the Internet when I'm bored, which is good because that makes more time for reading books that help my career.
He's not an engineer though, at least from what I read in the article. He wrote:
> I was still able to get customer support position quickly, learning skills on the job
> My background in IT and customer support, both considered the bottom rung at most tech companies, meant that I was expendable
So it seems he didn't really have higher qualifications, working in customer support, which is nowadays often outsourced and probably underpaid.
I feel sympathy for the author, but at the same time one thing that I miss from the article is whether he tried to raise his qualifications in any way. Did he try other market segments? Picked up any courses? Broadened his education in any way in the time he was unemployed? The market is saturated with unqualified workers so it's really not so shocking that people are having hard time finding work.
> I feel sympathy for the author, but at the same time one thing that I miss from the article is whether he tried to raise his qualifications in any way. Did he try other market segments? Picked up any courses? Broadened his education in any way in the time he was unemployed?
Raising qualifications usually costs money. He's tried when he had work. When he didn't it sounds like money was so tight and stress to high that he couldn't afford it and was focused on the immediate need to get another job. Strategic thinking and action is actually a bit of a luxury.
He wrote:
> Often, the jobs I could get were so disposable that I was never given responsibilities that could help me grow into a promotion, no matter how hard I pushed.
> Even though my wife works a steady job, money has been tight — we’ve gone through periods where we’ve had only $30 to support a family of four for a whole week. Slipping into neurotic budgeting mode has become a well-rehearsed drill at this point. We cancel [all of the things]...
> [W]e’re still living paycheck to paycheck. We’ve cashed out most of our savings accounts, including retirement, and haven’t been able to replenish them.
> Every day involves endlessly scrolling through a list of jobs on Indeed.com and applying here and there with full knowledge that 99 percent of the time, I’ll never hear back.
Browsing twitter from 9AM to 1:15PM (an activity he mentions he does) costs the same amount of money as working through codeacademy.com or learn python the hard way.
This is very easy to say from the privileged position of being a developer. My fiancée is a teacher. She did CodeAcademy. Finding a job just from Code Academy training is not as easy as it seems. The problem is cyclical: you need experience to get a programming job, but you need a programming job to gain experience.
I'm not defending the OP; I'm just clarifying that programming jobs aren't as easy to obtain as people might think.
I know a number of people who have gotten programming jobs just by learning on the internet (or General Assembly in one case) and then building cool projects in lieu of experience. I'd hire such a person tomorrow (if you are in Delhi or Pune, hit me up) if they showed up.
The steps are codeacademy/whatever -> cool project -> hired. You can't skip step 2.
I think this is especially true in the Bay Area as lots of companies are looking for unicorns in a herd of cattle. There's nothing wrong with cattle, but places will spend 6 figures trying to recruit that 10x unicorn instead of training people.
Speaking as someone who's hired in the past, most of the CodeAcademy/bootcamp grads we turned away were turned away because they didn't have anything to show us except things they did in the program. Doing CA/completing a bootcamp tells us they know stuff, but the portfolio was an important piece because it told us they could apply what they learned. Just wanted to pass that on to anyone who is doing/considering one of these things. (Bonus points for creating unique apps that interviewers can talk to you about -- I can't even tell you how many Twitter clones I've seen.)
> Every day involves endlessly scrolling through a list of jobs on Indeed.com and applying here and there with full knowledge that 99 percent of the time, I’ll never hear back.
That means he is literally wasting time, which he could use in other, more productive ways. Sorry, but if I would be 99 percent sure that something I do will bring me 0 benefits, I would stop and do something else.
If you don't have money to raise your qualifications you can still apply for unpaid practice in many places. It will not help with finances immediately, but will make looking for job easier afterwards.
Perhaps he's wasting time in some sense, but then in another, that's how quite a lot of people end up getting a job. They apply for hundreds of them, and that get lucky with one or two offers afterwards. Yeah, it's unlikely they'll get any particular one (because hey, competition is high), but jobs, interviews, auditions, etc usually kind of work on the expectation that 99% of attempts will be fruitless.
He says exactly how this sounds. Seems this guy is not doing everything in his power to change his situation and he never really took step back and re-thinked his strategy.
>Raising qualifications usually cost money. He's tried when he had work. When he didn't it sounds like money was so tight and stress to high that he couldn't afford it and was focused on the immediate need to get another job. Strategic thinking and action is actually a bit of a luxury.
Codecademy is for free and can teach you to code and earn some money within 1-2 months time if you can commit yourself. And that is just one example of rising qualifications for free. You do not need a degree when you are a freelancer.
The problem with customer support is that people can stay doing it until they get automated out of existence, during which time the writing on the wall is clear. Do they apply for other vacancies in the company or do things such as improve the documentation that the customers need? In my experience there are plenty that do not, they roll on to thr next temp/customer service job to get stuck in that groove.
But would his wife be able to find a job there? Moving across the country so that he could get a low paying job, while his wife instead ends either unemployed or with a much worse job than the one she currently has is hardly an optimal solution. By the sound of it they are making just about enough money to get by as it is, so uprooting the entire family in search of something else is a pretty high risk strategy,
Maybe he should move, find something, and let the wife follow once that situation stabilizes. I know a number of people who's father worked in the gulf and came home twice a year - they turned out just fine. My dad lives in Vegas (that's where his family is) and works in CA, driving across the desert twice a week.
My most recent hire moved from Chennai to Pune for work. Trump wants to build a giand wall of ice and magic to stop Mexicans from moving to a country where the jobs are, in spite of them not speaking the language or being legally permitted to work.
There are plenty of options. It sounds like this guy is just unwilling to do them, just as he's unwilling to do manual labor.
