6 ms·

Try being poor.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
On top of being from a very different culture and trying not to say anything or have any mannerisms that may give the recruiter the impression that you're a back woods hick.
- busterarm 8y ago
  The tech industry as a whole has a really severe class problem. There is a really terrible negative attitude towards the poor and the rural. We as an industry focus a lot on race and gender (and not in that order), but the real taboo subject that makes everyone uncomfortable is talking about what it's like to be poor. It's especially bad here on HN where often the conversation devolves into people telling me that I'm wrong about my childhood where I grew up poor...or how poor people are a blight on society. The single topic that I find in my career people insist on secrecy is about poverty. I continue to be open about it so that others are willing to talk about it to someone, because otherwise you just can't.
  - busterarm 8y ago
    Also, if you ask me what it was like growing up poor in NYC in the 80s, I'm going to give you a very evasive and superficial answer, because it's better than talking about dozens of my childhood friends who are now dead or worse. You're not prepared to talk about it and honestly neither am I.
    - agoodthrowaway 8y ago
      I grew up poor in PA. People who have never been poor are not prepared to hear about it. My wife doesn’t even want to hear about it. She’ll roll her eyes when I talk about it. The fact is that people can’t relate to an empty refrigerator or to not having money to buy a gallon of milk. Poverty is soul crushing. I have had a very successful and influential engineering career but I can look back at single decisions I made that could have sent me the other direction. It’s easy for people to say that the decision I made was obvious but it absolutely wasn’t at the time. I took huge risk being the first in my family to go to a prestigious University and double major in physics and mathematics in the early 90s(I was no prodigy); let alone go to graduate school. One decision different and I’d be driving trucks in West Virginia.
      - jwhitlark 8y ago
        I think this thread overestimates how much people care. Social and virtue signaling mean people have to be sympathetic when it's brought up, but I don't think most people actually care. Anyone who struggles wants their struggles to mean something, but the world doesn't care.
        haskellandchill 8y ago
        They don't care. I'm going to destroy them and laugh. And then help them rebuild their lives because I'm a nice person. But sorry, they need to suffer, even just a little. To clarify I'm only going to destroy them because they coast. You can't coast when you're working for that milk money. God having milk is so good.
        haskellandchill 8y ago
        A nicer take: there should be mandatory class mixing. Rich kids should have to spend a few months being poor as part of their education. I'm not sure the other way around really helps anything but it'd be a nice break for the poor kid.
        forapurpose 8y ago
        > I think this thread overestimates how much people care. I think you have it backwards. People are not naturally sociopathic; psychologically healthy people naturally care about other people. They may have limited resources to act, but that's a different issue. As evidence of caring, people widely support social welfare programs. In most wealthy countries (and some others), everyone has healthcare on the taxpayer's dime, as well as other services such as housing. Even the U.S. spends vast amounts of money on these things. People also care about the rights and wellbeing of others worldwide; the trendy nationalism may try to argue against it, but Western democracies have been spending blood and treasure on others' freedom and prosperity for generations. (They spent those things on many sins too.)
        busterarm 8y ago
  - noxToken 8y ago
    That is so abundantly true on HN[0]. Nearly any thread about poverty, money, or credit will be full of examples of people who don't understand what it's like to not have money, and it is strange. It's not usually the "American Dream" types who claim that anyone who works hard enough will be able to escape poverty. It's usually the, "have you tried not being poor?" types. Who the hell has money to pay for a house, car, and higher education outright? Those people certainly exist, but it's not the majority. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17034131 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17034131
    - closeparen 8y ago
      Essentially no one - and given that, it’s weird that the dialogue around debt is so moralizing.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    > We as an industry focus a lot on race and gender (and not in that order) As an aside, I've noticed that the American women in tech to be much more diverse in terms of background (including economic or social class) than the American men. Based on what I've learned through casual conversation I think that the various efforts to increase gender diversity have the positive side effect of catching a more diverse cross section of the population.
  - almost_usual 8y ago
    I grew up in nowhere Illinois with a blue collar family. Honestly the values my family had growing up align pretty spot on with blue collar workers I’ve met in the Bay Area. The problem with tech is the self centered elitist culture. The job filtering is extremely narrow and you need a specific background to get in the door of most places. Blue collar workers are suffering everywhere (cities, rural) and it’s obvious the rest of America doesn’t care. When these workers turn to alternatives they’re dismissed because they weren’t lucky enough to be born with more opportunities.
