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$5000? You are so out of touch. Most people I know who are having trouble either have no car or a $400 beater car. A $5000 car would be considered lavish. You

$5000? You are so out of touch. Most people I know who are having trouble either have no car or a $400 beater car. A $5000 car would be considered lavish. You have a trust fund or something don't you? A mobile phone is absolutely a requirement to get a job. Employers expect you to have it and expect you to answer when they call. Guess what happens if, after a job interview, you don't answer your call. "Sorry boss, I was at the grocery store." is not an excuse. "Sorry boss, I was on the toilet" is not even an excuse. You either answer or you don't get the job. Guess what happens if, at a $12/hour job, you don't answer your phone and come in for extra shifts when they are short workers? They take away your hours. They financially punish you. You've never tried going without the internet if you think the library is a substitute. Employers require you to have email and web access from home, and they don't accept, "Sorry boss I didn't read your email yet. I haven't had a chance to get down to the library. It takes while on public transport you know" as an excuse. My last job paid $9.10 an hour and I was expected to review my email daily as well as visit the company website occasionally to do these little quizzes and courses. The public library closes at 6pm. It wouldn't even be possible for me to get there. Try going into a job interview and telling them you can't be reached instantly by email or phone at any time. See what happens. You sound like Marie Antoinette. "The unemployed can just get a $5000 car! What the hell are they complaining about?"

chc 15y ago
Frankly, I think you're out of touch. I don't have a trust fund, and I acknowledge that there are people to whom my statements do not apply. I pretty explicitly said I was talking about the common case, which is not "unemployed and looking for a $10/hour job." You are talking about a very specific situation which is much poorer than average, statistically speaking. Anyway, though, I suggested that $5000 car (which is a once-a-decade splurge) as a convenience. I explicitly said that. Many people, including me, have made do with public transportation or lousy cars (at a $10/hour job, yes — this is from experience). I still maintain that there are much cheaper options than the "plasma TV, high-speed Internet, cell service" lifestyle that was under discussion here. For example, you definitely don't need TV, and if you're looking fo a job and really need a phone, you can get a prepaid one for like $10 without committing to an expensive plan. And it is simply not my experience, nor that of anyone I know (who range from unemployed to poorly employed to very gainfully employed) that hiring managers will not wait a few minutes for you to call back. Has that actually happened to you a lot? I believe it happens sometimes, but again, I don't believe that is the common case. If you really work for somebody that horrible for $9.10 an hour, I would urge you to seek alternative employment at someplace like Subway, Albertsons or Starbucks, where they have similar compensation and in my experience they tend to treat people better than that. Also — and I mean this sincerely, not to be snarky — I would suggest you look at how you approach people, because frankly you come across as rather hostile and negative. I understand you find your situation frustrating, but you need to try to stay positive. That will impact your chances of landing a job much more severely than your ability to answer an email within 30 seconds of it being sent. Anyway, best of luck to you, whether you agree or not.
- gambler 15y ago
  The point is that most devices that would have been a luxury some time ago are merely a way to keep up with certain demands of the society today. Just because you didn't have a cell phone 15 years ago and have one now doesn't automatically mean your life quality became higher in this respect. Because life is different. (BTW, landline phones are more expensive. They are the luxury now.) That was grandparent's point, and I do not believe you've presented a convincing argument against it.
  - chc 15y ago
    I felt that the GP's point was a little stronger than the one you're making here. If you're just saying that society has adjusted to incorporate these new technologies, yes, that's true. I don't mean to argue against that. Not having a cell phone is a greater inconvenience nowadays than it was in the '50s, but I still think you're overstating things if you say you need one, and definitely if you say you need one that costs anywhere in the ballpark most people pay (one friend of mine makes about $700 a month and pays $80 of that for her phone). If you're paying more than like $5 a month, you're paying for convenience. And thanks for the correction on landlines. It's been forever since I had one, so I didn't know how much they cost these days. My bad on that one.
- forensic 15y ago
  Do you realize that there is almost 20% real unemployment? This means that employers who are actually hiring have so many applicants, if you don't answer the phone, they just go to the next applicant. This isn't the Google hiring process. This is where there are 50 applications for a single opening at a crappy part time customer facing service job like the McDonald's drive-through.
  - chc 15y ago
    You really have the wrong image of me. I'm not some highly paid Silicon Valley engineer, I'm a newspaper editor who happens to enjoy making software. Many of my friends work retail (e.g. cashiers) or just above (e.g. bartenders). Many people close to me have been homeless within the past several years. Believe me, I know how it is. I still think you're exaggerating the degree to which you are screwed if you don't have all the latest technology.
mediaman 15y ago
I respect the particulars of your situation but it is not standard. I own a manufacturing company with >100 employees, a mix of manufacturing and office/service jobs, and I don't expect answers from home from anyone except a couple top execs and the sales team, who are all based out of their home anyway and have company provided smartphones. According to benchmarking data our company is not lavish, pays competitive wages but not way over the market, and has good productivity numbers.
- forensic 15y ago
  Your company is not standard. Manufacturing? Are you sure you're not in China? Most jobs available right now are customer facing service jobs. They give a typical employee 32 hours per week to avoid being legally required to treat them as a full time employee, and they change the shifts on a week to week basis. Good employees are rewarded with more hours or better shifts, while bad employees are punished by reducing their hours or giving worse shifts. They expect you to answer the cellphone and come in to do extra shifts when they are short-staffed, and you must apply online through their website and then come in for an interview where you dress well. They expect you to get there on your own which in many cities means a car is necessary. They ask if you have a car on their website application forms, and they mention that a car is not mandatory. You are statistically more likely to be hired if you display signals on the application form that indicate you are wealthy or higher class, which gives people who don't really need the job an advantage in the hiring process (such as high school students). If you take sick days, they will reduce your hours to punish you, but of course will never tell you that that is why because it is illegal. But all employees understand that this is the situation. For the record, I'm not in this situation. I'm one of the wealthy people who decided to work a $9.10/hour job by choice, for fun. I don't work there anymore -- early retirement. But I have lots of friends who are in this position. Usually they are there because their parents are poor and had major issues. Many of the people in these situations suffer from mental health disorders but cannot afford treatment. If I'm angry at the silver spoon people on hacker news it's because I was raised to believe that technology would liberate humanity and create a world with no poverty and limited human suffering. But instead I have discovered that technology has been used by an elite to enslave the vulnerable. They live tiny compartmentalized lives dominated by oppressive faceless systems that exploit them at every turn. Every injustice is accepted with resignation to the fact that the dejected human cannot even beg the system for mercy, because robots have no feelings. The bank algorithms charge $40 non-sufficient fund fees when the rent check on Monday is withdrawn, even though the paycheck was deposited Friday, because some bank algorithm re-arranges the order of the deposits to ensure there will be a fee. The worker is told not to complain about this -- when they opened the account they accepted the agreement which indicated that this could be a possibility. Instead of the whips of slave-masters, faceless corporate "policy" and computer algorithms are the overlords that teach them their worthlessness. They are told to cheer up by the self-absorbed on HN, and they learn that it is essential that they lift up the corners of their mouth and pretend to love their slavery in order to pay the ever expanding grocery bill. This is your high tech society. It's a society of faceless high tech oppression, a society where the hungry have jobs and internet but cannot afford food, a society where there is abundance but corporate policy says that only rich people are allowed to eat. A society where when the dejected and pitiful complain for help, they are told to cheer up, at least they have cell phones and internet. But they can't eat their cell phone, and they also can't trade it for food. For the record, most of the poor people I know do not have plasma TVs or cable. They would gladly trade their cell phones and internet for more food and shelter IF they could function in society without a cell phone or internet. But you can't. They are not luxuries, they are mandatories.
jbjohns 15y ago
>My last job paid $9.10 an hour and I was expected to review my email daily as well as visit the company website occasionally to do these little quizzes and courses. You had to do your company training on your own time? This is ridiculously exploitive. Surely there is a class action lawsuit here? Walmart got in trouble for making people work off the clock.