An honest title: "9M American men in prime working age are unwilling to find work, and I'm one of them."
Or "A subset (of unknow size) of 9M American men in prime working age find that not working is currently their best option, but cannot admit this to anyone (even themselves) due to the social stigma attached, and it's doing terrible things to their psyche".
I bet if this dude got up tomorrow and declared to the world "I am, for the time being, an unemployed stay at home dad and not ashamed of this" that he would not only feel a lot better about himself, but his family life would end up being a lot happier as well. Who knows, perhaps his friends won't even end up shunning him.
He's got a bunch of kids and a wife. Moving might not make sense. Kids will cause more stress if they're unhappy in a new location, and how do you move the current sole bread winner? She'd have to find a job in the same area as him, meaning you're looking for two jobs instead of one.
Also proximity to the in laws is worth something too.
> Also proximity to the in laws is worth something too.
They also have a non-portable living situation.
> Since moving to my mom’s old house after she switched to a retirement home, our living costs are considerably cheaper than the mortgage we once paid.
To anyone recommending different approaches that could help this guy get a job - look at it from the other side.
There are 9 million unemployed men such as this one (according to the article). This doesn't mean that there are 9 million job openings out there, just waiting for someone with the right resume to show up. Sure, there are probably some, but mostly, this simply means there are 9 million more workers than jobs.
Educating the unemployed will only help individuals beat someone else in the competition of scoring a job, it won't help unemployment as a whole.
This guy openly admits he could find work, but doesn't due to his pride. There are lots of jobs out there that Americans (like this guy) "just won't do". He's in the bay area, I know that Handy and Uber are hiring. It won't be hard for him to find domestic labor for $12/hour.
After das trumpenfuhrer builds his wall and deports the illegals, there will be about 10M job openings.
Lets be realistic and acknowledge that this guy will refuse to take every single one of those 10M jobs.
There is nothing embarrassing about manual work. When I was 17, at one point, I sold toilet paper, on the street, in a third world country, to get some cash for my PC. Various jobs netted me half the cash for my PC over 6 months. My parents could scrape for the rest.
486dx-120mhz.
Right now I'm in a comfortable seniority, renting a townhouse ( Toronto is too expensive to buy) and having a family. The c++ projects keep coming, I don't have to work with anything other than my fingers. Life is good.
Would I, if anything happens, go back to selling toilet paper or digging cannals to survive and strive? Without a doubt.
They raised me to believe there is no shame in manual work, and I still hold that true.
We were traveling in Central America and we passed a mansion on a hill: the biggest, nicest house we'd seen in the country. We asked the driver who lived there, thinking it was perhaps the president's mansion.
He said: "That's the house of the Toilet Paper King."
I've cleaned toilets and programmed computers. I've worked the night shift in a hotel and I've sweated over machines in a sweltering factory. I've sold credit cards and advertising.
Five years I opened a bookstore. Just before I had a conversation with someone who knew my tech background, who was shocked that I would consider entering a dead end industry. I must know future was in tech? Kindle, Amazon, the Internet -- weren't bookstores dead?
Five years in and I make more than I ever did programming. YMMV, but the lesson I learned is do what YOU think is best and don't be ashamed to do what you need to do to get by.
Furthermore, while there may be "dead end jobs", don't ever believe you're in a "dead end life". Stuck working as a oyster diver? Write a best-selling book. Stuck in a patent office? Win a Nobel prize. Stuck in telemarketing? Become a famous actor. You're more than where you are right now.
I'm sure this sounds like heresy to some of you, but you don't have to outrun the bear: you only have to find a temporary local maximum, not an enduring global one. Perfection is the enemy of the good.
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” -- Oscar Wilde
The references, in order, are to Frank Herbert, Albert Einstein and Johhny Depp. The point is that famous, successful people don't always start out that way. Just trying to give people some hope.
POP: I read that you did telemarketing. How was that?
DEPP: [laughs] I marketed pens—on the phone. But the beauty of the gig was that you had to call these strangers and say, "Hi, how ya doing?" You made up a name, like, "Hey, it's Edward Quartermaine from California. You're eligible to receive this grandfather clock or a trip to Tahiti." You promise them all these things if they buy a gross of pens. It was just awful. But I actually think that was the first experience I had with acting.
Would I, if anything happens, go back to selling toilet paper or digging cannals to survive and strive? Without a doubt.
As might very well the guy in the article. The 'problem' is that his survival is in no way at stake. He's looking at the difference between a quite comfortable life and a more comfortable life. When those are the stakes then it's a lot harder to build up that motivation.
>I don't have to work with anything other than my fingers. Life is good.
>Would I, if anything happens, go back to selling toilet paper or digging cannals to survive and strive? Without a doubt.
One thing manual work taught me is how to really work. It also taught me that I don't want to do manual work for my entire life, so it ended up being great motivation.
My parents taught me the same way. I have worked many manual labor jobs, and I wouldn't blink an eye to go back if I had to. I wouldn't enjoy it but I have a family to support and I do what I must
I wouldn't enjoy it but I have a family to support and I do what I must
What if you didn't have to support your family, since your wife could to that for you? Would you still feel the same drive to do so if it wasn't a "must"?
Personally I feel that that is the crux of the article. He knows he can get a job, but he also knows he doesn't need to, and the sort of jobs he could get won't make a huge difference to their bottom line, and he's having a hard time reconciling all these things to himself.
Feeling "useful" is subjective but can influence one's self esteem a great deal.
On the other end, not having choices can also be motivational. For example, surviving on a single slice of pizza every day ( because it's tax free if it's a slice) will do wonders for motivation once you have a job.
So, it depends, happiness is subjective, but choices matter.
