Hacker News Reader

Comment by joshmn | Hacker News Reader

My father is a field-service engineer for HP in Midwest (based out of Minneapolis, but he has calls all over from Fargo, ND to Mpls, MN to Madison, WI). He is _the_ go-to for their biggest, most senior, most mission-critical clients. He put together UMN's Alpha setup, is the only guy that USPS will call for help, MNSCU, Best Buy, UHG... basically, anyone with an HP setup (server or printer) that's a Fortune 1000 (and some of the smaller guys too) — he's their man.

He's feeling the heat.

He's made it through the absorption of Compaq, and when Compaq absorbed Digital. He's won a ton of awards with each company he's been at, frequently getting high marks for his professionalism, timeliness, availability, willingness to mentor the new guys, stuff like that. He also brought in more than $4MM in revenue for HP in one fiscal year, even though sales wasn't his job (I think it came out to 28 different contracts?) The next highest was $600k. It's been like that for 25 years.

Needless to say, he's pretty damn good at his job.

He's late 50s, but in amazing health. My mother, however, is in her 50s, and is in absolutely terrible health.

They cannot afford to lose healthcare coverage. My mom wouldn't make it, and my father would probably lose his mind. They just refinanced their 220k mortgage and put new siding on their suburban house, added new gutters, got the roof redone, stuff like that.

Please, don't make this about how shitty of an investment that might have been. That's beside the point.

He makes a good living — he filed $98k last year, but that's a _ton_ of overtime.

All he's known is hardware for the last 30 years. He's not a sysadmin and will never be. He's not some low-level nerd. He's the product of an unnotable tech school and he's worked his ass off to keep things afloat. I don't have the best relationship with him at all, but he's a human and I picked up my people skills (if you can call them that) from him.

Who would hire him at this age, with this kind of experience?

View on HN

Your dad needs to think about the next best 5 guys, and how to pick them up for cheap when the layoffs happen. At his age striking out on his own will seem absolutely terrifying.

Work on him for a few months. He must have built up some serious contacts over the years. His pitch is straightforward. HP can't actually support their products anymore, they don't have the staff. He knows the hardware inside and out. Sell support contracts. Snipe the best after the layoffs.

You don't look for a job when you need one. this rumor is going to terrify customers. Since he has good personal relationships with those fortune 1000, he needs to monetize that. He must have some idea of what HP charges for his time. He can send the new guys, and come in to rescue at the end.

I know this sounds crazy. Think really hard about it though. There isn't anyplace that will hire him at 100k. He needs to set up his own shop. Think of it this way, 0.05 < P(new_biz_fail) < 0.1. What is the chance of him getting a good new job in 6 months? i'd guess less than 10%. With your mom, he needs to bring in serious cash. He's in a position to do that. If he picks good helpers, it won't consume his life, anymore than the current job. He really only needs 1 contract, and can build from there.

It sounds super scary. Hell, it is super scary. If he needs stability for the next 15 years or so, this is a really good way to do it. Really, in his position, as good as he is, it's less scary than going and looking for work.

This sounds like a great idea, but I don't know if he's such an entrepreneur or risk-taker. Some people are, some people aren't. It's a natural thing.

I'm not sure of the papers he's signed (non-competes...), or the contracts that HP has with their customers (there must be some), but... he could definitely "get the band together" and pull off such a feat. Again, I think this goes back to the contracts he had.

He's one of 4 remaining from the "blue days" (time with Digital); I think they'd be able to pull it off if they did go this route. They're all pretty awesome.

The vast majority of people who are great aren't great because they want to be. they don't have a choice, they need to be. He's got some time, he can figure it out. Maybe partner with those friends. Sharing the load is incredibly motivating.

At least get him to take a long look at those contracts. Heck, he might be released from them on severance.

Talk to him about it. No matter what happens, it's going to be a rough time for him. If he feels safer going and looking for work, good for him, there's no judgement. But you make it sound like he really needs to take care of his family. Just keep this option in mind. Time is on your side, for now.

Thanks, I'll be sure to echo this to him.

