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> "When money is not at the forefront of your mind when you're doing your job, it allows you to be more passionate about what motivates you," she says. I spent

> "When money is not at the forefront of your mind when you're doing your job, it allows you to be more passionate about what motivates you," she says. I spent the first several years of my career working in academia for a poverty level wage. I can confirm from my own experience that when you worry about not being able to pay rent and all the bills, it's very difficult to be productive, much less in a job that requires any kind of focus or creative thinking.

mikorym 7y ago
South Africa has this problem in academia and to a order of magnitude worse. Not only do you worry about your own small income; but grants, scholarships, registration fees and a myriad of other things have in recent times become volatile and can be taken away from year to year. Most of the issues is due to 1) our government being corrupt and 2) promises the government made about free education. I am not against free education, but I am against impoverished professors. This is why I decided to side-step academia. It is delaying my PhD by probably 3–7 years (I am at year 2's start now) but it's better than having in theory 100% time spent on a PhD but actually worrying about the University and your peers, your own future, etc. in reality.
- NohatCoder 7y ago
  I believe that the story is similar a lot of places in the world. At least in Denmark, stories of researchers spending more time seeking grant money than doing research are not uncommon.
  - ahartmetz 7y ago
    As part of a lecture, I have had a lab tour with a semi-famous professor in Germany. He said that he sometimes gives ideas, but is most of the time just organizing and looking for money for his group. And he said that that is normal in his situation (successful academic career with a sizable group).
- einpoklum 7y ago
  > grants, scholarships, registration fees and a myriad of other things have in recent times become volatile Welcome to the sad reality of academia almost everywhere in the world. (sigh)
pritovido 7y ago
That is a consequence of procrastination, which is the consequence of anxiety, which is the consequence of barely meeting ends. Basically in order to be productive under those circumstances you have to ignore reality, which can be problematic for the people around you. But at the same time everything is relative on your perception of reality. We spend today 50-100 times more energy per person that people 100 years ago, and most of those people were happy. We upgraded our expectations, specially because of mass media and advertisements and feel always dissatisfied because they will compare us with people that have more than we have.
- raxxorrax 7y ago
  It is often argued that people are far richer today than before. But you still can loose everything within a few months, so the pressure for economic success hasn't receded that much. And that is the security that is relevant to economic anxieties.
- o-__-o 7y ago
  >you have to ignore reality my mum has not been financially stable for over a decade. in this time she has been starting to "reset" what she finds acceptable. just recently she had to downsize her house and she has already focused on only what I can describe are ways to spend money to avoid reality. she recently listed a train of things she wants to do to her new house that sounds like she wants to stay there for the rest of her life. when asked about the conflict between staying and her next year goals is met with internal strife. she couldn't accept the fact that she needed to use what little money she had to lift herself out of her situation. instead she put priority on installing a dishwasher in her 600sqft apt to help the next person. your brain is the greatest troll ever to exist
- bumby 7y ago
  >people 100 years ago, and most of those people were happy. I’m asking out of general curiosity and not snark, but is there a reliable source to this? A cursory search on my end didn’t return anything. I often wonder if the obsession with “happiness” is a relatively recent phenomenon borne of our own privilege.
conjectures 7y ago
“Intellectual freedom depends upon material things. (...) Women have had less intellectual freedom than the sons of Athenian slaves. Women, then, have not had a dog's chance of writing poetry. That is why I have laid so much stress on money and a room of one's own” ― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own
- buzzkillington 7y ago
  What upper class tripe. The only freedom sons of Athenian slaves had was to die in the Athenian silver mines. >Shafts were driven down into the ground and galleries opened where slaves, chained, naked, and branded, worked the seams illuminated only by guttering oil lamps. An unrecorded number were children. It was a miserable, dangerous, and brief life. [0] It is always the most comfortable that consume the most vivid persecution porn. Feminists seem to have been doing this for a century longer than the The Handmaid's Tale, which was my introduction to that brand of mental illness. [0] The Rise of Athens: The Story of the World’s Greatest Civilisation