  - freshhawk 8y ago
    One thing that is interesting is the whole hipster "lumbersexual" fad has made knowledge of "rural" things pretty cool in those circles. Don't fall for the trap to think this means you can admit you were poor once too. That negative attitude will still turn towards you. You will be judged and it will be remembered. You'll get a little bit of "Other" on you and everything will get a little harder. Just consider yourself lucky that unlike most race and gender concerns you can pass very easily, so do it. I'm impressed you are committed to being open about it, but I hope during that talk you tell them to start passing and help them learn how to if they need it.
    - haskellandchill 8y ago
      If you admit living paycheck to paycheck to certain people you will be shunned and eventually pushed out. I've seen it happen so many times.
      - busterarm 8y ago
        Very true... And it's funny, because I generally find that the truly wealthy, silver-spoon/old-money type of people do not do this and they generally don't care about it if they like you... ...it's the ones in the middle.
    - busterarm 8y ago
      > I'm impressed you are committed to being open about it, but I hope during that talk you tell them to start passing and help them learn how to if they need it. It comes with a social cost, but I'm enough of a "personality" that who I am is going to come out regardless. There's no point in being anything but honest, but it (being too different) has cost me my job two times. If you're at a good place around good people it's not a big deal. As for the whole "lumbersexual" thing, it's sort of like putting on blackface, as far as I'm concerned.
      - freshhawk 8y ago
        I'm conflicted about the appropriation aspect of it. This whole rural aesthetic fashion is obviously coming from modern young men being confused about how to be masculine now as well as a generic naivete about rural life and nature in general that make them see their escape from stressful office bullshit through rose colored glasses. Mostly though, part of it is just a return to valuing the different types of skills necessary in that setting. This is great, and it is great for their perception of rural people in general, because they are bad at something that people who they look down on find easy - and it changes their mind. It is a mixed bag, and seems like an overall good to me.
  - haskellandchill 8y ago
    I came from the dirt. I worked hard to make it sure, but so did so many of my child hood friends. They didn't make it. It's sad. We can't all be top 10%, by definition.

Try being poor.

On top of being from a very different culture and trying not to say anything or have any mannerisms that may give the recruiter the impression that you're a back woods hick.

busterarm 8y ago
The tech industry as a whole has a really severe class problem. There is a really terrible negative attitude towards the poor and the rural. We as an industry focus a lot on race and gender (and not in that order), but the real taboo subject that makes everyone uncomfortable is talking about what it's like to be poor. It's especially bad here on HN where often the conversation devolves into people telling me that I'm wrong about my childhood where I grew up poor...or how poor people are a blight on society. The single topic that I find in my career people insist on secrecy is about poverty. I continue to be open about it so that others are willing to talk about it to someone, because otherwise you just can't.
- busterarm 8y ago
  Also, if you ask me what it was like growing up poor in NYC in the 80s, I'm going to give you a very evasive and superficial answer, because it's better than talking about dozens of my childhood friends who are now dead or worse. You're not prepared to talk about it and honestly neither am I.
  - agoodthrowaway 8y ago
    I grew up poor in PA. People who have never been poor are not prepared to hear about it. My wife doesn’t even want to hear about it. She’ll roll her eyes when I talk about it. The fact is that people can’t relate to an empty refrigerator or to not having money to buy a gallon of milk. Poverty is soul crushing. I have had a very successful and influential engineering career but I can look back at single decisions I made that could have sent me the other direction. It’s easy for people to say that the decision I made was obvious but it absolutely wasn’t at the time. I took huge risk being the first in my family to go to a prestigious University and double major in physics and mathematics in the early 90s(I was no prodigy); let alone go to graduate school. One decision different and I’d be driving trucks in West Virginia.
    - jwhitlark 8y ago
      I think this thread overestimates how much people care. Social and virtue signaling mean people have to be sympathetic when it's brought up, but I don't think most people actually care. Anyone who struggles wants their struggles to mean something, but the world doesn't care.
