8 ms·

There is No Such Thing as a “Safe” Career (2011)

17 points by wulfgarpro 13y ago

TamDenholm 13y ago
This is one of the continual discussions i have with my grandmother, who worked a total of 2 jobs in her entire life, where as i, as a web developer contractor/freelancer, can have as many as 20 "jobs" in a year. She worries about my job security, even though i earn a ridiculous amount of money vs what i need to live, i save some, spend some and invest some. I get hired ridiculously easy, its just unfair. Granted the odds stacked in my favour immensely. I'm young, i travel anywhere within the UK for work and can be on site with 24hrs notice, i have no dependents (other than my employees, but my businesses independently cover their wages), my living expenses are about 10% of my earnings, I live in a low cost city but work in a high income city, I'm highly skilled (by the industry average, not by my standard) and my industry is drastically under served by skilled workers. Job security no longer means getting hired by a big company and staying there for 30+ years, today, it means how easily you can get hired. Some of these things you can influence, like skill, or choose, like flexibility on location and times, and some are things outwith your control but can still be exploited, like market demand.
jpatokal 13y ago
The fundamental problem with a career in law is that you aren’t doing anything of value for society. I stopped reading there. Sure, there are scumbag lawyers out there, but telling eg. the EFF or Creative Commons, not to mention your average underpaid and overworked public defender, that they "aren't doing anything of value for society" is a bit rich.
- eli 13y ago
  Not to mention prosecuting Bad Guys who are totally guilty or suing people who totally deserve it.
  - jval 13y ago
    Not to mention providing good commercial advice to help people manage relationships with co-workers, investors, clients etc etc... I can't believe there are people out there who with confidence can declare that 1 million Americans are doing something that adds zero value to society.
- praxulus 13y ago
  I think the argument is that the EFF wouldn't need to exist if there were far fewer lawyers in the world. I.e. those lawyers are just busy fixing the problems created by other lawyers.
domdip 13y ago
In the case of law, this is actually way too optimistic - an A-list school in no way guarantees you'll "do all right for yourself" anymore. Horror studies abound of even graduates of the top-5 finding themselves with loads of debt and nothing but very low-paying jobs.
eli_gottlieb 13y ago
Ok, so what the fuck am I supposed to do? I'm 24, and I'm a CS grad student. I want to do research, or at least research&development. I can code plenty well; hell, I'm typing from the end of the workday at my sweet internship right now. But if you're going to tell me that even tech will leave me broke and unable to support a family at 35, what... what anything? Why anything? Why pretend I have career aspirations if anything I can think of ends in being broke and useless at 35? Why pretend I give half a damn about any of the work I do if I can't ever rely on even a reasonably stable lifestyle, if everything is just moonshot after moonshot before the unemployment line? It's one thing when I hear that I'll probably never have a flying car or pet robot [1]. It's another thing when I hear that I can't expect to ever have a family or make it to retirement without plunging into poverty, and I'm part of the privileged elite. What. The. Fuck? PS -- I apologize for the obvious emotion in this post, but it's a worry I've been carrying for a couple of years now. [1] - http://thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars http://thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars
- nbouscal 13y ago
  One solution is to spend radically less than the average and save radically more. There are a few good blogs that strongly advocate this approach [1][2]. I won't claim that it's the right solution for you, but it is a solution. [1] http://earlyretirementextreme.com/ http://earlyretirementextreme.com/ [2] http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/
  - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
    I'm already very frugal (haven't failed to put away 20% of my monthly income in savings for... quite a while now), have a Roth IRA to which I make maxed-out yearly contributions, have savings and investment accounts outside of that... blah blah blah. My net worth is embarrassingly large for my age. Thing is, unless I hit it big with something, that's going to eventually leave me the choice between being a financially somewhat secure singleton and driving myself right back into the Broke Zone by trying to actually have a family. The fact remains that I cannot expect to be a millionaire by the time I'm 40, especially not if I want a family, and living in a van to make a below-poverty-line income and lifestyle sustainable is... giving up.
resu 13y ago
Reading some of the other articles on this blog, this guy needs to realize he's not a unique snowflake and has no business giving 'life advice' to others. e.g. http://www.freedomtwentyfive.com/2013/03/where-does-it-end/ http://www.freedomtwentyfive.com/2013/03/where-does-it-end/
- nutball 13y ago
  Guy's a far right 'neoreactionary.' Fuck him.
bmmayer1 13y ago
"Ladies, there’s always the pole." That was reductive and unnecessary. Otherwise a good piece.
pnathan 13y ago
The big differentiator in careers that I see time and again is hustle. I rarely see people with hustle out of a job. This is the mindset that ensures you will always have a job: http://slyoyster.com/music/2010/50-cent-will-shovel-your-snowy-sidewalk/ http://slyoyster.com/music/2010/50-cent-will-shovel-your-sno... If I lost my job, I would start selling my skills & abilities the next day, working side jobs, whatever. Gotta hustle to make the ends meet. You have to take a message to Garcia.
stephenaturner 13y ago
On the one hand, the headline is quite true, but the story is filled with bigoted, idiotic stereotypes and ridiculous generalisations, written by someone who clearly has an axe to grind and little sense to offer anyone. Lame.

