18 ms·

I'm doing the opposite - doing unpaid work for a local hackspace like caring about the local non-profit mesh network and doing it-stuff for a local university g

• agumonkey 8y ago
  Told that on Reddit few days ago. 70yo neighbor asked me to fix her laptop antivirus[0]. The thing was sluggish. I came back the following day (unsollicited) to show her a live linux so she can see her laptop full speed (no hdd or os cruft). When i left she asked me how much i wanted. Social tissue is an odd beast. Friendliness is fragile and people dont like freebies. Also i suspect some Stockholm syndrom, since every aftersales ask a lot, they assume anything must cost a ton. [0] which she paid for when things were back in order.
  • TeMPOraL 8y ago
    My experience from teenage/early adulthood as well. Neighbours knew I was the local "computer whiz", so they'd come to me and ask to fix / "devirus" their computers. They always tried to give me money, no matter how much I opposed.
    • alistairSH 8y ago
      They know they'd spend a small fortune at Best Buy or other retail service. And they don't want to be seen as a charity case or perhaps worse, a dummy. I feel like a simple barter might be appropriate in this case. IT services for brownies. Or something like that. You still get the satisfaction of helping a neighbor and they get the satisfaction of paying you something, anything, for your time and knowledge.
      • agumonkey 8y ago
        In my case what was odd is that I came on my own, she sollicited my help for the antivirus and paid me. I came back without her asking, just so she knows her machine is fine and there's no reason to worry or buy a new one. Business shark me should have ride her fear and give her paid advice for a new machine while giving her a free 'recycling' service on her current laptop.
        • jerf 8y ago
          Remind your business shark that in the accounting world, "good will" is an acknowledged asset class that exists. It's not always a good idea to "monetize" all of it, even from a strictly homo econimus business shark point of view.
          • thaumasiotes 8y ago
            > in the accounting world, "good will" is an acknowledged asset class that exists. It's not always a good idea to "monetize" all of it, even from a strictly homo econ[omic]us business shark point of view. Is this true? I'm familiar with an accounting concept called "goodwill", but as far as I ever learned "goodwill" is just the label given to prices that are higher than the fundamentals appear to justify. By that definition, in order for goodwill to exist, it must already have been monetized.
      • justinclift 8y ago
        Another approach is to ask the person you're helping what they're good at. As long as it's something reasonable, let them know if/when you need a hand with that later on, then they can expect a call in return. :)
  • ohaideredevs 8y ago
    You showed a 70 year old Linux? You do realize what you just said, right?
  • hprotagonist 8y ago
    as long as it doesn’t spiral out of control into dependency, my normal response to someone demanding to pay me for some kindness i’ve done them is either a request for payment in kind (“you know, those pies you bake sometimes always smell delicious from next door...”, “hey, you’re an IPA guy right?”, etc.) or a request to pass it on and report back what they helped someone else with. I don’t need to take money from neighbors, but i known how itchy it is to feel like you owe someone a debt, and there’s a barter/trade solution that works nicely here and is somehow fundamentally more human.
    • agumonkey 8y ago
      Someone suggested the pie trick too. This kind of idea is quite neat indeed.
    • athenot 8y ago
      > I don’t need to take money from neighbors, but i known how itchy it is to feel like you owe someone a debt, and there’s a barter/trade solution that works nicely here and is somehow fundamentally more human. This perfectly sums it up. There a human component we almost completely lost. Kindness has been made obsolete by money, or so it feels. But that's also a part of humanness that was traded away.
    • asark 8y ago
      IIRC Graeber wrote quite a bit about how a kind of fuzzily-accounted, low-level, shifting, mutual debt can be a big part of close human relationships (relatives, friends) in his Debt: The First 5,000 Years. I recall in particular his using the example of a child "paying off" all perceived debt to a parent as a way of severing ties with them.
      • hprotagonist 8y ago
        There are parts of the world in which paying off everything you owe to, say, a business partner, is a polite way of saying "i am about to cease doing business with you".