chc 15y ago

Frankly, I think you're out of touch. I don't have a trust fund, and I acknowledge that there are people to whom my statements do not apply. I pretty explicitly said I was talking about the common case, which is not "unemployed and looking for a $10/hour job." You are talking about a very specific situation which is much poorer than average, statistically speaking. Anyway, though, I suggested that $5000 car (which is a once-a-decade splurge) as a convenience. I explicitly said that. Many people, including me, have made do with public transportation or lousy cars (at a $10/hour job, yes — this is from experience). I still maintain that there are much cheaper options than the "plasma TV, high-speed Internet, cell service" lifestyle that was under discussion here. For example, you definitely don't need TV, and if you're looking fo a job and really need a phone, you can get a prepaid one for like $10 without committing to an expensive plan. And it is simply not my experience, nor that of anyone I know (who range from unemployed to poorly employed to very gainfully employed) that hiring managers will not wait a few minutes for you to call back. Has that actually happened to you a lot? I believe it happens sometimes, but again, I don't believe that is the common case. If you really work for somebody that horrible for $9.10 an hour, I would urge you to seek alternative employment at someplace like Subway, Albertsons or Starbucks, where they have similar compensation and in my experience they tend to treat people better than that. Also — and I mean this sincerely, not to be snarky — I would suggest you look at how you approach people, because frankly you come across as rather hostile and negative. I understand you find your situation frustrating, but you need to try to stay positive. That will impact your chances of landing a job much more severely than your ability to answer an email within 30 seconds of it being sent. Anyway, best of luck to you, whether you agree or not.