      - haskellandchill 8y ago
        They don't care. I'm going to destroy them and laugh. And then help them rebuild their lives because I'm a nice person. But sorry, they need to suffer, even just a little. To clarify I'm only going to destroy them because they coast. You can't coast when you're working for that milk money. God having milk is so good.
        haskellandchill 8y ago
        A nicer take: there should be mandatory class mixing. Rich kids should have to spend a few months being poor as part of their education. I'm not sure the other way around really helps anything but it'd be a nice break for the poor kid.
      - forapurpose 8y ago
        > I think this thread overestimates how much people care. I think you have it backwards. People are not naturally sociopathic; psychologically healthy people naturally care about other people. They may have limited resources to act, but that's a different issue. As evidence of caring, people widely support social welfare programs. In most wealthy countries (and some others), everyone has healthcare on the taxpayer's dime, as well as other services such as housing. Even the U.S. spends vast amounts of money on these things. People also care about the rights and wellbeing of others worldwide; the trendy nationalism may try to argue against it, but Western democracies have been spending blood and treasure on others' freedom and prosperity for generations. (They spent those things on many sins too.)
        busterarm 8y ago
- noxToken 8y ago
  That is so abundantly true on HN[0]. Nearly any thread about poverty, money, or credit will be full of examples of people who don't understand what it's like to not have money, and it is strange. It's not usually the "American Dream" types who claim that anyone who works hard enough will be able to escape poverty. It's usually the, "have you tried not being poor?" types. Who the hell has money to pay for a house, car, and higher education outright? Those people certainly exist, but it's not the majority. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17034131 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17034131
  - closeparen 8y ago
    Essentially no one - and given that, it’s weird that the dialogue around debt is so moralizing.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  > We as an industry focus a lot on race and gender (and not in that order) As an aside, I've noticed that the American women in tech to be much more diverse in terms of background (including economic or social class) than the American men. Based on what I've learned through casual conversation I think that the various efforts to increase gender diversity have the positive side effect of catching a more diverse cross section of the population.
- almost_usual 8y ago
  I grew up in nowhere Illinois with a blue collar family. Honestly the values my family had growing up align pretty spot on with blue collar workers I’ve met in the Bay Area. The problem with tech is the self centered elitist culture. The job filtering is extremely narrow and you need a specific background to get in the door of most places. Blue collar workers are suffering everywhere (cities, rural) and it’s obvious the rest of America doesn’t care. When these workers turn to alternatives they’re dismissed because they weren’t lucky enough to be born with more opportunities.
- freshhawk 8y ago
  One thing that is interesting is the whole hipster "lumbersexual" fad has made knowledge of "rural" things pretty cool in those circles. Don't fall for the trap to think this means you can admit you were poor once too. That negative attitude will still turn towards you. You will be judged and it will be remembered. You'll get a little bit of "Other" on you and everything will get a little harder. Just consider yourself lucky that unlike most race and gender concerns you can pass very easily, so do it. I'm impressed you are committed to being open about it, but I hope during that talk you tell them to start passing and help them learn how to if they need it.
  - haskellandchill 8y ago
    If you admit living paycheck to paycheck to certain people you will be shunned and eventually pushed out. I've seen it happen so many times.
    - busterarm 8y ago
      Very true... And it's funny, because I generally find that the truly wealthy, silver-spoon/old-money type of people do not do this and they generally don't care about it if they like you... ...it's the ones in the middle.
  - busterarm 8y ago
    > I'm impressed you are committed to being open about it, but I hope during that talk you tell them to start passing and help them learn how to if they need it. It comes with a social cost, but I'm enough of a "personality" that who I am is going to come out regardless. There's no point in being anything but honest, but it (being too different) has cost me my job two times. If you're at a good place around good people it's not a big deal. As for the whole "lumbersexual" thing, it's sort of like putting on blackface, as far as I'm concerned.
    - freshhawk 8y ago
      I'm conflicted about the appropriation aspect of it. This whole rural aesthetic fashion is obviously coming from modern young men being confused about how to be masculine now as well as a generic naivete about rural life and nature in general that make them see their escape from stressful office bullshit through rose colored glasses. Mostly though, part of it is just a return to valuing the different types of skills necessary in that setting. This is great, and it is great for their perception of rural people in general, because they are bad at something that people who they look down on find easy - and it changes their mind. It is a mixed bag, and seems like an overall good to me.
- haskellandchill 8y ago
  I came from the dirt. I worked hard to make it sure, but so did so many of my child hood friends. They didn't make it. It's sad. We can't all be top 10%, by definition.