Those contacts are worth a ridiculous amount of money. Niche consulting for the enterprise can yield literally millions of dollars/a year in support for a client like UPS. An Alpha setup.. I'm guessing OpenVMS? Mission critical to their business. Whatever support contract they're paying HP, he can join any big-name tech consulting firm, play golf with the CIO or purchasing authority in charge of maintenance/support and just _happen to mention_ he moved firms.

He doesn't have to go on-site to UPS to bring that business over to another firm, and when you build up _30 years_ of trust, that Rolodex and trust is worth 50x the best technical engineers ability (in terms of generating billables). He's in a great position. Senior Partners at McKinsey aren't paid millions because of their ability to put together a nice deck. They're paid that way because they have 20 years of billables and reliable after-work. If he's laid off and not picked up in 2 weeks, tell him to e-mail me.

Word. Your dad needs to gather up all his contacts, put them in a spreadsheet and figure out who he's got. Then, figure out which of his customers will get screwed in this. Then, collect his team. Then, figure out the noncompete. It's very doable, but very scary.

And whatever tasks he doesn't like, accounting, bookkeeping, etcetera. He can hire someone full time or even just part time to handle for him. That way he can focus on the things he does well, selling and doing the work.

My dad was working as a consultant (environmental consultant, basically handling the creation of reports needed for a company's legal compliance with emissions standards, etc.) for an industrial trade org. They had a rule not to compete with member companies, so when a consultancy joined the org, they shut down his division, even though the new member only offered services that were tangentially related. He ended up working for himself (one man shop) for the last 13 years of his career before retiring, doing exactly the same thing he'd always done. He's not a sales person by any means, and striking out on his own definitely seemed outside his comfort zone at first. But he was able to base his business on the relationships with customers that he'd already established, and since he's got such a specialized skill set and works so diligently, his customers kept coming back and recommended him to others. So I just wanted to give an example that this sort of thing is possible (assuming there's no non-compete clause to undermine the whole thing - in my dad's case he did it with the blessing of his former employer - sometimes they'd even send him leads when they had to turn away a customer)

As long as he can get the legal stuff square (non-competes, etc) it's not that risky. You're not trying to start a unicorn tech company, just convert a few contacts into customers to replace your old income and hopefully make more than you did before. My dad did this last year, at 60, and it's been going pretty good. Having a big network is a huge plus.

>He's one of 4 remaining from the "blue days" (time with Digital); I think they'd be able to pull it off if they did go this route. They're all pretty awesome.

From personal experience, I want to add some long-term expectations about commanding premium consulting rates -- especially as it relates to vendor-proprietary knowledge.

I used to work for an enterprise software firm and was on their "crisis firefighting team". I'd travel to customer sites at less than 24 hours notice and fix their worst problems. These were the problems that were escalated to the CEO.

When I left the company and struck out on my own as a freelance "subject matter expert", I was able to command $300k a year for a few years. My background and rate was easy to sell: I was trained directly by the people who wrote the software.

The thing is that I always knew I was living on borrowed time because that high income was based on my previous association of being in the "inner circle" of how the software works. I had to diversify my skills away from that software because with each year that passed by, I became more of an "outsider" just like everyone else.

To relate to your dad's situation ... yes he's very good at what he does, but some of that value may also be his inside feed of information from HP. After he's separated from HP, as each new generation of server & printer hardware is released, his "aura" of HP knowledge can become outdated and less relevant value for customers. In other words, he needs to charge whatever premium rate he can, save as much as he can, all with an eye towards diversifying his income. Diversity could mean new tech skills such as learning AWS architecture or buying real estate to get income from rental properties.

For people who work with legacy technologies, it can actually be the reverse situation. Yeah, your knowledge of The Latest Hipster Web Framework becomes less valuable year on year, but the situation is a little different for senior personnel running Fortune 50-level ops on legacy technologies. They aren't exactly churning OpenVMS systems architects out of coding boot camps. It's a lot the same situation as COBOL programmers are in - they're not something you need a million of, the work may not be 100% stable, but when you do need them they're fixing mission-critical systems that have millions/billions of dollars of business riding on them and the rates are astronomical.

