4 ms·

I assume many people here are earning amazing incomes, >$100k. Does anyone else feel extremely guilty about this? When I read about the guy who takes two trai

I assume many people here are earning amazing incomes, >$100k. Does anyone else feel extremely guilty about this? When I read about the guy who takes two trains a bus and walks a mile to get to work, while trying his best to save just $1100 for a car, my heart breaks. The work I do is easy - I sit in front of a screen in my own house. When I go to a fast food restaurant and order from a woman in her 40s, who likely has kids at home, I can't help but feel a sense of guilt (and also luck). Even as I earn more money, I feel guilty spending it, so I end up just saving a large part of it. Not sure there's a point or a problem or something I'm trying to solve, just wanted to share my feelings and see if others felt the same way, and hear any advice or thoughts they had. Edit: I do take some (perverse) solace in the fact that it seems many extremely poor people across the world seem happier than the average wealthy office worker I know. Add up: long commute + winter weather (and darkness) + unfulfilling work + expenses that expand to their level of income = potentially a pretty unhappy person, even though they are high income. Edit 2: Reading about how the low earner saved up for a $160 pair of shoes also gave me some warm feelings. Maybe that's why rich people do challenging, but relatively pointless things like hiking mountains. We don't have enough challenges in our daily lives, so we invent them so we can feel good about ourselves after.

