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Indeed. One other factor which the study does not touch upon but I do wonder about - burnout - essentially "poor employment conditions". One thing which has su

Indeed. One other factor which the study does not touch upon but I do wonder about - burnout - essentially "poor employment conditions". One thing which has substantially changed between '99 and now is employer expectation of availability. In '99, you may have worked 9-6, but when you left the office, you left the office. Sure, some tech folks, some traders, etc. may have had pagers back then - but now, the mobile phone is ubiquitous, and the universal expectation is that you are available and ready to work, even if it's 4am on Sunday and you got married yesterday. It's purely anecdotal, but I am "in my prime", and have opted out of being a productive member of society for now, as being broke beats being broken. I'm not alone in this - in the past 18 months of peripateticism, I've met many others, mostly tech folks, in the same boat. Bluntly, market price isn't enough to completely sacrifice any semblance of an existence outside of work.

DougN7 9y ago
Honest question: how do you survive. I don’t feel like I’ve ever had the option to opt out, unless I wanted to move home with Mom. The opportunity might be different than it used to be.
- madaxe_again 9y ago
  I sold my equity back to the business when I left. It wasn't crazy money, but enough to tide me over while transitioning to self-suffiency - I'm now the proud owner of a shack and a few acres of halfway decent arable land in a remote corner of Uruguay. $25,000 outlay. Becoming a citizen and all that is easy here. I know it's not an option open to everyone, and I'll be honest and say that a lot of the folks I've met have trod a similar path - startup, decade of unsustainable grind, total burnout, with maybe 0.1% of what we dreamed of to show for it. I have however also met folks on the road who've thrown the towel in with no capital, who are finding ways of making it work - one couple even had two under-ten children, and were travelling, gigging, and educating their incredibly worldly and well informed kids, with a view to "maybe finding a ruin somewhere". It takes all sorts, but I think there are an increasing number of people "opting out".
  - purplezooey 9y ago
    So you had to learn Spanish :)
  - badpun 9y ago
    > I'm now the proud owner of a shack and a few acres of halfway decent arable land in a remote corner of Uruguay. So you became a farmer? How's that working out?
    - madaxe_again 9y ago
      It’s very early days, and it’s hard work, but it’s rewarding, and real, and people here talk to each other and help each other, even if you’re the mad gringo who can barely mumble his way through a conversation in Spanish. I also wouldn’t call myself a farmer - rather a smallholder experimenting with permaculture. Cost of living here is low if you buy food from local markets, etc., so I’ve a few years to make it work before I end up totally broke.
      - badpun 9y ago
        Interesting. From some accounts I've read on the Internet, there's a big risk in Latin America that the locals will just treat you as a gringo with a huge (for them) amounts of money, that they can extract out of you via overcosted services and goods - all the while being super-friendly. Maybe Urugway is not as poor as some of the other countries, so it's less of an issue.
        madaxe_again 9y ago
        Uruguay is really not like the rest of Latin America - I wouldn’t live in say, Argentina, Brazil, Chile or Paraguay for the exact reason you describe. Uruguayans view their neighbours with a mixture of astonishment and derision. Lots of political and economic exiles here too - it’s a nice little bastion of highly educated atheistic liberal democracy in the heart of South America.
orangecat 9y ago
the universal expectation is that you are available and ready to work Maybe among Silicon Valley startups. That has absolutely not been the case at any of my jobs at companies ranging from 5 to tens of thousands of employees.
- user5994461 9y ago
  It's the same in every company. Things need to run 24/7 and there are never enough people to take care of it. There will always be some suckers who are pushed to work overnight and week end.
  - actsasbuffoon 9y ago
    That sounds like bad management. There are companies where you can work your 40 hours, unplug when you go home, and still get a good salary. Companies with poor working conditions usually suffer from poor management, which causes burnout and high turnover. The problem is that poor management is so common that many people think burnout and high turnover are normal.
  - badpun 9y ago
    My company has people hired (production assurance) especially for this. Being on call is part of their job description. I suspect it's a common arrangement.
    - user5994461 9y ago
      Anyone who is skilled enough to do that could get a better job that pays more and doesn't require to work on call. Employees tend to leave the job or the workforce altogether. The ones who did not yet are in short supply.

DougN7 9y ago

Honest question: how do you survive. I don’t feel like I’ve ever had the option to opt out, unless I wanted to move home with Mom. The opportunity might be different than it used to be.

madaxe_again 9y ago
I sold my equity back to the business when I left. It wasn't crazy money, but enough to tide me over while transitioning to self-suffiency - I'm now the proud owner of a shack and a few acres of halfway decent arable land in a remote corner of Uruguay. $25,000 outlay. Becoming a citizen and all that is easy here. I know it's not an option open to everyone, and I'll be honest and say that a lot of the folks I've met have trod a similar path - startup, decade of unsustainable grind, total burnout, with maybe 0.1% of what we dreamed of to show for it. I have however also met folks on the road who've thrown the towel in with no capital, who are finding ways of making it work - one couple even had two under-ten children, and were travelling, gigging, and educating their incredibly worldly and well informed kids, with a view to "maybe finding a ruin somewhere". It takes all sorts, but I think there are an increasing number of people "opting out".
- purplezooey 9y ago
  So you had to learn Spanish :)
- badpun 9y ago
  > I'm now the proud owner of a shack and a few acres of halfway decent arable land in a remote corner of Uruguay. So you became a farmer? How's that working out?
  - madaxe_again 9y ago
    It’s very early days, and it’s hard work, but it’s rewarding, and real, and people here talk to each other and help each other, even if you’re the mad gringo who can barely mumble his way through a conversation in Spanish. I also wouldn’t call myself a farmer - rather a smallholder experimenting with permaculture. Cost of living here is low if you buy food from local markets, etc., so I’ve a few years to make it work before I end up totally broke.
    - badpun 9y ago
      Interesting. From some accounts I've read on the Internet, there's a big risk in Latin America that the locals will just treat you as a gringo with a huge (for them) amounts of money, that they can extract out of you via overcosted services and goods - all the while being super-friendly. Maybe Urugway is not as poor as some of the other countries, so it's less of an issue.
      - madaxe_again 9y ago
        Uruguay is really not like the rest of Latin America - I wouldn’t live in say, Argentina, Brazil, Chile or Paraguay for the exact reason you describe. Uruguayans view their neighbours with a mixture of astonishment and derision. Lots of political and economic exiles here too - it’s a nice little bastion of highly educated atheistic liberal democracy in the heart of South America.

orangecat 9y ago

the universal expectation is that you are available and ready to work Maybe among Silicon Valley startups. That has absolutely not been the case at any of my jobs at companies ranging from 5 to tens of thousands of employees.

user5994461 9y ago
It's the same in every company. Things need to run 24/7 and there are never enough people to take care of it. There will always be some suckers who are pushed to work overnight and week end.
- actsasbuffoon 9y ago
  That sounds like bad management. There are companies where you can work your 40 hours, unplug when you go home, and still get a good salary. Companies with poor working conditions usually suffer from poor management, which causes burnout and high turnover. The problem is that poor management is so common that many people think burnout and high turnover are normal.
- badpun 9y ago
  My company has people hired (production assurance) especially for this. Being on call is part of their job description. I suspect it's a common arrangement.
  - user5994461 9y ago
    Anyone who is skilled enough to do that could get a better job that pays more and doesn't require to work on call. Employees tend to leave the job or the workforce altogether. The ones who did not yet are in short supply.