Uh, this sort of hardware doesn't get upgraded in a year or two. Or ever. One word: COBOL.

If this is anything like the last set of layoffs and sell offs the the early 2000s, there will be a lot of smaller companies starting up that will handle the business that HP will start to lose.

I worked at a large company that used HP hardware with large, multi-million dollar contracts and a lot of our business went out to these smaller companies. The level of service that your father can provide is important to large enterprises. If your father doesn't want to start his own company, someone else will. He should start talking to his colleagues and his boss - maybe someone is already thinking of starting something.

These sorts of layoffs can create opportunity for people like your dad. HP can't just lay off that many people without hurting parts of their service line.

he can do it with your help and guidance. the midwest and south are littered with many small tech consulting outfits like this, we work with several. they all bill slightly under coastal market (we're based in california) but high for the midwest ($~150-200/hr). we use them for things like tech-focused CPA work and commercial software support i.e. oracle, sql server etc.

i personally bootstrapped my startup with 0 outside funding by doing commercial i.e. "enterprise" software consulting on a platform i had experience in from two jobs ago, with my partner, for 2 years. we each booked about $250k of revenue a year for 2-3 years before the work dried up after several buyouts etc. by then our 'real' business was self sustaining.

it's time-capped, and you'll have to hustle for the work, but you can bill an outrageous sum of money that will pad their retirement and help secure their future in an otherwise shit situation.

When CFEngine got bust (well, the company was put on life-support) all the guys who know the technology (even if it was just a 1-2 years of experience) resigned and turned into contractors with a semi-permanent contracts and 2-3x income boost.

It's not hard.

>> I'm not sure of the papers he's signed (non-competes...), or the contracts that HP has with their customers

You should do a few things.

1 - Contact an employment attorney and see if they can determine if he signed a non-compete. If it helps, I was involved in two scenarios (in Minnesota) where I signed a non-compete and went to work for a competitor. Both times, the judge threw out the case saying the company couldn't keep me from being gainfully employed if I wasn't going to disrupt their business. It was a hard sell since I was going to a startup and they were a fortune 1000 company.

2 - Tell your Dad to start planning as if he will get laid off. Start putting together a plan for his own business. Contacts, companies, phone numbers, information on their equipment - anything he can get his hands on. In short, start stockpiling information now. The more he has, the sooner he gets off the ground. Also, start talking to people to see how motivated they would be to start something on their own.

4 - Tell him to dust off his resume and start sending it out to recruiters. I know for a fact there's a ton of HP hardware vendors or re-sellers that could use his experience.

In short, start planning for the worst. Hopefully he gets through this, but he should assume the worst and hope for the best. If he does get laid off, he's already ready to hit the ground running instead of wallowing about being a company for so long. Trust me, companies would die to have a guy with his contacts and experience. This is by no means a dead end or career ending by any stretch.

An additional idea to supplement income while building his business or looking for a new job would be to join an expert network. Consultants/investors can pay upwards of $1000/hour to speak with industry veterans across all different functions.

Some examples: GLG (Gerson Lehrman Group) Cognolink AlphaSights

Most states are "right to work" states, which means that it is difficult (or impossible) for an employer to enforce a non-compete if they lay you off. Unless he signs something to the contrary while taking severance. It'd be worth the $150 half-hour lawyer fee to get an official legal opinion on this.

Small world - my dad's another one of those 4 HP-ES folks left from the blue days. I agree with the advice here and I've forwarded him a link to the comments (hi dad!).

You should 100% check with a lawyer about those supposed non-compete things you sign. In many states, as I understand, they aren't even worth the paper they are printed upon.

There is probably a non compete exactly for this situation.

Maybe, but if you get laid off all bets are off really. Maybe it is different in the US, but in the UK I've known of cases of people who have been laid off who then went on the form competing companies. There may have been some law suits flying around behind the scenes, but in the end these companies settled and were successful.