  - ncko 7y ago
    I don't think that part is meant to be taken literally.
  - nathanvanfleet 7y ago
    What about Christians? They seem to like persecution porn.
    - buzzkillington 7y ago
      Along with muslims, billionaires, homosexuals, communists, jews, vegans, nazis and libertarians. Pretty much the only people who are persecuted in the west are whistle blowers, zoophiles and pedophiles.
      - staticautomatic 7y ago
        And atheists.
avip 7y ago
If there's no flour, there's no Torah.
raxxorrax 7y ago
And it will have an effect on your kids too. You might think they wouldn't notice, but they do. Lacking money occupies your mind, you just tend to forget if money isn't a problem anymore.
- vidarh 7y ago
  If anything, one of the biggest benefits of earning more is exactly to not have to think so much about money - more and more things start falling into the "cheap enough that I don't have to care what it costs" bucket. To me that's the main benefit of earning more. Sure, it's nice to be able to buy more expensive things overall, and e.g. be able to travel more, but I find more value in the many tiny day to day improvements that individually sound trivial, such as not having to budget when at the grocery store. It's a few minutes here and a few minutes there extra where my mind is free to relax or focus on more interesting things, and it really adds up. There was a year in my youth when I had a big economic setback, and suddenly had to budget my day to day expenses again, and frankly, the time I lost that I had to spend thinking about money, from the small things like how much I could afford to spend for lunch to how to cover rent, was exhausting, and a very stark reminder of how easy my life had become prior to that. And I've never experienced true poverty - I always had multiple safety nets; I'd never have starved, for example. I think the mental exhaustion from dealing with a strained economy is one of those things people who haven't experienced it tend to don't get when trying to imagine what life is like for people who have little money.
benibela 7y ago
On the other hand, having money makes me less productive, since I spend more time caring about the stock market. Like yesterday alone my long ETF lost 2000€ worth, and I bought a short ETF for balance, which went up 200€. Should have bought the short ETF earlier, but I was at work. Here I am actually losing money by going to work
- o-__-o 7y ago
  are you me? Although my stock market outing has been very successful. i made my entire yearly salary this week and that is very demotivating to work right now.. Although we are the exception not the rule. My last job had me running around exhausted and I thought being super productive would increase my bonus (narrator: it didn't)
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    Market timing is a bad idea. Daily gains don't matter.
    - o-__-o 7y ago
      you know what else is a bad idea? Putting $80k into Virgin Galactic or Tesla calls at strategic moments in time. But I did both and now I'm sitting on more money in my toy account than my actively managed investment account. so maybe YMMV? and no i don't recommend anyone doing what i did, but basic technical analysis said to sell [or buy puts] last week and with enough time watching markets you will know when an oversold relief rally is due [including mini rallies within overall downtrends]
- Jestar342 7y ago
  I'm not sure there is a violin small enough to play your sad tune.
- maxerickson 7y ago
  I lose money in the couch all the time.
- 7y ago
lordnacho 7y ago
Interestingly a fair few famous academics from earlier times were quite wealthy. I think they used to be called "men of letters". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cavendish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cavendish This guy managed to get a measurement of G (the one from high school physics) in his basement IIRC.
- tehwalrus 7y ago
  The independent wealth was what allowed them to do science in the first place, nobody else had time or equipment (at least, that's the normal rationalisation).
pbhjpbhj 7y ago
I worked sub-minimum wage for a decade or so; I don't think poverty is an impediment to creativity. It is an impediment to using that creativity (particularly to generate value and/or income), however. Not disagreeing, just trying to add some complexion.
- Hoasi 7y ago
  > I don't think poverty is an impediment to creativity. Poverty may even trigger creativity at times. But stress is the major impediment, and therefore living in long-term poverty does not favor sustained creativity.
  - vidarh 7y ago
    Some creativity is "cheap entertainment" in the sense that much of it requires little material wealth to engage in, and that might sometimes spur creativity simply out of lack of alternatives. When I lived on next to nothing when I was younger, it was easy to focus on writing because I didn't have money to e.g. go out on the town. Reading back what I wrote, though, a lot of it seemed to be extremely introspective of my situation to the extent that I'd be embarrassed to let anyone read it even if it had been any good. I grew up in Norway; incidentally, one of the most famous Norwegian novels is the semi-autobiographical "Sult" (literally "Hunger") by Knut Hamsun, describing a young writers descent into madness as the hunger grips him as he wanders around in what is now Oslo. But I've also seen the flip side, where you spend so much time worrying about money or acquiring a semblance of security that everything else gets pushed aside.
