4 ms·

I just lost my job to someone from eastern europe so for engineers certainly we are seeing the return of outsourcing and insourcing with a vengeance. My work is

I just lost my job to someone from eastern europe so for engineers certainly we are seeing the return of outsourcing and insourcing with a vengeance. My work is always so temporary I can no longer pay rent or do any savings, sometimes I have had to go 3 weeks at a time without a meal. I have been a web developer since 1995 and with each recession I am pushed ever harder towards straight up starvation.

theandrewbailey 5y ago
> sometimes I have had to go 3 weeks at a time without a meal > I have been a web developer since 1995 Something doesn't add up. I don't mean to be rude, but I think the economy might be the least of your issues.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  It's got to be sarcasm. I'm pretty sure three weeks without food is about the time it takes to straight up die from starvation, and if it doesn't kill you I'd guess you'd need a long time to recover from the experience before you could survive going that long without food again.
  - iszomer 5y ago
    Or fasting, in religious observance or a health cleansing strategy. We'll never know for sure unless GP provides more details.
  - willcipriano 5y ago
    I think the record is around a year without food, but the guy started at something like 500 pounds.
  - MrWiffles 5y ago
    I'm going to get this guy's back here for a minute, because I've been there. 3 weeks is likely a bit of an exaggeration, but I myself went 8 days without a meal - I had food (small bits of bread, a little popcorn, but not much else) throughout that time, but not an actual meal - back in early 2008 (Great Recession). 3 weeks is 21 days, which is about half the time you'd need to die of starvation, assuming no other nutrient intake (and no water insecurity; you'll die in only a few days without water, even dirty water). That's likely not really what happened in this guy's case, since - and I speak from experience here - when you get that desperate, you get remarkably resourceful. Old multivitamins that you forgot were in the back of the cupboard and have sat there for at least 3-4 years? Yep, eat 'em. That freezerburned leftover scalloped potatoes at the bottom/back of the freezer from last year? Yeah, not the tastiest thing but it sure beats nothing. Out of everything else? Go see people at Sam's Club or Costco, or anywhere they give out free samples. Even a small bite can sustain you for a remarkably long time, much longer than you might think. The human body is _incredibly_ efficient; as a culture, we in the US eat just way more than we need (most of us, that is, myself included); so what passes for a "meal" for most of us, in a starvation context, could keep you going for 2-3 days. So no, I don't think he's making this up, nor do I think it's sarcasm. I've been there. And take my word for it, because I hope you never have to find out for yourself, but the worst part of that scenario - being homeless or near-homeless, having no food - isn't the hunger. It's the fear.
    - yellowcake0 5y ago
      You realize you can go to food banks and soup kitchens right?
      - Riseed 5y ago
        (not the person you're replying to) There is no soup kitchen here. There is one food bank, which is only open once a month for a couple of hours. I haven't been, so cannot say whether they attempt to provide a month's worth of food or not. The last food bank I went to operated twice a week and attempted to provide a week's worth of calories in pre-sorted bags of goods. Recipients were limited to 2x/mo. Obtaining a larger bag (e.g. for a family) required providing official state-issued photo ID for any and all additional recipients, which was then logged and counted as part of each individual's 2x/mo limit.
      - MrWiffles 5y ago