virtuexru 10y ago
God damnit dude; it's Monday. I didn't need this! sips Starbucks while typing this on a MacBook Pro in a large AC'ed office building while making 100k
antisthenes 10y ago
You should feel somewhat lucky, because your parents made a substantially bigger investment in you than you realize, through which you were allowed free time to acquire the technical aptitude to become a developer (or whatever else allowed you to become a high earner). Whether you want to keep feeling guilty is up to you, but you should definitely go thank your parents again! > When I read about the guy who takes two trains a bus and walks a mile to get to work, while trying his best to save just $1100 for a car In countries where public transportation is the norm, there isn't anything strange about the first part of the sentence. It's just that USA really punishes non drivers through some really poor infrastructure choices made 60-70 years ago.
- paulcole 10y ago
  You mention parents twice when the comment you replied to never did. Why? You're projecting that the commenter succeeded because of their parents, not in spite of them.
  - antisthenes 10y ago
    I'm projecting it because it is by far the most likely outcome.
- weberc2 10y ago
  What were the poor infrastructure choices? I'm of the impression that the highway system (if that's what you're referring to) worked very well. Sure, it would be nice to have a train going everywhere you wanted, but in a place as sparse as 1950s America, that wasn't feasible. The choices don't seem poor to me, but they worked so well that there is less need for public transit. The remaining problem is that the cost to own or contract a car is too high for many folks--hopefully the self-driving car revolution will alleviate that and prove once again that our highway infrastructure was an investment and not a liability.
rfrank 10y ago
It definitely contributes to the resentment that a lot of people feel towards tech employees. Especially when you consider that the multi-hop public transit trip like that probably costs him 20-30% of his daily pay. Contrast that with: http://sfist.com/2016/07/06/heres_what_employees_of_google_appl.php http://sfist.com/2016/07/06/heres_what_employees_of_google_a...
belovedeagle 10y ago
Why do you associate public transit use and not owning a car with low income? I make $100k+ and I don't own a car; I commute to work every day on public transit (with two transfers on the return journey, something a lot of people say high earners won't do) and I use public transit to get around whenever possible.
- ddavidn 10y ago
  If I made $100k, I'd move to a place where I didn't need my car any more. Good public transit is very convenient. Car maintenance is not.
- rfrank 10y ago
  http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-infrastructure/gov-public-transportation-riders-demographic-divide-for-cities.html#data http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-infrastructur...
  - belovedeagle 10y ago
    So 92% of Seattle (the city, not the region, which is a weird way to look at Seattle transit, but sure) transit commuters are above the poverty line...? That's literally all the data actually said. If your no-content comment was supposed to convey something else, I'm afraid it's lost on me.
    - rfrank 10y ago
      https://imgur.com/a/DV6Nd https://imgur.com/a/DV6Nd you could try actually reading it.
- LandoCalrissian 10y ago
  My wife and I only have one car which basically only gets used on the weekends. Having good public transit makes a great difference for all income levels. All boats rise with the tide.
colmvp 10y ago
> Does anyone else feel extremely guilty about this? Personally, I don't. In life, luck is always involved. Some people are born with rare diseases. Some people are born with physical attributes that make them more desirable by their preferred sex. Some people are born as an ethnicity that gives them more social power than others. Some people are born smarter than others. Some people are born more susceptible to mental illness. Some people are born into very rough families. Etc. I suppose I don't feel bad for having what I have because quite frankly, other people who may have less wealth than I certainly have life advantages over me to which I would certainly not expect them to feel guilty about.
Havoc 10y ago
Unless you've got a scam-y job I don't see why you should feel guilty. Nothing wrong with the top end of things. Would be good to have some kind of basic income in place to help patch things on the bottom end.
MrFoof 10y ago
My first job was at a Wal-Mart. My second job was at a meatpacking plant, because it simply paid better. My third job after busting my ass at home was doing web dev, back in the late 90s, in which I was hilariously underpaid. Today I'm a self-employed data warehousing and database performance consultant with no shortage of work and paying myself about what the Junkluggers guy does. There's a way out if you bust your ass and do nothing but obsess about finding something better. Takes a while. Sometimes it takes 18 months just to stumble into an opportunity worth pursuing. Though if you don't put in the effort (and get a bit lucky), nothing changes. One thing I definitely took away from that article? Holy crap am I frugal. I save a large multiple of #2 for retirement (Solo 401K and IRA maxed every year, with a bit extra on top in a taxable account), and spend about on par with #3. Granted, I've earned what I got so I don't squander it. As for #4's commute, I've done similarly bad recently, albeit voluntarily. Walk to bus station, take bus one. Transfer to second bus, then walk two-thirds of a mile. About 100 minutes each way, and an average of 3 1/2 hours a day. I could save a wee bit of time with other options (not including car), but at 50-200% increased cost, so I maintained the frugal option even if it cost me another 30-40 minutes a day. Though it does mean that you tend to wake up at 5:45AM to make breakfast and then get to a client for 9AM, to then get home by around 7PM and hopefully have eaten and finished any chores by 8PM. You are beat. It's not easy to then put in extra effort to get other things -- like looking for a better opportunity -- done.
- Mystrl 10y ago
  Do most people actually have short commutes? I think I've grown so used to commuting an hour + each way doesn't faze me at all. In high school it was 45 mintues on a bus each way. University was bus bus skytrain bus for about an hour and 45 minutes and work now is bus bus train skytrain taking about 80 minutes. Honestly I would rather spend 80 minutes on transit than 45 minutes diving since I can sleep on the train in the morning and I'm usually reading on the way back not to mention the cost of owning a car.
  - MrFoof 10y ago
    It depends. For me, I prioritize it because a long commute adds zero value to my life, just costs (monetary, mental and time). I moved years ago to where mass transit could cover anywhere I needed to go, and could often get me there in 20 minutes or less. Granted, everyone's priorities are different, so for some they'll take a longer commute to facilitate other things. Most of my early jobs were 15-25 minutes each way via car. Later on as I moved towards increasingly urban areas it did increase to around 45-60 minutes each way. Then I moved, and shrunk it to 15-20 minutes again via mass transit. Then I started working for myself, and that's anywhere from 0 minutes (remote) to 35-40 minutes each way -- with a few extreme cases being 90-100 minutes each way because I choose not to drive (I have a car, but it exists for fun, not commuting, though I'll use it for a commute or meeting in a pinch) and to minimize cost.
heyheyhey 10y ago
> Does anyone else feel extremely guilty about this? Not really. I feel like I've put in the time and effort (along with a little luck) to get to where I am in life. Unfortunately, life is unfair. While it was nice having parents who supported me, I feel like it's just an advantage in life I was fortunate to have. On the contrary, I'm a short, unattractive, non-white male living in a city that's 90% white; there isn't much I can do in that regards. That's just life.
lusen 10y ago
The important thing is to be awareness of this disparity. It's often set up as a false dichotomy: you either have to feel guilty, or you have to ignore and forget poverty and privilege. It's ok to observe differences and then keep that in mind when relating to other people. Use this knowledge to be more empathetic. Be kinder. Be grounded. Be connected. You can lead your best life earning tons of money while also understanding your relationship to the world and the diversity it contains. You can let this understanding inform your responses and intentions. Processing the world isn't simple. But you can continue to evolve how you relate to differences and different people, and that can guide your overall goals as well as your decisions in specific interactions.
- bertiewhykovich 10y ago
  While I appreciate the good intentions behind this ethos, and the value it may contain, I gotta ask: what real good does this awareness accomplish? I can be as aware as I want of the vast extent to which the system from which I've reaped such rewards has crushed the life from others -- what of it? What good does it do them?
  - vibrato 10y ago
    If you have this awareness and a hefty surplus of resources, you're likely to use it to improve society in some way. Likely driven by your own desire to feel good about yourself, yet still effective.
buzzybee 10y ago
It's not wrong to notice how unfair it all is. I've seen several sides of it. But in terms of "what do I do about it," self-flagellation is probably not correct. My answer has become: Attempt to set some business idea of your own in motion. That doesn't mean that you are going to be good or motivated at business or have any worthwhile plans, of course. That is the curse of being in that position, and a lot of people do run away from such a responsibility. But it's a concrete way in which you can make things less broken - build people's careers, sell useful products or services, market new ideas, etc. It makes me feel OK with myself. And most crucially, it really doesn't have to be a brave "save the world with VC backing" plan - it can be a totally selfish idea like "a cool gadget for me and my friends", accomplished by employing a handful of contractors for a few months part-time. The saving comes in via the attention to social responsibility you take in implementing it - whom you employ, how you employ them, adapting the product to a marketing strategy, what manufacturing processes you use, etc. All of that creates an atmosphere around the business, and the atmosphere itself changes the way in which the world works. The final product is just one tiny part of it.
riboflava 10y ago
Here's why I don't feel guilty: https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks > So no, I'm not required to be able to lift objects weighing up to fifty pounds. I traded that for the opportunity to trim Satan's pubic hair while he dines out of my open skull so a few bits of the internet will continue to work for a few more days. Oh sure I'm not typically over-the-top like the article. I do enjoy the act of programming much of the time, and camel-y jokes. But I don't feel bad that I'm getting paid a lot of money for what I much-of-the-time consider work that a bright high schooler could also do. Having worked with some not-so-bright college interns recently I feel even less guilty, if that's possible. To some extent we all make our own choices, mine led me here, why should I agonize over where other people's led them? I'm not interested in controlling their lives.