    - Hoasi 7y ago
      Hunger, by Knut Hamsun, is an excellent read, it describes with dry humor what starvation does to the author's psyche and creativity. He goes from creative bursts of enthusiasm to the darkest moments of depression, from eviction to high hopes of getting published. Never at peace, but always hoping and trying. Recommended reading.
- pjmorris 7y ago
ailideex 7y ago
> I can confirm from my own experience that when you worry about not being able to pay rent and all the bills, it's very difficult to be productive, much less in a job that requires any kind of focus or creative thinking. Who was paying you and could you not go do something else for money?
- rebelrexx858 7y ago
  In some ways, that mindset comes from a place of privilege. In true poverty-esque situations, you often couldn't get the time off of work to find another job, or even afford the transition between one job and another. It can be a pretty vicious cycle.
  - ailideex 7y ago
    > In some ways, that mindset comes from a place of privilege. Would be hard pressed to do that as I don't come from a place of privilege. Check your assumptions.
    - sixothree 7y ago
      It does sound like you're the one making an assumption. Many people in this country feel trapped by what they can do for work. On top of that being broke and exhausted makes it difficult for people to change what they are doing. If you can't go two weeks without a paycheck, how are you going to switch jobs, etc..
michaelgrafl 7y ago
Anything that seriously stresses you out will have a negative impact on your performance. It's a shame that so often that thing seems to be how to pay rent on time, or being able to provide for your familiy financially.
marcus_holmes 7y ago
I live in Berlin, which has a history of being both poor and having an extremely creative subculture. It's interesting but sad watching that creativity vanish as the rents rise. There's more money here now, but less creativity. I think this apparent contradiction is resolved by asking "who had the time to be creative?". When rents were low, artists could make ends meet and still have time to create. As rents are rising, the artists are pushed out, or forced to spend more time making money. The new tenants are people earning decent money, who again are either working too hard to create, or are not "artistic" in that sense (me included). The old squats and communal housing are being redeveloped, the graffiti-covered walls are being repainted so the houses they cover keep their value. The focus moves from "poor but sexy" to "let's make lots of money". Everyone is richer, except the culture.
- 52-6F-62 7y ago
  Replace Berlin with Toronto and you'd be just as correct. It's a concern that spans decades. https://www.cbc.ca/archives/the-last-days-of-toronto-s-low-rent-haven-on-queen-street-1.5461749 https://www.cbc.ca/archives/the-last-days-of-toronto-s-low-r... — This article dates to the 80's and its tone is the very same. (Canada's lost sweetheart PM hopeful is interviewed in one of the videos when he was a Toronto city councilor. Such a loss. He really had his finger on the pulse)
  - ivankolev 7y ago
    I came in TO in the middle oughts and there were patches of the city still having that artsy, edgy and unkempt vibe, and even the commercial Yonge strip from Bloor down to Queen was atmospheric. All got lost to the glass condo towers, and the faux hipster hoods are souless and uninteresting. I feel Toronto became a victim of its own success, great economic progress does not equal vibrant and livable city!
    - 52-6F-62 7y ago
      Absolutely. I came here in 2006 for a few years and there were still plenty of spaces, though the old ones were lost. Came back in 2010 and things had moved a little further west again. Found a bit of a haven in and around Bloor/Dufferin to Lansdowne and up to Dupont, but all of my old spots there have nearly shut down and further extraordinarily large developments are planned. Used to play semi-regularly at The Silver Dollar (RIP). Grimey, but fun. Parkdale still has its moments but even it is being hit now and Little Tibet is feeling that sting. There's constant [sad/angry] joking about every block consisting of Shopper's Drug Mart, Rexall, Starbucks, and bubble tea. It's not at all that bad yet, but it's also not as much of a satire as it sounds, sadly. These days my partner and I have been strongly considering a move to Hamilton if we can sort it out with our work.
agumonkey 7y ago
It's also due to high entry cost of city living. water / food / electricity doesn't total high for my needs, rent on the other hand I guess that's why artists lives in old buildings sometimes.. ps: also, call me crazy, but I think in a hunter settings you'd have more time to wander and create than todays city life. As long as there's enough rabbits around to grab ..