We discussed this. Renting is precisely for that purpose. With one kid, and planning for one more, we want to be mobile if need be. Family comes first, area second.
I think this focus in corporate america and startups on "winner take all" and only hire elite is hurting the economy. Because we've allowed monopolies for so long and they've multiplied, it's great for companies and investors, horrible for the economy at large.
I agree. Capitalism is by far the best system, but its glory days (in the U.S.) have passed us by. I drove through the downtown area of my hometown this past weekend and tried to convince my wife that it was once a vibrant business district. When I was a kid in the 80's, every storefront was filled with local businesses bearing family names. Today there is only a collection of small-town dive bars, a tattoo shop and a gas station.
Of course there is a Target, Walmart, Home improvement center & large furniture store out on the highway that squeezed the life out of the family businesses a long time ago. It's really sad.
One reason for this is that the market heavily favors this and the outcomes are highly dependent on this sort of behavior. Technology makes winner take all scenarios possible, not just monopoly though that's a part of it. Capital runs after the winner takes all facilitated by technology.
look at smtp/pop or http or html all perfectly none winner take all tech which works pretty darn well yet everything is moving to winner take all because investors make more money.
A: in 7 years he couldve gone back to school to learn something else
B: most smaller schools I know waive tuition if your unemployed.
C: What's this idea of "stopped looking for work" ? And people say all of us minorities are the ones who want handouts. I've supported a family of 3 on $36k. In New York City. It wasn't easy but I had to do what I had to do.
Once you've reached that point, you can no longer afford to have pride. You have to do whatever it takes.
You have to reach out to everyone you know for a job. You have to accept people's pity and take whatever you can get.
If you don't have marketable skills, you need to switch to a low-ethics industry - It's less competitive. Find the jobs are considered wrong or unethical and which no one else wants to do - Those pay the best.
When I was going through a hard time, I worked for a gambling company and made a ton of money. Making money feels good.
My philosophy is that if you're a poor person with no savings, you shouldn't worry about how your work affects society; it's not your responsibility - Let those who are wealthy worry about that; they are the only ones who actually CAN do something about that. You do whatever it takes to get the money into your bank account. If society gets worse, then you have to get worse with it.
If society degrades to the point that people are killing each other, you have to be prepared to fight for your survival.
I am sympathetic to the author. I know a few people who are very strong in the Humanities, are well-read, and have a mastery of the English language, but can't find a Humanities related job due to market saturation. My wife falls into this category. She would be hopeless at learning a "marketable" skill like HTML and JavaScript. Asking these people to serve as a cashier is a waste of literary talent. I don't have any great ideas on what to tell them. There needs to be a better solution than go work as a cashier or go learn JavaScript.
> Asking these people to serve as a cashier is a waste of literary talent.
How is it a waste of literary talent? To be crass, if they're currently producing something society doesn't value/want to pay for, how is being a cashier a waste?
I've met a lot of people who "couldn't" find a job.
What they usually mean is "they can't find a job in the area they want, in the industry they want, doing the kind of work they want, at the salary they want, working for someone else."
This is a highly overconstrained search. If / when people loosen one or more of these constraints, they're opportunities open right up.
Like everyone, I prefer to get exactly what I want.
...but it doesn't always play out that way.
When I've needed work and my dream job isn't there, I've worked in garbage industries, on crappy projects, at places that are long commutes, etc., and I've been swamped with work for 25 years.
I've met a lot of managers who "couldn't" find anyone to hire.
What they usually mean is "they can't find an employee in the location they want, with the credentials they want, with the skills they want, at the salary they want, who's been trained by someone else."
This is a highly overconstrained search. If/when employers loosen one or more of these constraints, candidates show right up.
Like everyone, I prefer to get exactly what I want.
...but it doesn't always play out that way.
When I've needed staff and my dream candidate isn't there, I've hired imperfect people that I had to train, raise the rate I was willing to pay, put together attractive relocation packages, etc., and I've never had a problem hiring in 20 years as a manager.
(Both parties in an employment relationship may not have equal bargaining power, but I take issue with the implication that employers have no agency and workers no power.)
EDIT: A point I wanted to include or imply, but couldn't really shoehorn into this inversion, is that just as employers set bounds on what they offer employees, workers set bounds on what offers they accept. Sometimes it's rational to hold out for the right role through an extended period of unemployment (while focusing instead on finding the right role and acquiring or sharpening marketable skills) than to take underemployment that leaves you with no time for improving your position.
I have also seen HR departments so slow, hiring procedures so onerous, that it is obvious the company doesnt want to actually hire anyone. "Jobs" sit unfilled for months/years until someone wonders why the position was ever created.
I'm an attorney specializing in compliance and privacy, so most all of my work is 'consulting'. But I run into companies every day who enjoy being constantly understaffed. It's the fashion in IT atm. A company without dozens of open positions isnt considered 'lean' and so they keep many open just so they can say they are there. (Some hr depts probably also think open positions are a headge against downsizing. They arent.)
This wouldn't work unless the employer we are talking about is a software/tech company where they can hire remote/setup a office with very less money. On the other side, people who work on industries which are located on certain areas has to move there to be placed.
Yeah except the writer lives in silicon valley already. You would think his location is ideal but this speaks to the level of age discrimination in our society. And the tremendous waste of human resources.
> this speaks to the level of age discrimination in our society.
How exactly? The author has not provided (and neither have you) any examples of how age discrimination has affected him except through vague feelings.
On the other hand, in the story alone, it's already been demonstrated that he's not really resilient in the face of adversity. Just because he gets rejected from an interview, he stops looking for a job for a few weeks? That sort of attitude will get you nowhere, no matter where you are.