My understanding is that being laid off is a "termination of contract" - therefore making any noncompete terms in said contract null and void.

Not to mention that "restrictive covenants" such as a noncompete won't fly in this sort of situation. Then again, my experience is with UK employment law so please don't take this as legal advice.

This depends on one's jurisdiction, in the U.S. at least. For example, in Illinois, non-competes are generally enforceable.[0] In California, they are generally not.[1]

[0] http://www.isba.org/ibj/2012/01/lawpulse/employmentcovenants...

[1] http://www.cnet.com/news/calif-supreme-court-finds-noncompet...

Even when you have been made redundant?

It seems to depend on the totality of the circumstances, in Illinois, so I'd imagine the nonvoluntary nature of the termination would be taken into account. But there doesn't seem to be a clear answer. If it ended up in litigation it could get messy; there isn't a terribly large amount of guidance from the courts.

Regardless of the possibility of litigation, the logic is very simple: 1) a non-compete indicates that the employee has some skillset or knowledge that the business does not want to lose to a competitor; 2) the involuntary release of that same employee indicates that (1) is no longer true, unless the released employee is fairly compensated for the non-compete period.

I would feel pretty comfortable presenting this argument to a judge, even without a lawyer present.

> I would feel pretty comfortable presenting this argument to a judge, even without a lawyer present.

I'm gonna go ahead and ignore any legal advice you give, then. That's completely bonkers.

Personally I'd still talk to a lawyer (easy for me to say as I have a friend who is a business lawyer), but I wouldn't go so far as to say not having a lawyer here would be "bonkers"

The argument is pretty clear and rational; unless the judge was in the pocket of the company on the other end of the suit (in which case you're fucked anyway), I think representing one's self would be pretty straightforward in this case.

Representing yourself is never, ever, ever a good idea. Not even if you are a lawyer (and if you were, you'd know this). "The man who represents himself has a fool for a client" is one of the few legal truisms that is actually true.

That aside, your argument may be "pretty clear and rational," but that does not mean it follows the law (which is rarely either of those things). Without a lawyer you have no way of knowing (self-studying law is a great way to royally fuck yourself if you ever try to apply it in a real scenario).

http://www.wbjournal.com/article/20120903/PRINTEDITION/30830... says otherwise, as do other resources I've checked.

Now, you usually have to be a bigger fish to get a non-compete enforced, or you have to threaten business. Most places that have a contract with HP will still have a contract even after hiring an expert. Fortune 1000 companies have better lawyers that know how to craft jobs to avoid exactly these scenarios.

Yep. Even then. I've had a company that put one on my employment, do a mass layoff and even put a reminder that I signed the document in the termination letter.

They still have to sue you to enforce it- better to have a 6 figure income and a non-compete lawsuit winding its way through court than to be handing out carts at Walmart.

I see no chance in the world that a bleeding company busy laying off and restructuring will sue a laid off worker because he's trying to make 50-100K a year. Why would they pay more expensive lawyers to do that?

If the lay him off, it really meams they don't want that kind of business anyway. Companies are driven by business people, not lawyers.

It bothers me when people suggest unrealistic possibilities to people being layed off like starting their own businesses.

There's 10% unemployment. Is that really a legit solution?

Capitalism is built on the idea of everyone 'working' and 'having a job' and theres lots of people like his dad who really want work, and are loyal and hardworking.

But there's not enough jobs to go around and the amount keeps decreasing due to automation.

So what happens next?

Not enough jobs to go around? I disagree.

There are ~5.8 million job openings as of the end of July. The highest level maybe in 15 years [1]. The unemployed worker per job opening ratio is also at the lowest in 15 years [2]. The U6 unemployment rate for people that have some college is 5.x%; the unemployment rate for people with a four year degree is 2.x%. There have been eight million full-time jobs added in just four years.

The challenge, as always, is finding the job you want, at the salary you'll accept, matching skills you possess. I'd argue there are plenty of job openings in technology and sales.

