6 ms·

Honestly. If the author can't make it in SV due to having a rough ride they should look outside the area. There are plenty of companies needing IT workers acro

by flippy2 10y ago

Honestly. If the author can't make it in SV due to having a rough ride they should look outside the area. There are plenty of companies needing IT workers across the USA and moving to one of them sounds like a good way for him to get back on his feet.

M4v3R 10y ago
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.
- Theodores 10y ago
  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.
- DashRattlesnake 10y ago
  > 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.
  - M4v3R 10y ago
    > 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.
    - DashRattlesnake 10y ago
      > That means he is literally wasting time, which he could use in other, more productive ways. It's easy to judge someone from a distance.
      - funkyy 10y ago
        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.
    - CM30 10y ago
      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.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    Raising qualifications usually costs money 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.
lordnacho 10y ago
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.
- DashRattlesnake 10y ago
  > 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.
dagw 10y ago
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,
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  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."
  - dagw 10y ago
    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.
mcguire 10y ago
In this case, that would require leaving his wife's job, which is currently supporting them.

by flippy2 10y ago

M4v3R 10y ago

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.

Theodores 10y ago
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.
DashRattlesnake 10y ago
> 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.
- M4v3R 10y ago
  > 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.
  - DashRattlesnake 10y ago
    > That means he is literally wasting time, which he could use in other, more productive ways. It's easy to judge someone from a distance.
    - funkyy 10y ago
      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.
  - CM30 10y ago
    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.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  Raising qualifications usually costs money 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.

lordnacho 10y ago

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.

DashRattlesnake 10y ago
> 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.

dagw 10y ago

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,

yummyfajitas 10y ago
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."
- dagw 10y ago
  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.

mcguire 10y ago

In this case, that would require leaving his wife's job, which is currently supporting them.