mikorym 7y ago

South Africa has this problem in academia and to a order of magnitude worse. Not only do you worry about your own small income; but grants, scholarships, registration fees and a myriad of other things have in recent times become volatile and can be taken away from year to year. Most of the issues is due to 1) our government being corrupt and 2) promises the government made about free education. I am not against free education, but I am against impoverished professors. This is why I decided to side-step academia. It is delaying my PhD by probably 3–7 years (I am at year 2's start now) but it's better than having in theory 100% time spent on a PhD but actually worrying about the University and your peers, your own future, etc. in reality.

NohatCoder 7y ago
I believe that the story is similar a lot of places in the world. At least in Denmark, stories of researchers spending more time seeking grant money than doing research are not uncommon.
- ahartmetz 7y ago
  As part of a lecture, I have had a lab tour with a semi-famous professor in Germany. He said that he sometimes gives ideas, but is most of the time just organizing and looking for money for his group. And he said that that is normal in his situation (successful academic career with a sizable group).
einpoklum 7y ago
> grants, scholarships, registration fees and a myriad of other things have in recent times become volatile Welcome to the sad reality of academia almost everywhere in the world. (sigh)

pritovido 7y ago

That is a consequence of procrastination, which is the consequence of anxiety, which is the consequence of barely meeting ends. Basically in order to be productive under those circumstances you have to ignore reality, which can be problematic for the people around you. But at the same time everything is relative on your perception of reality. We spend today 50-100 times more energy per person that people 100 years ago, and most of those people were happy. We upgraded our expectations, specially because of mass media and advertisements and feel always dissatisfied because they will compare us with people that have more than we have.

raxxorrax 7y ago
It is often argued that people are far richer today than before. But you still can loose everything within a few months, so the pressure for economic success hasn't receded that much. And that is the security that is relevant to economic anxieties.
o-__-o 7y ago
>you have to ignore reality my mum has not been financially stable for over a decade. in this time she has been starting to "reset" what she finds acceptable. just recently she had to downsize her house and she has already focused on only what I can describe are ways to spend money to avoid reality. she recently listed a train of things she wants to do to her new house that sounds like she wants to stay there for the rest of her life. when asked about the conflict between staying and her next year goals is met with internal strife. she couldn't accept the fact that she needed to use what little money she had to lift herself out of her situation. instead she put priority on installing a dishwasher in her 600sqft apt to help the next person. your brain is the greatest troll ever to exist
bumby 7y ago
>people 100 years ago, and most of those people were happy. I’m asking out of general curiosity and not snark, but is there a reliable source to this? A cursory search on my end didn’t return anything. I often wonder if the obsession with “happiness” is a relatively recent phenomenon borne of our own privilege.

conjectures 7y ago

“Intellectual freedom depends upon material things. (...) Women have had less intellectual freedom than the sons of Athenian slaves. Women, then, have not had a dog's chance of writing poetry. That is why I have laid so much stress on money and a room of one's own” ― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

buzzkillington 7y ago
What upper class tripe. The only freedom sons of Athenian slaves had was to die in the Athenian silver mines. >Shafts were driven down into the ground and galleries opened where slaves, chained, naked, and branded, worked the seams illuminated only by guttering oil lamps. An unrecorded number were children. It was a miserable, dangerous, and brief life. [0] It is always the most comfortable that consume the most vivid persecution porn. Feminists seem to have been doing this for a century longer than the The Handmaid's Tale, which was my introduction to that brand of mental illness. [0] The Rise of Athens: The Story of the World’s Greatest Civilisation
- ncko 7y ago
  I don't think that part is meant to be taken literally.
- nathanvanfleet 7y ago
  What about Christians? They seem to like persecution porn.
  - buzzkillington 7y ago
    Along with muslims, billionaires, homosexuals, communists, jews, vegans, nazis and libertarians. Pretty much the only people who are persecuted in the west are whistle blowers, zoophiles and pedophiles.
    - staticautomatic 7y ago
      And atheists.