[1] http://i.imgur.com/imAwheB.png

[2] http://i.imgur.com/2jQ4uaR.png

I remember reading somewhere that it's a bit different for the over 50 crowd, even for PhD's.

There is definitely a higher expectation for someone over 50 and with someone with an advanced degree. It's both unfair and understandable because the subconscious implication is experience and advanced degrees cost more, so they will be subject to intense scrutiny to make sure paying someone a premium is worth it. Basically, a guy over 50 with a PhD better be a convincing Donald Knuth or good management material.

Also, I think team leads tell themselves they can mold young developers in their image. Not only are you getting a developer at a discount, you're getting a potential clone. What's not to love?

Maybe if you are under 30, look like Mark Zuckerberg, and have a CS degree from Carnegie Mellon or Stanford.

Can you give sources for your stats? For instance, when I looked at the BLS for the unemployment rate for people with four year degrees this morning, it did not appear to be U6 (which was listed as a separate metric) and furthermore only accounted for people who were at least 25 years old.

I think that it's reasonable to assume that the average college grad is < 25, so that statistic doesn't necessarily reflect the experience of the recently graduated.

If you take people with high school or higher education who are > 25, there are 5.5 million unemployed. I'd be curious to know what that number changes to if you lower the age to 22 or so.

See http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t04.htm

It's obviously not a legit solution for all 10% of people out there but this is kind of an exceptional case - The guy is literally the best person in the world to fill the gap in the market which is about to be created by the lay-offs, so why is starting his own business unrealistic? Especially given that he's really just trying to do the exact same work without HP as a middle-man

>Capitalism is built on the idea of everyone 'working' and 'having a job'

I think it was just built on the idea of selling stuff to people and making as many things as you can sellable commodities.

Whether those working are many or few doesn't matter, as long as you get to sell to enough people to make your profit.

In the days of advanced British etc capitalism, the homeless/jobless/disenfranchised living in London etc, were very many.

That you need to pay more people to be able to build a wide market is more of a 20th century addition (Ford and his workers, the New Deal, etc).

So whats the solution to the multitudes of people in need of work?

> Capitalism is built on the idea of everyone 'working' and 'having a job'

Capitalism wouldn't work if everyone who wants a job has one, so I really doubt that. Employees could just demand ever increasing salaries until all profit is gobbled up, and there's nothing the business can do about it because they can't replace them since everyone who wants a job has one.

But everyone who wants a job already has one, by definition. (Think about it.)

> Capitalism is built on the idea of everyone 'working' and 'having a job'

Capitalism is structured so that everyone without substantial capital holdings needs a job. OTOH, its not built on everyone working and having a job, in fact, the desperation that comes with people not having jobs and people currently working being at risk of not having jobs -- and the effect that has on the wages and conditions those employed are willing to accept -- is important to capitalism (though its one of the effects modern mixed economies have attempted to mitigate in moving away from pure capitalism.)

This is very similar to what my father did around the same age, though in a different field (construction). The company he was VP at went into Chapter 11, he took a few of the people who worked for him, started a small company, and took over all their contracts (this was done amicably, they even rented equipment from the company). He did very well.

This.

He has the contacts. Make sure he takes his rolodex when he leaves. Day one after layoffs, call those clients up and say "Hey, they laid me off. Want me on contract?"

Even if he only gets 3 or 4 clients from this, the money they paid HP now goes to him, and it will be a LOT more than his salary. His client contacts are his core IP. Use em.

What you described sounds an awful lot like the Michael Scott Paper Company, which, ironically, was quite a success (all things considered).

One thing to remember about hardware support is access to replacement hardware in a timely manner. With large support contracts server parts need to be available sometimes within hours of a failure. HP may not play ball. Something to think about.

I also wanted to say people like your Dad are worth their weight in gold. Good hardware tech's are hard to find.

If he's called-in to early retire or otherwise let go, make sure he doesn't sign a non-compete at that time. He should have anything he has signed, and is asked to sign, reviewed by an attorney. It's just not reasonable for companies to terminate someone's job and tell them they can't compete including being hired by a competitor, but they try this all the time in blatant ways and it's not just the old guard companies like HP that do this. I've seen my share of "umm, excuse me but this basically puts me out of business, I'm not signing it" type contracts.