"There have been times where I’ve wondered if I should just get a temporary service or manual labor job...I would be too humiliated... It would be exceptionally difficult to work eight hours a day hoping with all my might that a neighbor or friend wouldn’t swing by to see me working the cash register or pumping gas."
This is a definitive example of the prideful worker effect. It's kind of crazy how our modern culture substitutes "can't" for "won't".
Meanwhile, this guy says he doesn't have skills with modern technologies and he spends 4 hours/day ("a quick glance at Twitter to see what’s going on in the world, and then I look up and it’s 1:15") procrastinating rather than learning those technologies. Hardly a surprise that no one wants to hire him, I certainly never would.
I'm about 4 years into my career as a software dev, but you know what I did before that? Worked a shitty manual labor job at a warehouse with shitty 13-hour days and not a lot of pay.
I rarely got to see my friends who were more successful starting their own careers. But what I did have is money to pay my rent and free time to continue learning and honing my skills.
Yeah it really sucked working in that warehouse and it was embarrassing a little bit. I used that as motivation. Fuck pride indeed.
This. I worked overnight stocking shelves in a grocery store for awhile. It sucked, but I did a good job while I looked for different work. Then I waited tables for awhile after that. All the jobs I have had have taught me various things, but the main one was motivation to not have to do those jobs.
But pride did help Butch in Pulp Fiction. He got to win the fight, keep his pride and keep the money(or even bet the other way and make bank? can't recall now).
Personally, I agree with your point of view. There is, however, something to be said for people that never settle and by force of will reshape the world around them to conform to their expectations.
There is something called survivorship bias. IT means that the selection that you happen to see is the selection that is visible, because it accidentally survived.
Steve Jobs is great an inspiring, because he did X and Y and Z and never compromised his standards.
You know what? You happen to know of Steve Jobs because everything worked out well for him.
There may very well be 20,000 other people who refused to compromise their standards...and perhaps that strategy really sucks and the other 20,000 of them went bankrupt and are working at used car lots now.
> There is, however, something to be said for people that never settle and by force of will reshape the world around them to conform to their expectations.
If by force of will I wanted to work at Google for example, I would take steps to improve my chances of making that happen. This story is not about force of will at all, but someone with low self discipline and possibly depressed (clinical depression could be a factor here and he should look into it).
He complains about lack of something to do. There is plenty to do starting with making a schedule listing things to learn for the day that will improve his chances getting the job he wants. I'm sure potential employers are looking at him asking the same questions people here are asking. You've been unemployed for 2 years and have learned what?
> There is, however, something to be said for people that never settle and by force of will reshape the world around them to conform to their expectations.
Two years of unemployment should be enough to indicate that force of will sometimes isn't enough.
This guy openly admits that he isn't expending any force of will. He's sitting at home all day reading twitter while refusing to work jobs that he thinks might lower his social status.
If you refuse to try a strategy for 2 years, that's not evidence the strategy won't work.
I'm not sure what "strategy" you're referring to. If the strategy is to "never settle and by force of will reshape the world around them to conform to their expectations", then it sounds like he's been trying that strategy. Hundreds of applications, multiple all-day interviews. That actually does seem like he's trying, or at least he's tried in the past.
What he should be trying is a new strategy, not pouring more force of will into this one.
That being said, the prideful worker effect is very real though. I remember when my mom told me how her nightshifts in the sausage factory as a student made her more humble - and I thought "what a waste - I'm going to step in high and then get really rich so I don't have to do this!".
Six years and three failed university degrees later, I started in night shifts myself in customer support because I had no other option and some guy from a mailing list had a heart for someone broke and desperate.
Fast forward another seven years and I'm not just CTO of a profitable company, but also pretty thankful of all my experience in customer support, if only for a good chunk of humility. It's really hard to overcome your initial feelings about such a "downgrade" in socioeconomic status for a chance on a new beginning/industry though, don't know if I would have dared that after 40.
> I remember when my mom told me how her nightshifts in the sausage factory as a student made her more humble
I was lucky to avoid having to work in the service industry - aside from occasionally having to work the floor at a retailer when we finished unloading/loading a truck early - but my wife worked as a server for a good long while, and we both agree that we will absolutely encourage our children to work jobs like those - aside from earning money, it teaches empathy and how to deal with difficult situations.
Even a half-time minimum wage job in Santa Clara county would bring in $11K/year. That's not a lot of money, but it would help tremendously if they're so strapped for cash that they are having trouble buying food occasionally. $11K/year would also pay for quite a bit of retraining.
I've got no doubt that it would be really difficult to take a low-pay, low-skill job after working on the other end of the spectrum for decades. But after two years of no employment, it seems like the appropriate action. Two years of working as a cashier or a janitor or just about anything else looks better on a resume than two years of no employment.
But I'm also aware of the fact that I'm fortunate to have an extremely good job and I would spend a lot of time looking for a similar job before showing up at Papa John's with my resume.
I remember talking to the father of a girlfriend's roommate at the time. He used to be an executive at an engineering company in Chicago, but he didn't survive the 5th round of layoffs. When I met him, he was working at a hardware store around the corner from his house. He was unhappy with ending up doing a cashier's job when he spent his whole life working towards what he did previously. He never once said he was ungrateful for the job and he certainly didn't say it was beneath him, he just wanted to go back to what he was doing, and he clearly didn't just stay unemployed for his next opportunity. While underemployed, he kept looking an interviewing and didn't give up until someone hired him.
My point is, that you're absolutely right. It may not be the job you want right now, but it is probably the job you need right now. You can either take it and work on our next move or sit there pontificating if the perfect job will arrive next.
It is easy to advise from the sidelines but I too think the author should be looking outside the comfort zone. He should broaden his skillset while looking to sharpen those skills that are in demand.