avip 7y ago

If there's no flour, there's no Torah.

raxxorrax 7y ago

And it will have an effect on your kids too. You might think they wouldn't notice, but they do. Lacking money occupies your mind, you just tend to forget if money isn't a problem anymore.

vidarh 7y ago
If anything, one of the biggest benefits of earning more is exactly to not have to think so much about money - more and more things start falling into the "cheap enough that I don't have to care what it costs" bucket. To me that's the main benefit of earning more. Sure, it's nice to be able to buy more expensive things overall, and e.g. be able to travel more, but I find more value in the many tiny day to day improvements that individually sound trivial, such as not having to budget when at the grocery store. It's a few minutes here and a few minutes there extra where my mind is free to relax or focus on more interesting things, and it really adds up. There was a year in my youth when I had a big economic setback, and suddenly had to budget my day to day expenses again, and frankly, the time I lost that I had to spend thinking about money, from the small things like how much I could afford to spend for lunch to how to cover rent, was exhausting, and a very stark reminder of how easy my life had become prior to that. And I've never experienced true poverty - I always had multiple safety nets; I'd never have starved, for example. I think the mental exhaustion from dealing with a strained economy is one of those things people who haven't experienced it tend to don't get when trying to imagine what life is like for people who have little money.

benibela 7y ago

On the other hand, having money makes me less productive, since I spend more time caring about the stock market. Like yesterday alone my long ETF lost 2000€ worth, and I bought a short ETF for balance, which went up 200€. Should have bought the short ETF earlier, but I was at work. Here I am actually losing money by going to work

o-__-o 7y ago
are you me? Although my stock market outing has been very successful. i made my entire yearly salary this week and that is very demotivating to work right now.. Although we are the exception not the rule. My last job had me running around exhausted and I thought being super productive would increase my bonus (narrator: it didn't)
- lonelappde 7y ago
  Market timing is a bad idea. Daily gains don't matter.
  - o-__-o 7y ago
    you know what else is a bad idea? Putting $80k into Virgin Galactic or Tesla calls at strategic moments in time. But I did both and now I'm sitting on more money in my toy account than my actively managed investment account. so maybe YMMV? and no i don't recommend anyone doing what i did, but basic technical analysis said to sell [or buy puts] last week and with enough time watching markets you will know when an oversold relief rally is due [including mini rallies within overall downtrends]
Jestar342 7y ago
I'm not sure there is a violin small enough to play your sad tune.
maxerickson 7y ago
I lose money in the couch all the time.
7y ago

lordnacho 7y ago

Interestingly a fair few famous academics from earlier times were quite wealthy. I think they used to be called "men of letters". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cavendish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cavendish This guy managed to get a measurement of G (the one from high school physics) in his basement IIRC.

tehwalrus 7y ago
The independent wealth was what allowed them to do science in the first place, nobody else had time or equipment (at least, that's the normal rationalisation).

pbhjpbhj 7y ago

I worked sub-minimum wage for a decade or so; I don't think poverty is an impediment to creativity. It is an impediment to using that creativity (particularly to generate value and/or income), however. Not disagreeing, just trying to add some complexion.

Hoasi 7y ago
> I don't think poverty is an impediment to creativity. Poverty may even trigger creativity at times. But stress is the major impediment, and therefore living in long-term poverty does not favor sustained creativity.
- vidarh 7y ago
  Some creativity is "cheap entertainment" in the sense that much of it requires little material wealth to engage in, and that might sometimes spur creativity simply out of lack of alternatives. When I lived on next to nothing when I was younger, it was easy to focus on writing because I didn't have money to e.g. go out on the town. Reading back what I wrote, though, a lot of it seemed to be extremely introspective of my situation to the extent that I'd be embarrassed to let anyone read it even if it had been any good. I grew up in Norway; incidentally, one of the most famous Norwegian novels is the semi-autobiographical "Sult" (literally "Hunger") by Knut Hamsun, describing a young writers descent into madness as the hunger grips him as he wanders around in what is now Oslo. But I've also seen the flip side, where you spend so much time worrying about money or acquiring a semblance of security that everything else gets pushed aside.
  - Hoasi 7y ago
    Hunger, by Knut Hamsun, is an excellent read, it describes with dry humor what starvation does to the author's psyche and creativity. He goes from creative bursts of enthusiasm to the darkest moments of depression, from eviction to high hopes of getting published. Never at peace, but always hoping and trying. Recommended reading.
pjmorris 7y ago

ailideex 7y ago

> I can confirm from my own experience that when you worry about not being able to pay rent and all the bills, it's very difficult to be productive, much less in a job that requires any kind of focus or creative thinking. Who was paying you and could you not go do something else for money?