Contract work is not as difficult as it sounds. He already knows the work involved, can do a good job of estimating the hours of work, and getting the number of employees to match that work, and then par for the course is 2x-3x of the salaried rate because a.) the contract can be terminated, no severance, no health care, no bennies, b.) the companies can afford it and are likely already paying that or more for the same contract with HP, c.) he'll need business liability insurance, and slightly more complicated book keeping and tax assistance. It's completely sane for him to ask a company he has a very good relationship "what's in the budget?" if he doesn't already have an idea what this amount ought to be. Don't undercharge. It's reasonable to offer a discount for say 2 or 3 year contracts. If it's hourly, it should be expensive to incentivize contracts.

Anyway, this can also be referred to as "slow retirement" which is a working retirement.

Oh and the home improvement investments seem sane also. They certainly aren't getting done, and will need to be done at a bad time if he does get let go or goes for early retirement.

Would HP really try to get someone they are laying off to sign a noncompete contact?

Often times this stipulation can be part of a severance package.

He has probably already signed one as part of his employment.

If you're laid off, that probably doesn't apply anymore. It would have to be negotiated as part of the severance package.

Said package usually includes those items even though in many places it's totally unenforceable.

I would assume they are in a very defensive mode and are thinking about liabilities and risks as they continue to hemorrhage employees and potential revenue. This makes it much more likely that they would try to protect themselves through any legal means possible. No company would plan on laying off 20k+ people without thinking about minimizing their liabilities and protecting their sources of business.

Do not underestimate hilarity of corporate legal.

I don't know about HP, but a common tactic is present a noncompete few weeks before a mass layoff and stipulate it is: "Sign or be fired". In some states, this works because your future employment can be viewed as sufficient consideration.

IMHO Noncompetes should be banned, or there needs to be legislation which requires the employer to pay 100% of the salary of the laid off person for the rest of the term of the noncompete. If they want to prevent the ex-employee from going into business and competing against them, they need to pay the ex-employee for the privilege.

I sympathize with your family's predicament and I hope something works out.

At the same time, I would suggest severely redacting your post. Its one thing to overshare the details of your own life, its another to overshare those of someone else (particularly their income, health, and other factors which might affect hiring).

"Who would hire him at this age, with this kind of experience?"

This is a question that only the market can answer. While we can speculate all day long, none of us have any idea who would hire him or not. One thing is a certainty: if he never tries to get another job, he will not get any.

Here's something I learned from watching hundreds or perhaps thousands of folks navigate the tech labor market: people skills and networking rock -- much more than technical skills! If your dad has all of these companies who only want to work with him? Wow! The day he gets laid off, if he does, he picks up the phone and starts calling all of his friends. After that it's just a numbers game. For his tech and people skills there are a certain percentage of folks that will positively respond. If that percentage is 10% and he knows 20 or 30 people? Odds are pretty good that he'll have a lead on a new job before the day is over.

The difficult part here is psychological. Very difficult to work for one company for a long period of time and then feel confident talking to others about getting work, even if they like you a lot. Older folks such as myself also start carrying a chip around on their shoulder, looking for ageism everywhere (Yep, it exists, but staying angry or depressed about it is not very motivating)

The psychological part is the hardest. He could be 10 seconds away from getting another job and manage to talk himself out of it instead of trying. It's a very difficult spot to be in.

Networking is so important. Just be pleasant and easy to work with. I see so many young devs who get so involved in code related pissing matches, debating irrelavant crap in the work place, being arrogant and difficult. A lot of guys I never want to work with again.

True story, former employer had a lay off, the company I was at sent me an email with a list of everyone who had been laid off asking me (I was in good standing, and respected) who we should go after. You bet I black listed the jerks, and got the guys I considered to be good developers, and easy to work with.

Sure this was all my opinion and who am I anyway? But the point is: this stuff happens, and all you guys who think it doesn't are kidding yourselves.