Also I would look into some hobbies that could potentially bring in money(twitter analyst?)
If he was doing some sort of software support for obsolete programs there is a dwindling demand for such skills in US. (ahem outs...)
On the other hand being underemployed in the wrong kind of job that saps all the energy could actually be counterproductive in the longer term.
According to the article the author is applying to jobs, getting a mininum wage job would not really change that nor drastically improve family finances in SV.
Disclaimer: I speak as someone who earns roughly the US minimum wage at my official job.
yeah my dad made me learn all that shit at my uncles old house.
was worth it, if you have kids and are reading this right now, teach them to fix stuff, its a gift that keeps on giving.
Agreed 100%. Growing up we didn't have money to hire people to do this stuff for us. I learned how to paint, how to hang drywall, how to do basic plumbing, how to lay flooring (tile, carpet, and wood), and odd jobs like replacing crown molding.
I'd add basic mechanics to this list -- things like changing my own oil and replacing my own battery have saved me a TON of money and there's a satisfaction that comes from being able to fix your own stuff.
I grew up in a similar situation and thus gained the same sort of skills. However the area I grew up in is pretty depressed (Cumberland, MD for thoses who care https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-14/in-trump-...). What I'm seeing is that now we are at a point where so many people do things themselves that the service industry is also struggling. Contractors are no longer doing good business in the area as there has been a race to the bottom. If people don't fix it themselves most turn to a low cost do-it-all 'handy man'. Because everyone is trying to save a buck money doesn't really move around much and we're in a downward spiral.
Yea, my parents taught me all that stuff, and I grew up believing it to be totally normal to fix your own car and maintain your own house. It was a shock to enter the real world and find there are people who pay others to do these simple things.
Same here. It baffles me when I hear friends talking about not knowing how to do simple fixes.
As an aside, my wife and I do home improvement projects 'for fun'. Our largest so far was updating a bathroom. Youtube is amazing for learning, and worst case you end up hiring someone to fix what you broke :)
I once had some plumbers do some minor repairs around the house. Then they gave me a whopping bill. I had no idea.
But I had watched what they did, and nothing seemed that complicated. Ever since, I just do the plumbing repairs myself for a couple bucks instead of several hundred.
Obstetricians have to pay a lot for malpractice insurance because they get sued a lot. I'm sure the cost and potential of being defensive with every patient makes med students look to other specialties.
Yes and no. It can speak to structural inefficiencies in the economy. For instance, I am a Computational Scientist with a decade of experience in scientific research, publications, etc. It would be a massive waste of my training to be working in an unrelated field, for instance.
Underemployment is a very real thing, and it hurts the entire economy. We as a society have a vested interest in ensuring that highly productive roles (data science, medicine, etc.) are filled, because thelse positions are more productive and boost the aggregate economy. To say nothing of the likely higher salary and job satisfaction that comes with a 'good fit'.
That is true, but it can also mean that the education system is not teaching to the real economy. There's definitely a significant place for an education which has no reference to the economy, but that is a failure if what you're supposed to be getting is a technical education, or if your aim is to increase productivity. Just because people have spent a lot of time learning something, it doesn't mean that skill or knowledge is actually in demand. Unfortunately there's a class prejudice on technical as opposed to academic education which limits everyone involved. Ideally everyone would study some balance of academic and technical, both before starting their career, and also intermittently throughout their life. For instance, a lot of academics could do with a technical methods-based education on stats, use of IT in particular areas, and so on. And a lot of people who have done academic degrees (whether in sciences of humanities) are a long way from actually being useful in a real job. A lot of people who are in careers which are over-supplied, low-paid, etc, really should be cutting their losses and training for another career. And a lot of people who are employed, even in high positions, have deficient understanding of areas which are necessary to do their job well.
On the other hand, a lot of poorly paid careers are actually somewhat important, they're just (unfortunately) treated terribly as far as pay and conditions go. For example, journalism, teaching and caring for the elderly are all career paths/areas which are low paid and (perhaps) over supplied, but I don't think I'd want people to start leaving these jobs en masse to say, work in marketing or finance.
And on the academic side, I'm not a fan of the idea that everything should be focused on the career side. A world without the humanities might get university graduates earning more money, but it'd feel poorer in some sense at the same time.
Depends. If you never get a job in your field again because of downshifting into unskilled labour it's more of a waste than losing a year to unemployment and job search.
If you want to read more on this look up "search costs"
Great point. Better to be employed than not, and of course no job is a perfect fit.
Would be interesting to count one as being only 60% employed, in the example you give. So if you had 100 million people all employed at 60% fit, that's an 'effective' employment of 60 million. Of course, I have no idea how one might measure that.
But I am not an economist, there may be similar (or superior) measures for underemployment.
The problem is education is tailored towards particular jobs. For example if you have a degree in biology, sure you can get a job in a factory paying almost minimum wage. . . but it wouldn't pay enough for you to cover your student loans and still be able to move out. There seems to be a serious lack of jobs that let people actually have a life. . . and I'm not talking about picket fence in the suburbs dream home kind of life, I'm just talking about being able to afford basic necessities
There ARE jobs in biology. I have one. But IME, in fields like this, or creative fields like writing, graphic design, etc, students should know what they're getting into: extremely competitive fields where you can do very well if you're excellent at what you do, and can easily find yourself unemployed if you're only "good".
It's like planning on the NBA or acting as a career: a high-risk proposition that requires total dedication in exchange for an uncertain chance of success. There are some people who are OK with that.