17 points by wulfgarpro 13y ago

This is one of the continual discussions i have with my grandmother, who worked a total of 2 jobs in her entire life, where as i, as a web developer contractor/freelancer, can have as many as 20 "jobs" in a year. She worries about my job security, even though i earn a ridiculous amount of money vs what i need to live, i save some, spend some and invest some. I get hired ridiculously easy, its just unfair. Granted the odds stacked in my favour immensely. I'm young, i travel anywhere within the UK for work and can be on site with 24hrs notice, i have no dependents (other than my employees, but my businesses independently cover their wages), my living expenses are about 10% of my earnings, I live in a low cost city but work in a high income city, I'm highly skilled (by the industry average, not by my standard) and my industry is drastically under served by skilled workers. Job security no longer means getting hired by a big company and staying there for 30+ years, today, it means how easily you can get hired. Some of these things you can influence, like skill, or choose, like flexibility on location and times, and some are things outwith your control but can still be exploited, like market demand.

jpatokal 13y ago

The fundamental problem with a career in law is that you aren’t doing anything of value for society. I stopped reading there. Sure, there are scumbag lawyers out there, but telling eg. the EFF or Creative Commons, not to mention your average underpaid and overworked public defender, that they "aren't doing anything of value for society" is a bit rich.

eli 13y ago
Not to mention prosecuting Bad Guys who are totally guilty or suing people who totally deserve it.
- jval 13y ago
  Not to mention providing good commercial advice to help people manage relationships with co-workers, investors, clients etc etc... I can't believe there are people out there who with confidence can declare that 1 million Americans are doing something that adds zero value to society.
praxulus 13y ago
I think the argument is that the EFF wouldn't need to exist if there were far fewer lawyers in the world. I.e. those lawyers are just busy fixing the problems created by other lawyers.

domdip 13y ago

In the case of law, this is actually way too optimistic - an A-list school in no way guarantees you'll "do all right for yourself" anymore. Horror studies abound of even graduates of the top-5 finding themselves with loads of debt and nothing but very low-paying jobs.

eli_gottlieb 13y ago

Ok, so what the fuck am I supposed to do? I'm 24, and I'm a CS grad student. I want to do research, or at least research&development. I can code plenty well; hell, I'm typing from the end of the workday at my sweet internship right now. But if you're going to tell me that even tech will leave me broke and unable to support a family at 35, what... what anything? Why anything? Why pretend I have career aspirations if anything I can think of ends in being broke and useless at 35? Why pretend I give half a damn about any of the work I do if I can't ever rely on even a reasonably stable lifestyle, if everything is just moonshot after moonshot before the unemployment line? It's one thing when I hear that I'll probably never have a flying car or pet robot [1]. It's another thing when I hear that I can't expect to ever have a family or make it to retirement without plunging into poverty, and I'm part of the privileged elite. What. The. Fuck? PS -- I apologize for the obvious emotion in this post, but it's a worry I've been carrying for a couple of years now. [1] - http://thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars http://thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars

nbouscal 13y ago
One solution is to spend radically less than the average and save radically more. There are a few good blogs that strongly advocate this approach [1][2]. I won't claim that it's the right solution for you, but it is a solution. [1] http://earlyretirementextreme.com/ http://earlyretirementextreme.com/ [2] http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  I'm already very frugal (haven't failed to put away 20% of my monthly income in savings for... quite a while now), have a Roth IRA to which I make maxed-out yearly contributions, have savings and investment accounts outside of that... blah blah blah. My net worth is embarrassingly large for my age. Thing is, unless I hit it big with something, that's going to eventually leave me the choice between being a financially somewhat secure singleton and driving myself right back into the Broke Zone by trying to actually have a family. The fact remains that I cannot expect to be a millionaire by the time I'm 40, especially not if I want a family, and living in a van to make a below-poverty-line income and lifestyle sustainable is... giving up.

resu 13y ago

Reading some of the other articles on this blog, this guy needs to realize he's not a unique snowflake and has no business giving 'life advice' to others. e.g. http://www.freedomtwentyfive.com/2013/03/where-does-it-end/ http://www.freedomtwentyfive.com/2013/03/where-does-it-end/

nutball 13y ago
Guy's a far right 'neoreactionary.' Fuck him.

bmmayer1 13y ago

"Ladies, there’s always the pole." That was reductive and unnecessary. Otherwise a good piece.

pnathan 13y ago

The big differentiator in careers that I see time and again is hustle. I rarely see people with hustle out of a job. This is the mindset that ensures you will always have a job: http://slyoyster.com/music/2010/50-cent-will-shovel-your-snowy-sidewalk/ http://slyoyster.com/music/2010/50-cent-will-shovel-your-sno... If I lost my job, I would start selling my skills & abilities the next day, working side jobs, whatever. Gotta hustle to make the ends meet. You have to take a message to Garcia.

stephenaturner 13y ago

On the one hand, the headline is quite true, but the story is filled with bigoted, idiotic stereotypes and ridiculous generalisations, written by someone who clearly has an axe to grind and little sense to offer anyone. Lame.