virtuexru 10y ago

God damnit dude; it's Monday. I didn't need this! sips Starbucks while typing this on a MacBook Pro in a large AC'ed office building while making 100k

antisthenes 10y ago

You should feel somewhat lucky, because your parents made a substantially bigger investment in you than you realize, through which you were allowed free time to acquire the technical aptitude to become a developer (or whatever else allowed you to become a high earner). Whether you want to keep feeling guilty is up to you, but you should definitely go thank your parents again! > When I read about the guy who takes two trains a bus and walks a mile to get to work, while trying his best to save just $1100 for a car In countries where public transportation is the norm, there isn't anything strange about the first part of the sentence. It's just that USA really punishes non drivers through some really poor infrastructure choices made 60-70 years ago.

paulcole 10y ago
You mention parents twice when the comment you replied to never did. Why? You're projecting that the commenter succeeded because of their parents, not in spite of them.
- antisthenes 10y ago
  I'm projecting it because it is by far the most likely outcome.
weberc2 10y ago
What were the poor infrastructure choices? I'm of the impression that the highway system (if that's what you're referring to) worked very well. Sure, it would be nice to have a train going everywhere you wanted, but in a place as sparse as 1950s America, that wasn't feasible. The choices don't seem poor to me, but they worked so well that there is less need for public transit. The remaining problem is that the cost to own or contract a car is too high for many folks--hopefully the self-driving car revolution will alleviate that and prove once again that our highway infrastructure was an investment and not a liability.