I think the conclusion is that only very dedicated students should go into these fields, which would simultaneously reduce the supply of people trying to go into them, and reduce the number of unemployed people with these degrees. I have little sympathy for someone who chose a high-risk degree like biology and then complains it didn't work out (at least the author of the article didn't make THAT mistake). People who think they are guaranteed a job in any given field simply because they have a degree, or that all careers have equal odds of finding steady employment, are completely out of touch with reality.
Then they should stop getting degrees in industries that don't exist / have very few job openings. Get a degree in business, accounting, finance, engineering, or tech and your chances of finding a good paying job increase ten fold.
Right but you were talking about education. The guy in the article is in his 40s so the current educational mess doesn't apply to him.
I was mostly talking for people my age (20s) that went to school for bullshit degrees only to come out 80k in debt and have no hopes of finding a job because they didn't do research into the market before they went to school.
You can't ignore the fact that once you get off the merry-go-round it becomes incredibly hard to get back on. There's something to be said for holding out for a job that fits with your skills, standard of living, and expectations. If we're a land so flush with opportunity and markets are working like so many of its adherents like to claim this should work fine, right?
There have always been people who can't find a job under those conditions. The question is why that proportion of men is higher now than it was a decade or two or three ago.
Moralizing about how they're all too lazy and prideful to get a job is itself lazy. At least take the step to identify why you think the number of the prideful lazy has increased.
Also: you said you've been in the workforce for 25 years. Have you considered that not everyone shares your particular history of entering into the workforce right before an extended boom time? That's a huge difference from people who entered in 2008, only found a paying job in 2010, and as a consequence of timing are behind people who graduated a year or two later than them.
15 minutes walk and I was able to find 8 retails job offers. It was 4G upload speed that was slowing me down adding new posts...
Jobs are everywhere and I couldn't agree more: "they can't find a job in the area they want, in the industry they want, doing the kind of work they want, at the salary they want, working for someone else."
I totally understand the desperation of not wanting to "ratchet down" in one's career.
I remember being out of work for quite a bit of time. It was right out of MBA school (after working ~10 years as a software developer), I graduated into the Great Recession. Could not find anything--programming or otherwise. I started burning through savings, and was very tempted to just take any gas station job I could in order to make ends meet. It's like a game of chicken where you wait as long as you can before jumping out of the way of the truck.
Through a great miraculous fortune, at the last possible moment, I found a mid level software job and took it with zero negotiation, being about 1 month away from insolvency. It was totally beneath me in terms of qualifications but when the alternative is going broke, you take it. I was pretty close to walking into McDonalds at that point asking if they needed a janitor.
I came to say exactly this, though the article touched on a thing I've never understood: why is it embarrassing to take a job that pays? If I only had $30 for a week, I'd dig holes for minimum wage 10 hours a day if that's what it took to get out of a bad financial situation.
One thing I've heard of from other sources is that managers who offer menial jobs like burger flipping and supermarket checkout will not actually employ someone who can get a better job.
Doesn't sound like the guy in the article has tried, but he may find his situation is a lot worse when it gets to that level of desperation.
The reason is of course that if you're running a McDonalds or supermarket, you don't want a guy who you know is actively searching for something else and will leave immediately when he finds it. There's a cost to finding and training people, even if it's a lot less than finding a dev.
I'd rather die from starvation than doing that. What's next on your job bucket list: operating the gas chambers in Auschwitz? If only it would pay a little bit better?
This article scares me more than any horror movie ever has. I'm currently the sole provider for my family (thankfully, this will change in a few weeks), and even though I have a decently stable job that pays well. Losing it and not being able to get another is my worse nightmare (right after burning alive).
I know it shouldn't bother me this much. I have had 7 interviews in my life and I only failed 2 of them. One of them being back in high school when I applied to Pepsi for stocking shelves.
I know that if I would to ever actually end up in that kind of position, it would most likely be because of feared it so much that I made it happen to myself.
The silver lining as I read this is how this guy even with all the trouble has remained married provided for his children all while living in one of the most expensive areas in the world.
And with offical unemployment at 4.5% as some else has mentioned jobs may not exist for these guys given the current economic structure. The demand is not there. Hopefully, no matter how imperfect, a large infrastructure investment happens and stimulates demand for prime age male workers.
Well, HN never fails to to disappoint with the libertarian "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" and "just learn how to code" rhetoric.
A slew of survivorship bias comments that seem to focus on the 1 sentence of the article, where the author is saying they do not consider a manual labor job to be practical, and neatly ignoring everything else.
Here are some things most commenters have willingly ignored from the comfort of their privileged ignorance of economics:
1. Depending on your health, working a manual labor job at 47 may be a net negative value. Your body does not heal or recover that well from prolonged repetitive tasks, so working long days for a $12/hr wage may actually be a worse deal from not working at all. If this country had federal health care, then it might have made sense, but since we have the for-profit approach, it doesn't.
This can be true even if he's in perfect health right now.
2. Ageism is more real than you think. Especially ageism when it comes to the resume and job history. Since he's not an engineer, the thought process of a potential employer goes like this: this guy is 47 and he hasn't held a management job once in his life, nor progressed beyond basic tech support and customer service. He also has a family, so he likely won't be willing to work extra hours for free and be as willing to be exploited as someone who is 23.
3. Applying for shitty jobs is more costly than applying for higher paying jobs. The application process for a job is taking a certain amount of time regardless of the job itself, but the since the payoff for a better job is much higher, it makes sense to apply only for jobs that pay above a certain threshold. This is especially true when you consider he is providing some benefit at home as a stay at home dad (presumably). If he's providing $10,000 in value by staying at home, It will be 6x as costly to apply for a $15,000 job than for a $40,000 job.