rebelrexx858 7y ago
In some ways, that mindset comes from a place of privilege. In true poverty-esque situations, you often couldn't get the time off of work to find another job, or even afford the transition between one job and another. It can be a pretty vicious cycle.
- ailideex 7y ago
  > In some ways, that mindset comes from a place of privilege. Would be hard pressed to do that as I don't come from a place of privilege. Check your assumptions.
  - sixothree 7y ago
    It does sound like you're the one making an assumption. Many people in this country feel trapped by what they can do for work. On top of that being broke and exhausted makes it difficult for people to change what they are doing. If you can't go two weeks without a paycheck, how are you going to switch jobs, etc..

michaelgrafl 7y ago

Anything that seriously stresses you out will have a negative impact on your performance. It's a shame that so often that thing seems to be how to pay rent on time, or being able to provide for your familiy financially.

marcus_holmes 7y ago

I live in Berlin, which has a history of being both poor and having an extremely creative subculture. It's interesting but sad watching that creativity vanish as the rents rise. There's more money here now, but less creativity. I think this apparent contradiction is resolved by asking "who had the time to be creative?". When rents were low, artists could make ends meet and still have time to create. As rents are rising, the artists are pushed out, or forced to spend more time making money. The new tenants are people earning decent money, who again are either working too hard to create, or are not "artistic" in that sense (me included). The old squats and communal housing are being redeveloped, the graffiti-covered walls are being repainted so the houses they cover keep their value. The focus moves from "poor but sexy" to "let's make lots of money". Everyone is richer, except the culture.

52-6F-62 7y ago
Replace Berlin with Toronto and you'd be just as correct. It's a concern that spans decades. https://www.cbc.ca/archives/the-last-days-of-toronto-s-low-rent-haven-on-queen-street-1.5461749 https://www.cbc.ca/archives/the-last-days-of-toronto-s-low-r... — This article dates to the 80's and its tone is the very same. (Canada's lost sweetheart PM hopeful is interviewed in one of the videos when he was a Toronto city councilor. Such a loss. He really had his finger on the pulse)
- ivankolev 7y ago
  I came in TO in the middle oughts and there were patches of the city still having that artsy, edgy and unkempt vibe, and even the commercial Yonge strip from Bloor down to Queen was atmospheric. All got lost to the glass condo towers, and the faux hipster hoods are souless and uninteresting. I feel Toronto became a victim of its own success, great economic progress does not equal vibrant and livable city!
  - 52-6F-62 7y ago
    Absolutely. I came here in 2006 for a few years and there were still plenty of spaces, though the old ones were lost. Came back in 2010 and things had moved a little further west again. Found a bit of a haven in and around Bloor/Dufferin to Lansdowne and up to Dupont, but all of my old spots there have nearly shut down and further extraordinarily large developments are planned. Used to play semi-regularly at The Silver Dollar (RIP). Grimey, but fun. Parkdale still has its moments but even it is being hit now and Little Tibet is feeling that sting. There's constant [sad/angry] joking about every block consisting of Shopper's Drug Mart, Rexall, Starbucks, and bubble tea. It's not at all that bad yet, but it's also not as much of a satire as it sounds, sadly. These days my partner and I have been strongly considering a move to Hamilton if we can sort it out with our work.

agumonkey 7y ago

It's also due to high entry cost of city living. water / food / electricity doesn't total high for my needs, rent on the other hand I guess that's why artists lives in old buildings sometimes.. ps: also, call me crazy, but I think in a hunter settings you'd have more time to wander and create than todays city life. As long as there's enough rabbits around to grab ..