    • ahartmetz 8y ago
  • scruple 8y ago
    I had this experience in the early 00s. I helped quite a few (of my parents) neighbors with PC and Windows-related problems. It didn't bother me to do it for free, I offered everything for free. One of their neighbors was, at the time, a reporter for the Columbus Dispatch. His power supply was on it's last leg and he was dealing with his machine randomly crashing. I swapped in an unused PSU that I had at the house and he couldn't believe that I didn't want to charge him $200 or something. These days I'm lucky to even see my neighbors or get a friendly "Hello" back from them.
    • chasd00 8y ago
      "These days I'm lucky to even see my neighbors or get a friendly "Hello" back from them." this is why i very very reluctantly accept anything for free. Even if the person claims to "just being nice" there's an implied debt just like you state here. I would much rather barter or pay cash up front and square the deal than breed resentment or the awkward "hey I need you to do something for me because you owe me.." conversation.
      • projektfu 8y ago
        I read that as a separate thought. When he was younger he knew his neighbors and helped them freely. Now neighbors don't introduce themselves. I could be wrong.
        • scruple 8y ago
          The thoughts were were loosely connected, but I wouldn't read too much into anything that I write (especially that early in the morning). Mostly, I think it's that I'm sentimental and nostalgic for the period of time that I grew up in. It felt like, back then, in that time and that place, that people were genuinely neighborly and helpful for a sense of the greater good. I could rattle off hundreds of instances of personally helping neighbors out, as my parents did, and as other neighbors and family friends did to us in kind, and at least for my piece, I didn't expect a debt to be repaid and I never felt that coming from others. Maybe it's just my own naivety speaking. Maybe people genuinely did implicitly create a debt in their heads for those favors or deeds. I don't think they did, but I don't really know. I do know that, by the time that computers were a household commodity, and I was able to help folks with theirs, that they absolutely expected to have to pay for _that_ sort of service. More recently, I've only had the opportunity to help 2 or 3 people through all of the 2010s. Each of them were friends, or people that I was trying to cultivate a friendship with (it wasn't reciprocated, but that's fine, too). I've known the names of exactly 3 families that I've lived literally next door to since moving to California in 2008. I suppose that I'm just longing for the loss of something that I can't quite explain nor properly articulate on a work day.
  • Jimpulse 8y ago
    I think we're wired to want to reciprocate. By paying you for the favor she avoids having to think about ways she can pay you back in the future.
• SailingSperm 8y ago
  I think the part that's thought of as 'crazy', isn't that it's all done as charity, it's that it's the only thing supporting it. Having an idea or project that can do some social good or meet some demand is great, but it's even better when that thing can sustain itself. It might,for a time, work on charity, but akin to the 'teach a man to fish' proverb - it's better something can meet it's own requirements than expecting to feed that fire for x years or Eg. to feed / find someone to feed a person for the next x years. Don't get me wrong - All power to you, donating your time effort and other resources to things you believe to be a worthy cause is what people should be doing. But some of that effort may be wisely spent on finding ways to monetize those actions and set it up to carry its own weight.
  • nisa 8y ago
    we take donations for the mesh-network and organize events with the money and stuff like that - it's not totally without money - some do consulting if asked but we want to keep network non-profit because most users don't have much money.
  • crawfordcomeaux 8y ago
    > "Monetize to carry its own weight" So instead of being dependent on good will, you wish to be dependent on paying customers? (This is a strategy where customers carry the weight, not the project, as you've described) I, personally, would rather my humanitarian efforts incentivize the cultivation of good will, as opposed to the cultivation of money.
    • stcredzero 8y ago
      I, personally, would rather my humanitarian efforts incentivize the cultivation of good will, as opposed to the cultivation of money. Good relations with customers often involve the cultivation of good will. That used to be an article of faith in the SV startup community and on this site. The cultivation of good will (not fanboy/fangirl-ism) is a sign that a group is doing real good in the world, where the money is a strong validation. Inexpensive every-person pastimes and products also used to fit this pattern. The ready availability of those used to elevate most everyone in American society to a certain level of dignity. It seems like there's fewer of those as time goes on.
• heavenlyblue 8y ago
  >> "rich kids" advocate against it Of course they do. That's their direct leverage against those who actually need money to live on. You don't need to be smarter - you just need to work for free. At the end of their degree they'll be the ones with an interesting portfolio and poorer won't.