This is very tough to learn, but critical.

The catch-phrase is "fierce opinions, lightly held"

I'll argue the shit out of whether or not brackets stand alone in C++ code, but at the end of the day we all agree on something and move on. We're still friends. You have to both be passionate about what you do -- and willing to see the big picture -- to be a true professional.

It sounds like the situation my dad was in. He had to switch careers in his early 50s, going from project engineering for a defense contractor to right-of-way acquisition and management in the oil and natural gas industry. He lost his job again at 60, but was able to parlay his leadership and management skills into a high level position with a company in Houston, partly through contacts he made while learning the oil business ropes.

Your father needs to put some serious effort into getting on paper all the skills, both technical and soft "people-type", that he's learned over his career and put himself out there. Minneapolis is a big city and it sounds like he's made quite a few contacts that he could leverage for help getting a new career.

Above all, encourage him not to give up!

One possibility is for him to take a job at one of his clients, running the procurement process for HP products and services (more generally, the business lines he supports). He probably knows a lot about the cost structures for HP and competitor offerings and can help the client not only drive the hardest bargain and play competitors off each other, but also minimize spend (inhousing less complicated services, etc.)

Wow. Rant incoming. Im just aghast how shitty your country is. I can understand living in fear of mortgages and the like, jak with at will nonsense and the like (gags)

But your employer having a gun to your beloved's head - that what it basically is - is just rotten.

I genuinely wish that any libertarians here (in Poland) move to USA or, Friedmans beloved, Chile. I hope they get to experience shit like that. I guess im a filthy little commie for expexcting to be able to live my life without shit like that /s

You don't have to pay your mortgage if you get laid off in Poland?

They said they understood the mortgage part, it's the health care they don't understand.

In some European countries (probably not Poland) the unemployment you get for about 2 years if you lose your job is sufficient to cover a mortgage. The philosophy is that it is cheaper for the state to help people stay in their existing home than to have them lose it and potentially have to house them and them never go back to being a net contributor.

All states in the United States have unemployment assistance programs, as well as programs like Medicaid to provide health care to the poor. OP's dad is nearing retirement age and can probably take advantage of some state-provided retirement benefits, like social security and/or Medicare.

While things may be less extreme here than in Europe, you aren't just left to die if you become unemployed. Government-provided insurance that you have to be either poor or old enough to get is actually much better than a lot of the private insurance plans that are the only option for the middle class.

Chile is a far stronger economy than Poland will probably ever be.

Is this a joke? Poland has a larger population than chile, better per capita GDP, and is a power house in the middle of Europe. They do still have some internal problems but this is nothing compared to the (low key) international conflicts Chile still is involved in.

I love both countries though.

Why would you think that's a joke? GDP is only one metric, you know. And Poland's GDP Growth Rate is 1.67% to Chile's 4.07%. Chile also has a lower unemployment rate, and ranks higher than Poland on economic freedom.

And how is GDP growth more relevant than GDP itself? And what about humongous, growing income inequality? Chile doesn't really rank that well, does it? 140th out of 159 ranked countries http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=gini+index+chile

GDP per capita is higher in Chile and has 2-3x the growth Poland has.

So why are there so many Polish immigrants and so few Chilean ones?

>I genuinely wish that any libertarians here (in Poland) move to USA

Lots of Poles, libertarian or not, do that for the massive quality of life increase.

But... ,in a libertarian country, HP wouldn't exist in the first place.

Crony capitalism still is not capitalism.

The worst, unchecked, crony cap Papuan is exactly the system for which the name "capitalism" was coined, and crony capitalism had been part of what the term had referred to -- and an element of all real-world systems with the name -- since the real-world nineteenth century system that features it was named "capitalism" by its critics.

Cronyism is central to capitalism, and you can't have one without the other.

Cronyism, referring to a system where incompetent agents are given special favors, doesn't survive in the free market - merciless competition destroys any underperfoming organization.

Cronyism only exists when competition doesn't work by means of a government. Get some politicians, create regulations, build a monopoly. No matter how uncompetitive it is, you're still a billionaire.