rfrank 10y ago

It definitely contributes to the resentment that a lot of people feel towards tech employees. Especially when you consider that the multi-hop public transit trip like that probably costs him 20-30% of his daily pay. Contrast that with: http://sfist.com/2016/07/06/heres_what_employees_of_google_appl.php http://sfist.com/2016/07/06/heres_what_employees_of_google_a...

belovedeagle 10y ago

Why do you associate public transit use and not owning a car with low income? I make $100k+ and I don't own a car; I commute to work every day on public transit (with two transfers on the return journey, something a lot of people say high earners won't do) and I use public transit to get around whenever possible.

ddavidn 10y ago
If I made $100k, I'd move to a place where I didn't need my car any more. Good public transit is very convenient. Car maintenance is not.
rfrank 10y ago
http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-infrastructure/gov-public-transportation-riders-demographic-divide-for-cities.html#data http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-infrastructur...
- belovedeagle 10y ago
  So 92% of Seattle (the city, not the region, which is a weird way to look at Seattle transit, but sure) transit commuters are above the poverty line...? That's literally all the data actually said. If your no-content comment was supposed to convey something else, I'm afraid it's lost on me.
  - rfrank 10y ago
    https://imgur.com/a/DV6Nd https://imgur.com/a/DV6Nd you could try actually reading it.
LandoCalrissian 10y ago
My wife and I only have one car which basically only gets used on the weekends. Having good public transit makes a great difference for all income levels. All boats rise with the tide.

colmvp 10y ago

> Does anyone else feel extremely guilty about this? Personally, I don't. In life, luck is always involved. Some people are born with rare diseases. Some people are born with physical attributes that make them more desirable by their preferred sex. Some people are born as an ethnicity that gives them more social power than others. Some people are born smarter than others. Some people are born more susceptible to mental illness. Some people are born into very rough families. Etc. I suppose I don't feel bad for having what I have because quite frankly, other people who may have less wealth than I certainly have life advantages over me to which I would certainly not expect them to feel guilty about.

Havoc 10y ago

Unless you've got a scam-y job I don't see why you should feel guilty. Nothing wrong with the top end of things. Would be good to have some kind of basic income in place to help patch things on the bottom end.

MrFoof 10y ago

My first job was at a Wal-Mart. My second job was at a meatpacking plant, because it simply paid better. My third job after busting my ass at home was doing web dev, back in the late 90s, in which I was hilariously underpaid. Today I'm a self-employed data warehousing and database performance consultant with no shortage of work and paying myself about what the Junkluggers guy does. There's a way out if you bust your ass and do nothing but obsess about finding something better. Takes a while. Sometimes it takes 18 months just to stumble into an opportunity worth pursuing. Though if you don't put in the effort (and get a bit lucky), nothing changes. One thing I definitely took away from that article? Holy crap am I frugal. I save a large multiple of #2 for retirement (Solo 401K and IRA maxed every year, with a bit extra on top in a taxable account), and spend about on par with #3. Granted, I've earned what I got so I don't squander it. As for #4's commute, I've done similarly bad recently, albeit voluntarily. Walk to bus station, take bus one. Transfer to second bus, then walk two-thirds of a mile. About 100 minutes each way, and an average of 3 1/2 hours a day. I could save a wee bit of time with other options (not including car), but at 50-200% increased cost, so I maintained the frugal option even if it cost me another 30-40 minutes a day. Though it does mean that you tend to wake up at 5:45AM to make breakfast and then get to a client for 9AM, to then get home by around 7PM and hopefully have eaten and finished any chores by 8PM. You are beat. It's not easy to then put in extra effort to get other things -- like looking for a better opportunity -- done.