4. The social stigma and not being able to network: Networking works great when you're a professional that is able to get job offers without networking. It helps you get better jobs or more interesting jobs, but it doesn't suddenly elevate you from a non-professional status (tech support + customer service) to the status of a professional with the corresponding salary and benefits. The only case where this work is very entrenched nepotism, where someone unqualified could get a job for which they are not suited with compensation higher than their "real" market rate.
Networking is mostly useless if you don't have the skills to back it up, like this guy.
5. The twitter sentence. I'm honestly shocked at some of the vitriol from the HN community here. Do none of you ever procrastinate? If I'm not mistaken, it's working hours right now, but most of you are finding the time to comment here, on HN. If you had ever spent job hunting for a significant amount of time, you'd know it's at least as mentally draining as any job, so getting distracted or having some down time isn't unwarranted.
I could go on and on, but the gist of it is: show some goddamn compassion and maybe step outside of your bubble for once.
The fact that this person is one of 9 MILLION should maybe at least tell you that it's a systematic problem, and not just a problem of "not being willing to work any job for fear of embarrassment"
For every one unwilling to do manual labor like this guy, there's another one who is (aka the other 4.5 million).
Citation needed. Most of my coworkers are easily over 40. The best programmers I've met at most of my jobs are late forties/fifties. What studies are you using, rather than your hypothetical "though process" of the hypothetical employer?
> If he's providing $10,000 in value by staying at home, It will be 6x as costly to apply for a $15,000 job than for a $40,000 job.
It will be 6x more costly to accept the 15k job than to accept the 40k job. The application costs are still the same. Also, by applying for the 15k job in your example, you are able to a) spend 10k to offset the value you bring at home or keep the 10k and let some chores remain undone and b) Keep 5k regardless.
> but most of you are finding the time to comment here, on HN.
We are not the ones who have to stretch 30 dollars a week to cover expenses for a family of four. If you have a steady job that doesn't frown too heavily on some procrastination, go ahead.
> If you had ever spent job hunting for a significant amount of time, you'd know it's at least as mentally draining as any job, so getting distracted or having some down time isn't unwarranted.
We're talking about degrees here. I'm procrastinating right now, but if I procrastinate too long I will end up unemployed, just like this guy. There's a difference between getting distracted and down time, and taking weeks off between interviews.
> show some goddamn compassion and maybe step outside of your bubble for once
From all accounts, this man who wrote the article is the one in the bubble. It's all about how he feels, how his friends will hurt his feelings if they figure out he's unemployed. He's the one that needs to step outside himself.
Cherry picking phrases out of my comment just like you cherry picked the article.
> Citation needed. Most of my coworkers are easily over 40. The best programmers I've met at most of my jobs are late forties/fifties
Programmers. Programmers. Programmers.
This guy is not a programmer. He's not in a senior or even a middle role. Did your coworkers all start coding bootcamps and get their junior positions at the age of 40 and over? If not, then your anecdata is equally as useless as the example you're trying to disprove.
> It will be 6x more costly to accept the 15k job than to accept the 40k job. The application costs are still the same. Also, by applying for the 15k job in your example, you are able to a) spend 10k to offset the value you bring at home or keep the 10k and let some chores remain undone and b) Keep 5k regardless.
Yes, and he'll have to work 40 hours. You have no idea what his utility preferences are, so suggesting to trade 40 hours/week of work for an additional 5k of compensation is laughable. Especially coming from someone in a position of privilege.
> We are not the ones who have to stretch 30 dollars a week to cover expenses for a family of four. If you have a steady job that doesn't frown too heavily on some procrastination, go ahead.
Irrelevant.
> From all accounts, this man who wrote the article is the one in the bubble. It's all about how he feels, how his friends will hurt his feelings if they figure out he's unemployed. He's the one that needs to step outside himself.
And by all accounts you mean your account. Like I already said, someone in your position lacks the perspective to understand what it is to be in that position, not to mention the possible economic trade-offs available. So the value of your account/opinion is null. And no, just because you worked a manual job at some point in your life doesn't qualify.
> Cherry picking phrases out of my comment just like you cherry picked the article.
Wow, even when you set up straw men you can't knock them over.
> This guy is not a programmer.
This guy said ageism is big in the valley. He said nothing about roles.
> You have no idea what his utility preferences are, so suggesting to trade 40 hours/week of work for an additional 5k of compensation is laughable.
Reading comprehension much? I said it doesn't cost him more to apply, just that it costs him more to accept.
> Irrelevant.
Ridiculous.
See how you need reasons for your opinions before they convince anybody? Maybe you should take some rhetorical courses before spewing nonsense.
> So the value of your account/opinion is null.
That's ridiculous. That absolutely negates all discourse, as you can simply write off somebody's thoughts/reasons as not relevant, because their situation is not exactly the same as yours.
You notice that the more examples your arguments can apply to, the weaker and sillier they sound?
Buddy, you're in a rut. You're only 47 -- that means you've got 20-25 more years to work. If you do it right and earn the ability to retire. What happened yesterday is done. It's tomorrow you have to focus on. The only race is with yourself.
You're letting the world get you down, and there's no reason for that. Every day is a new day to reinvent yourself; learn a new skill, fix a character trait you don't like / or that isn't working. Humans are fluid, adaptable. But... if you don't constantly seek change by perpetually improving yourself, you'll have to deal with change imposed on you by others -- making your own choices is how you stay empowered.
Going to go through a bit more, point-by-point, and highlight why I feel this article is a cautionary tale.
> While I majored in the humanities, I was still able to get customer support position quickly, learning skills on the job.
So why not learn to code? You lived through the dot-com boom... no reason why you couldn't pick up a book and get more into technology. You've been around technology longer than some startup CEOs have been alive. Stop standing still, there are plenty of online resources and courses on how to learn new skills.