gambler 15y ago
The point is that most devices that would have been a luxury some time ago are merely a way to keep up with certain demands of the society today. Just because you didn't have a cell phone 15 years ago and have one now doesn't automatically mean your life quality became higher in this respect. Because life is different. (BTW, landline phones are more expensive. They are the luxury now.) That was grandparent's point, and I do not believe you've presented a convincing argument against it.
- chc 15y ago
  I felt that the GP's point was a little stronger than the one you're making here. If you're just saying that society has adjusted to incorporate these new technologies, yes, that's true. I don't mean to argue against that. Not having a cell phone is a greater inconvenience nowadays than it was in the '50s, but I still think you're overstating things if you say you need one, and definitely if you say you need one that costs anywhere in the ballpark most people pay (one friend of mine makes about $700 a month and pays $80 of that for her phone). If you're paying more than like $5 a month, you're paying for convenience. And thanks for the correction on landlines. It's been forever since I had one, so I didn't know how much they cost these days. My bad on that one.
forensic 15y ago
Do you realize that there is almost 20% real unemployment? This means that employers who are actually hiring have so many applicants, if you don't answer the phone, they just go to the next applicant. This isn't the Google hiring process. This is where there are 50 applications for a single opening at a crappy part time customer facing service job like the McDonald's drive-through.
- chc 15y ago
  You really have the wrong image of me. I'm not some highly paid Silicon Valley engineer, I'm a newspaper editor who happens to enjoy making software. Many of my friends work retail (e.g. cashiers) or just above (e.g. bartenders). Many people close to me have been homeless within the past several years. Believe me, I know how it is. I still think you're exaggerating the degree to which you are screwed if you don't have all the latest technology.

mediaman 15y ago

I respect the particulars of your situation but it is not standard. I own a manufacturing company with >100 employees, a mix of manufacturing and office/service jobs, and I don't expect answers from home from anyone except a couple top execs and the sales team, who are all based out of their home anyway and have company provided smartphones. According to benchmarking data our company is not lavish, pays competitive wages but not way over the market, and has good productivity numbers.

forensic 15y ago
Your company is not standard. Manufacturing? Are you sure you're not in China? Most jobs available right now are customer facing service jobs. They give a typical employee 32 hours per week to avoid being legally required to treat them as a full time employee, and they change the shifts on a week to week basis. Good employees are rewarded with more hours or better shifts, while bad employees are punished by reducing their hours or giving worse shifts. They expect you to answer the cellphone and come in to do extra shifts when they are short-staffed, and you must apply online through their website and then come in for an interview where you dress well. They expect you to get there on your own which in many cities means a car is necessary. They ask if you have a car on their website application forms, and they mention that a car is not mandatory. You are statistically more likely to be hired if you display signals on the application form that indicate you are wealthy or higher class, which gives people who don't really need the job an advantage in the hiring process (such as high school students). If you take sick days, they will reduce your hours to punish you, but of course will never tell you that that is why because it is illegal. But all employees understand that this is the situation. For the record, I'm not in this situation. I'm one of the wealthy people who decided to work a $9.10/hour job by choice, for fun. I don't work there anymore -- early retirement. But I have lots of friends who are in this position. Usually they are there because their parents are poor and had major issues. Many of the people in these situations suffer from mental health disorders but cannot afford treatment. If I'm angry at the silver spoon people on hacker news it's because I was raised to believe that technology would liberate humanity and create a world with no poverty and limited human suffering. But instead I have discovered that technology has been used by an elite to enslave the vulnerable. They live tiny compartmentalized lives dominated by oppressive faceless systems that exploit them at every turn. Every injustice is accepted with resignation to the fact that the dejected human cannot even beg the system for mercy, because robots have no feelings. The bank algorithms charge $40 non-sufficient fund fees when the rent check on Monday is withdrawn, even though the paycheck was deposited Friday, because some bank algorithm re-arranges the order of the deposits to ensure there will be a fee. The worker is told not to complain about this -- when they opened the account they accepted the agreement which indicated that this could be a possibility. Instead of the whips of slave-masters, faceless corporate "policy" and computer algorithms are the overlords that teach them their worthlessness. They are told to cheer up by the self-absorbed on HN, and they learn that it is essential that they lift up the corners of their mouth and pretend to love their slavery in order to pay the ever expanding grocery bill. This is your high tech society. It's a society of faceless high tech oppression, a society where the hungry have jobs and internet but cannot afford food, a society where there is abundance but corporate policy says that only rich people are allowed to eat. A society where when the dejected and pitiful complain for help, they are told to cheer up, at least they have cell phones and internet. But they can't eat their cell phone, and they also can't trade it for food. For the record, most of the poor people I know do not have plasma TVs or cable. They would gladly trade their cell phones and internet for more food and shelter IF they could function in society without a cell phone or internet. But you can't. They are not luxuries, they are mandatories.

jbjohns 15y ago

>My last job paid $9.10 an hour and I was expected to review my email daily as well as visit the company website occasionally to do these little quizzes and courses. You had to do your company training on your own time? This is ridiculously exploitive. Surely there is a class action lawsuit here? Walmart got in trouble for making people work off the clock.