  • mhb 8y ago
    Same as the Olympics in the amateur only days.
    • all2 8y ago
      This isn't quite true. Many olympic athletes from the U.S.A. have day jobs. [edit] Don't believe me? Here, read this: http://mentalfloss.com/article/84182/day-jobs-15-olympic-athletes http://mentalfloss.com/article/84182/day-jobs-15-olympic-ath... [/edit]
      • deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      • mhb 8y ago
        I certainly believe you that it is not possible to make a living in most sports. My point was that an amateur-only rule is a big advantage for athletes who don't need to work and excludes many who might be able to earn money in an Olympic sport.
• dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  > If you advocate to pay that position a lot of - I'm just blunt here: "rich kids" advocate against it because you are at uni anyway and they tell you it's an honour to do this... however if they don't get refund for partly insane travel costs for their university pet project hell breaks loose... I hate this dynamic so much. I was in a cybersecurity club (back before every school had a program) and the school fought tooth and nail for every dime they gave us. We got reimbursed for a rental car and hotel once a year for a particular red team/blue team competition and that was it (and a certain professor was the only reason we got reimbursed). The bus going to take "activists" to protest at occupy wall street (or whatever) was paid for no questions asked.
  • dcbadacd 8y ago
    Funding proper cybersecurity education is hard pretty much everywhere.
  • TheOperator 8y ago
    I hate the school systems hero worship of sign wielding protesters. I remember the first time few times I went to protests. Idiot teenagers there to hang out with friends and skip school. NIMBYs there for completely different reasons than they were nominally protesting. Said NIMBYs arming teens with homemade signs which were promptly disposed of after 1 hour. Career protestors without jobs roaming from one protest to another. News crews long jaded to the reality of protests having their eyes roll out of their skulls watching said teenagers screw around. Then I watched the news regarding the same protest and it was like entering a damn reality distortion field where some narrative about the next generation of youth activists were deciding to do all this shit on their own and their NIMBY parents didn't organize the whole thing and coach their kids on what to say. The one protest that really jaded me was being part of protests for an olympic bid and seeing absolutely nobody. Jack shit people protested. Moment the worlds media showed up to town? Oh all sorts of "activists" concerned about "the government prioritizing a party over X cause" creating a fuss when all the money was already fucking spent. "Activists" telling tourists to stay away that could help us recoup some costs because that would somehow help the poor. "Activists" vandalizing olympic related stuff daily. "Activists" getting piss drunk, overdosing on opiates, and setting up homeless camps. Then the media and school system distorted these people into everyday heroes.
• Gasp0de 8y ago
  I think this might be an american phenomenon. I live in Germany and almost everyone I know is doing some non-profit work on the side, it's pretty common here.
  • purerandomness 8y ago
    This is what happens when the state pays you to study. I'm German as well, also did a ton of 'free' work on the side, and am very thankful for the opportunity I had.
    • shadowoflight 8y ago
      Americans are expected to do unpaid internships as well, but instead of being supplemented by government-paid tuition and a stipend, we have to get financing from a college fund (if our parents are well-off) and/or student loans (which we'll be paying off well into middle age).
  • number6 8y ago
    It's because germans love to work. Take pride in their work. Work is a payment of its own if it's honest work
    • hprotagonist 8y ago
      This puritan ethic can be taken to some pretty extravagant extremes. Careful, or else you’ll start to believe that work justifies your existence.
      • grenoire 8y ago
        Arb...
      • convolvatron 8y ago
        i have a pretty calvinist background, so i may be poorly calibrated. whats wrong with that? i create therefore i am. what else would you live for - consumption? comfort? to be there so no one else marks your territory? genuinely curious.
• swiley 8y ago
  > It's also surprisingly popular to assume for free = useless - some declined running a node due to this. Well you probably shouldn't have an SLA for this. (not disagreeing with the rest of the stuff here.)
• dwild 8y ago
  > It's also surprisingly popular to assume for free = useless > I can test stuff but you really need to be careful to not foul yourself Everything has a cost, even free ones. The cost isn't always money, it can be time, trouble, lost opportunities, lack of support, reselling of semi-private data, advertising, lack of maintenance, etc... You say it yourself, you test stuff on it...