        Some places don't have access to that, and let's face it: access to social programs in the US, what few there are, is usually very difficult, especially in places like Texas. And as wealth inequality has worsened over the decades, we're now seeing a rise of cases from families who've never even remotely been concerned with these kinds of things for literally several generations who are now in dire straits for the very first time and don't know what to do! They just don't know what options are out there, and combined with the way our culture is in the US, are unlikely to ask for help ("sign of weakness"), especially if they don't have very close friends/family in the area who are "safe" people for that sort of thing. I predict we'll see a lot more stories like these, and worse, coming out of the US in the coming months and years. Not nearly enough is being done to address the underlying problems, and it's got to be a problem of cataclysmic proportions before Congress will even consider a 5-minute discussion over lunch, let alone draft a bill with any real teeth (regardless of party).
  - juanci_to 5y ago
    He's probably referring that if not having a job is going to get you into starvation in only three weeks, you should get better with your savings and your financial decisions But anyway, we know too little about OP to make assumptions about his economy
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
vmception 5y ago
Try Web3 It is simpler and more lucrative and will take almost anybody right now, organizations cant find devs and they are always rushed because the space is so much faster than the rest of tech lucky for you, ideology isn't a luxury you can afford to have compared to comfortable web2 devs that talk themselves out of everything, go there and figure out what they want
- dmingod666 5y ago
  Would love to see some RFP of web3. Do you have links to the protocol spec?
  - vmception 5y ago
    sure, if thats a serious curiosity, the best analog to that would be web3.js API docs, which is for Ethereum Virtual Machines (EVM). It was made for the main EVM called Ethereum, but other EVMs use this as well, things can be slightly different on other EVMs https://github.com/ChainSafe/web3.js https://github.com/ChainSafe/web3.js https://web3js.readthedocs.io/en/v1.7.1/ https://web3js.readthedocs.io/en/v1.7.1/ The web3 concept extends beyond EVMs, as the term has mostly begin meaning “connect to nearest nodes instead of your own backend server” and so other distributed networks have their own equivalent but not typically with the web3.js library, but some other way to communicate with the nodes via RPC You can get grants to contribute to development for making libraries like web3 (but thats probably the least lucrative thing to do) The more lucrative thing would be to contract with projects that need their frontends built, or smart contracts deployed to these nodes (that the frontend interacts with)
    - dmingod666 5y ago
      I was joking, but, thanks for taking the time. Seems interesting, will go through the project.
      - vmception 5y ago
        Yes, I figured, but given the emails I receive from HN I know that there are many many people that would want to know and just don't want the common toxic derailing from any crypto related conversations here, its an oddly out of character aspect of this forum, but consistent so I just write the accurate answers for the silent lurkers really
NtGuy25 5y ago
Are you trying to run your own business? Me, my friends, and all of my coworkers have to live in the shadows because recruiters hunt us. Like, my buddy posted on Indeed and not has 5 unsolicited phone calls and 12 emails a day. If you really can't find work in this market, you should really try fixing your resume since you most likely aren't selling your skills or have a red flag. Some of my older coworkers only put their last 12 years experience, or don't list dates on them to avoid age discrimination at the resume filter stage.
- convolvatron 5y ago
  I tried that. I already have an issue with people wanting to hire me on less senior roles than I'm used to functioning, with pretty poor results. hacking my resume in half only made that worse and only made me less attractive to the kinds of positions where they actually thought that background was a strength (the ones I really wanted)
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