> Budgeting has become a well-rehearsed drill
Everyone should budget. If you don't have money you need to. If you have money and you don't budget, well... you'll probably need to soon enough. Also... move. Plenty of places that are a lot cheaper than California.
> The job hunting process is pure drudgery
See previous point... you need to keep working on improving yourself. The job process is "drudgery" because the market is saying, "We don't want what you're selling, go get something else and sell that." Additionally, if you ever get to this point where you are feeling down and out and hopeless... why would anyone want to hire you? Take the time you need to collect yourself, come back fresh. Again... not so much a choice, you won't have success trying to apply for jobs if your head isn't in the game -- so either you choose to take the time to get better, or you continue in a rut.
> The days are long and boring
So, you have lots of time to learn new skills, new technology, new platforms, or just read books? My mom used to tell me when I was growing up, "Only boring people get bored." If you're depressed, and it sounds like you are, just focus on moving. Walk as far as you can in a day. Try to beat your high score the next day... until you feel like doing something else.
> There’s social stigma
There's a stigma around saying, "I'm a failure, I'm a failure." Look at failure as an opportunity to learn. You talked about "being a consultant" and there's no reason why you can't be a consultant... fake it until you make it... all that. Maybe 1% of real SEO consultants know what they're doing... they all seem to make money off it (and even to be in that 1% doesn't take that much knowledge) -- an example of a non-technical job you can self-teach yourself into.
Seven years off... I have to think there's something going on here. Possible someone is enabling you to make shitty life choices that put you in a depression spiral? You have the time, you have the ability, you the resources (as most of them are free and just require a computer)... you just to start taking small steps. Learn HTML + CSS, learn SEO, learn JavaScript... learn how to install WordPress themes (literally no coding required), learn how to use HubSpot, or Google Analyitcs, or any of the huge assortment of tools that people can make a living off of using. And don't stop learning.
Set goals for yourself, and be wary of anyone who makes it easy to ignore those goals... Yes, it sucks to fail... and it's nice to have a warm bed to come home to -- win or lose... but when given the choice... skip the easy path (rut), go for the challenge -- that's how you learn and grow. The solution to your problems isn't on the easy path, you say you've been on that path for 7 years without success... time to try something new.
> There have been times where I’ve wondered if I should just get a temporary service or manual labor job to help out with extra cash. But I’m worried about getting stuck in a position with even less room for growth than my previous jobs. And to be honest, I would be too humiliated. Our social circle, made up of mostly well-paid tech workers and professionals, has no idea how bad our situation has been. It would be exceptionally difficult to work eight hours a day hoping with all my might that a neighbor or friend wouldn’t swing by to see me working the cash register or pumping gas.
Seriously? You're living in a house your mother gave you, and you've got two children to feed, and you don't want to work at a gas station because you'd be embarrassed?
Is this a weird cultural thing, where ten years of Russian upbringing followed by a decade plus in Texas, both rural in urban makes me incapable of feeling sympathy for a man who'd be too embarrassed to be seen feeding his family?
How is that more shameful than writing an article for the world, admitting that you're too scared of a bit of social stigma to get a temporary job to help you get by?
There are more practical considerations. Would you want to hire a 40-year old programmer who had just spent the last 3 months flipping burgers because he couldn't find a job? The stigma is real and it's more than just pride. A fall from middle class to lower class can become permanent through nothing more than that stigma. With that comes a higher mortality rate across the board.
> Would you want to hire a 40-year old programmer who had just spent the last 3 months flipping burgers because he couldn't find a job?
I wouldn't care, personally. You gotta do what you gotta do.
Also, that implies that you have to disclose your entire employment history. You can skip over jobs that don't directly apply to the job you're currently applying for.
> The stigma is real and it's more than just pride.
No, it's pretty much just pride. There's no stigma, at least in my social circles. To take care of your kids and your family you do whatever it is that needs doing.
I would sooner hire a person who is flipping burgers to support his family than I would a guy who surfs twitter like this whiner. This guy sounds like he'd be a pain to work with, I mean if you can't find the humility in working a service job to support your family and help out, then what would you expect him to do in the work place if given an assignment he felt was below him.
If it was only three months, I wouldn't list the burger-flipping job on my resume. I think I'd be fine leaving any gap less than a year in duration on my resume. A year or more, I'd want to account for.
Sounds rather unlikely in SV but if they did, so what? The resume got me the interview, I should be able to demonstrate my value. If they're still going to treat me like I'm somehow tainted for briefly working a low-status job, I can't do anything about that.
I'd worry more about my wife and kids saw everyday, than what my social circle saw once in a while. I think he's got his priorities mixed up.
I don't believe in "men's" work, "woman's" work, "immigrants" work... there is only work that needs doing. Being someone who is know to take on whatever needs doing is a great way to get better jobs.
Because the author of this article is hoping this goes viral. If this goes viral, he is going to receive a lot of emails from people wanting to donate money to him and offer him jobs.
The author knows exactly what he is doing and he is succeeding. I'm certain he will either have several thousand dollars in donations or a high-paying job by the end of the week.
This is the age of entitlement. You only have to do what you feel like doing and feelings are all that matter.
Oh, cry me a river. I put myself through school on retail. I am a programmer. If I lost this job, I'd be back to retail in a heartbeat while I worked to find a new IT job. I have a very hard time having sympathy for someone who goes on and on about how bad he has it while he's not willing to work a job that is "beneath" him. What classes are you taking? What are you doing to get more relevant? Github is free. Resources are free. Many classes are free. Get your StackOverflow on. Shit, I get offers from there frequently and all I have done is answer some questions.
Your kids are hungry because you're too good to get a job at a freaking grocery store??