Mystrl 10y ago
Do most people actually have short commutes? I think I've grown so used to commuting an hour + each way doesn't faze me at all. In high school it was 45 mintues on a bus each way. University was bus bus skytrain bus for about an hour and 45 minutes and work now is bus bus train skytrain taking about 80 minutes. Honestly I would rather spend 80 minutes on transit than 45 minutes diving since I can sleep on the train in the morning and I'm usually reading on the way back not to mention the cost of owning a car.
- MrFoof 10y ago
  It depends. For me, I prioritize it because a long commute adds zero value to my life, just costs (monetary, mental and time). I moved years ago to where mass transit could cover anywhere I needed to go, and could often get me there in 20 minutes or less. Granted, everyone's priorities are different, so for some they'll take a longer commute to facilitate other things. Most of my early jobs were 15-25 minutes each way via car. Later on as I moved towards increasingly urban areas it did increase to around 45-60 minutes each way. Then I moved, and shrunk it to 15-20 minutes again via mass transit. Then I started working for myself, and that's anywhere from 0 minutes (remote) to 35-40 minutes each way -- with a few extreme cases being 90-100 minutes each way because I choose not to drive (I have a car, but it exists for fun, not commuting, though I'll use it for a commute or meeting in a pinch) and to minimize cost.

heyheyhey 10y ago

> Does anyone else feel extremely guilty about this? Not really. I feel like I've put in the time and effort (along with a little luck) to get to where I am in life. Unfortunately, life is unfair. While it was nice having parents who supported me, I feel like it's just an advantage in life I was fortunate to have. On the contrary, I'm a short, unattractive, non-white male living in a city that's 90% white; there isn't much I can do in that regards. That's just life.

lusen 10y ago

The important thing is to be awareness of this disparity. It's often set up as a false dichotomy: you either have to feel guilty, or you have to ignore and forget poverty and privilege. It's ok to observe differences and then keep that in mind when relating to other people. Use this knowledge to be more empathetic. Be kinder. Be grounded. Be connected. You can lead your best life earning tons of money while also understanding your relationship to the world and the diversity it contains. You can let this understanding inform your responses and intentions. Processing the world isn't simple. But you can continue to evolve how you relate to differences and different people, and that can guide your overall goals as well as your decisions in specific interactions.

bertiewhykovich 10y ago
While I appreciate the good intentions behind this ethos, and the value it may contain, I gotta ask: what real good does this awareness accomplish? I can be as aware as I want of the vast extent to which the system from which I've reaped such rewards has crushed the life from others -- what of it? What good does it do them?
- vibrato 10y ago
  If you have this awareness and a hefty surplus of resources, you're likely to use it to improve society in some way. Likely driven by your own desire to feel good about yourself, yet still effective.

buzzybee 10y ago

It's not wrong to notice how unfair it all is. I've seen several sides of it. But in terms of "what do I do about it," self-flagellation is probably not correct. My answer has become: Attempt to set some business idea of your own in motion. That doesn't mean that you are going to be good or motivated at business or have any worthwhile plans, of course. That is the curse of being in that position, and a lot of people do run away from such a responsibility. But it's a concrete way in which you can make things less broken - build people's careers, sell useful products or services, market new ideas, etc. It makes me feel OK with myself. And most crucially, it really doesn't have to be a brave "save the world with VC backing" plan - it can be a totally selfish idea like "a cool gadget for me and my friends", accomplished by employing a handful of contractors for a few months part-time. The saving comes in via the attention to social responsibility you take in implementing it - whom you employ, how you employ them, adapting the product to a marketing strategy, what manufacturing processes you use, etc. All of that creates an atmosphere around the business, and the atmosphere itself changes the way in which the world works. The final product is just one tiny part of it.

riboflava 10y ago

Here's why I don't feel guilty: https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks > So no, I'm not required to be able to lift objects weighing up to fifty pounds. I traded that for the opportunity to trim Satan's pubic hair while he dines out of my open skull so a few bits of the internet will continue to work for a few more days. Oh sure I'm not typically over-the-top like the article. I do enjoy the act of programming much of the time, and camel-y jokes. But I don't feel bad that I'm getting paid a lot of money for what I much-of-the-time consider work that a bright high schooler could also do. Having worked with some not-so-bright college interns recently I feel even less guilty, if that's possible. To some extent we all make our own choices, mine led me here, why should I agonize over where other people's led them? I'm not interested in controlling their lives.