theandrewbailey 5y ago

> sometimes I have had to go 3 weeks at a time without a meal > I have been a web developer since 1995 Something doesn't add up. I don't mean to be rude, but I think the economy might be the least of your issues.

tablespoon 5y ago
It's got to be sarcasm. I'm pretty sure three weeks without food is about the time it takes to straight up die from starvation, and if it doesn't kill you I'd guess you'd need a long time to recover from the experience before you could survive going that long without food again.
- iszomer 5y ago
  Or fasting, in religious observance or a health cleansing strategy. We'll never know for sure unless GP provides more details.
- willcipriano 5y ago
  I think the record is around a year without food, but the guy started at something like 500 pounds.
- MrWiffles 5y ago
  I'm going to get this guy's back here for a minute, because I've been there. 3 weeks is likely a bit of an exaggeration, but I myself went 8 days without a meal - I had food (small bits of bread, a little popcorn, but not much else) throughout that time, but not an actual meal - back in early 2008 (Great Recession). 3 weeks is 21 days, which is about half the time you'd need to die of starvation, assuming no other nutrient intake (and no water insecurity; you'll die in only a few days without water, even dirty water). That's likely not really what happened in this guy's case, since - and I speak from experience here - when you get that desperate, you get remarkably resourceful. Old multivitamins that you forgot were in the back of the cupboard and have sat there for at least 3-4 years? Yep, eat 'em. That freezerburned leftover scalloped potatoes at the bottom/back of the freezer from last year? Yeah, not the tastiest thing but it sure beats nothing. Out of everything else? Go see people at Sam's Club or Costco, or anywhere they give out free samples. Even a small bite can sustain you for a remarkably long time, much longer than you might think. The human body is _incredibly_ efficient; as a culture, we in the US eat just way more than we need (most of us, that is, myself included); so what passes for a "meal" for most of us, in a starvation context, could keep you going for 2-3 days. So no, I don't think he's making this up, nor do I think it's sarcasm. I've been there. And take my word for it, because I hope you never have to find out for yourself, but the worst part of that scenario - being homeless or near-homeless, having no food - isn't the hunger. It's the fear.
  - yellowcake0 5y ago
    You realize you can go to food banks and soup kitchens right?
    - Riseed 5y ago
      (not the person you're replying to) There is no soup kitchen here. There is one food bank, which is only open once a month for a couple of hours. I haven't been, so cannot say whether they attempt to provide a month's worth of food or not. The last food bank I went to operated twice a week and attempted to provide a week's worth of calories in pre-sorted bags of goods. Recipients were limited to 2x/mo. Obtaining a larger bag (e.g. for a family) required providing official state-issued photo ID for any and all additional recipients, which was then logged and counted as part of each individual's 2x/mo limit.
    - MrWiffles 5y ago
      Some places don't have access to that, and let's face it: access to social programs in the US, what few there are, is usually very difficult, especially in places like Texas. And as wealth inequality has worsened over the decades, we're now seeing a rise of cases from families who've never even remotely been concerned with these kinds of things for literally several generations who are now in dire straits for the very first time and don't know what to do! They just don't know what options are out there, and combined with the way our culture is in the US, are unlikely to ask for help ("sign of weakness"), especially if they don't have very close friends/family in the area who are "safe" people for that sort of thing. I predict we'll see a lot more stories like these, and worse, coming out of the US in the coming months and years. Not nearly enough is being done to address the underlying problems, and it's got to be a problem of cataclysmic proportions before Congress will even consider a 5-minute discussion over lunch, let alone draft a bill with any real teeth (regardless of party).
- juanci_to 5y ago
  He's probably referring that if not having a job is going to get you into starvation in only three weeks, you should get better with your savings and your financial decisions But anyway, we know too little about OP to make assumptions about his economy
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

vmception 5y ago

Try Web3 It is simpler and more lucrative and will take almost anybody right now, organizations cant find devs and they are always rushed because the space is so much faster than the rest of tech lucky for you, ideology isn't a luxury you can afford to have compared to comfortable web2 devs that talk themselves out of everything, go there and figure out what they want

dmingod666 5y ago
Would love to see some RFP of web3. Do you have links to the protocol spec?
- vmception 5y ago
  sure, if thats a serious curiosity, the best analog to that would be web3.js API docs, which is for Ethereum Virtual Machines (EVM). It was made for the main EVM called Ethereum, but other EVMs use this as well, things can be slightly different on other EVMs https://github.com/ChainSafe/web3.js https://github.com/ChainSafe/web3.js https://web3js.readthedocs.io/en/v1.7.1/ https://web3js.readthedocs.io/en/v1.7.1/ The web3 concept extends beyond EVMs, as the term has mostly begin meaning “connect to nearest nodes instead of your own backend server” and so other distributed networks have their own equivalent but not typically with the web3.js library, but some other way to communicate with the nodes via RPC You can get grants to contribute to development for making libraries like web3 (but thats probably the least lucrative thing to do) The more lucrative thing would be to contract with projects that need their frontends built, or smart contracts deployed to these nodes (that the frontend interacts with)
  - dmingod666 5y ago
    I was joking, but, thanks for taking the time. Seems interesting, will go through the project.
    - vmception 5y ago
      Yes, I figured, but given the emails I receive from HN I know that there are many many people that would want to know and just don't want the common toxic derailing from any crypto related conversations here, its an oddly out of character aspect of this forum, but consistent so I just write the accurate answers for the silent lurkers really

NtGuy25 5y ago

Are you trying to run your own business? Me, my friends, and all of my coworkers have to live in the shadows because recruiters hunt us. Like, my buddy posted on Indeed and not has 5 unsolicited phone calls and 12 emails a day. If you really can't find work in this market, you should really try fixing your resume since you most likely aren't selling your skills or have a red flag. Some of my older coworkers only put their last 12 years experience, or don't list dates on them to avoid age discrimination at the resume filter stage.

convolvatron 5y ago
I tried that. I already have an issue with people wanting to hire me on less senior roles than I'm used to functioning, with pretty poor results. hacking my resume in half only made that worse and only made me less attractive to the kinds of positions where they actually thought that background was a strength (the ones I really wanted)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]