> Cronyism, referring to a system where incompetent agents are given special favors, doesn't survive in the free market

The "free market" in which that is a defensible claim is a counterfactual construct that is sometimes useful as a simplified analytic model, but fundamentally incompatible with the behavior of real human beings and conditions in the real world.

> merciless competition destroys any underperfoming organization.

In real unregulated markets, that may happen initially, and the most successful parties in that situation mercilessly move to lock-in advantages against future competitors by use their economic power they have as a result of that success to monopolize key inputs, preventing competition.

> Cronyism only exists when competition doesn't work by means of a government

Yes, and a particular, common, real-world version of cronyism by which government structures the economic regime to favor the interest of the capital-holding class was identified by its critics in the 19th Century, and given the name "capitalism".

By this argument we should just accept that "communism" involves the widespread murder of political enemies, as that has always happened in "communist" countries.

>government structures the economic regime to favor the interest

That's it. If there's central planning(no matter to whom) it's socialism. And, regarding 'lock-in advantages', without a government-backed credit expansion, it'd be really difficult for companies to get as much market cap.

> If there's central planning(no matter to whom) it's socialism.

No, the dominant system of the developed world in the 19th Century that socialists reacted against and coined the word "capitalism" to describe isn't socialism.

> Crony capitalism still is not capitalism.

This reminds me of some people who pointed out that communism was never implemented and all the totalitarian regimes were still in the socialism phase. A phase which was obviously never going to be replaced with the communist utopia.

This is just a delay tactic. We all know what we talk about when we say "communism" and it's the same for "capitalism" - we mean the real-world, flawed implementation.

Not really.

Anyone with a background on classical economics realizes the U.S is much closer to socialism than capitalism. The existence of 'prices' and greed doesn't imply it's capitalism.

So neoliberalism is socialism?

If you are implying the US is somehow close to what neoliberal thinkers would propose, that couldn't be more wrong.

Neoliberalism doesn't mean watered down free-market liberalism. The term describes a certain movement in (classical) liberal thought which wanted to seperate itself from former thinkers primarily based on the time they where living in.

While those thinkers have little in common, they genuinely disliked a productive state (as in the production of goods or the delivery of a service), cartels, interventions in the price mechanism etc.

All of that is far away from what the US or European countries are currently doing.

At least in Europe it's also used as a meaningless buzzword to scare people who think that the prefix "neo" means evil.

Exactly. The US (and to a greater extent, the West) never really grew out of mercantilism... the "capitalism" only shines through when it's convenient propaganda (spreading democracy and capitalism, one bomb at a time!) or when there's vast amounts of money to be made in ethically dubious circumstances (like doing business with Nazis) and some sort of justification is needed.

I have such a background and I can't think of any metric in which the US is closer to socialism than capitalism.

Is Sweden a socialist country, according to your metrics? Government spending makes up just over half of their economy. We're somewhere between 35-38%, federal, state & local. I'll leave it at that.

> Anyone with a background on classical economics realizes the U.S is much closer to socialism than capitalism.

Anyone should recognize that the dominant system of the modern developed world is a hybrid retaining largely the capitalist structures and property regime, but adopting many strategies with origins in socialism (including advocated in the communism of Marx and Engels) for mitigating some of the effects for which 19th Century socialists criticized the dominant system of the developed world at that time, for which they coined the term "capitalism".

Its probably not particularly productive to argue about whether this synthesis is "closer" to socialism or capitalism.

Why wouldn't they? Crony capitalism is still capitalism. It's a company using it's capital to gain an advantage.

>Im just aghast how shitty your country is.

We have a lot of social programs for the poor, especially in regards to health. No its not Euro-style universal healthcare, but this idea that they'll starve in the streets if they lose their jobs is ridiculous. That's on top of COBRA, which allow you to stay on your employers plan for a bit while you work out a new provider. Or subsidized ACA exchange insurance. We are down to 11% uninsured right now. In the 90s we were getting close to hitting 20%.

There's a lag period before you can apply for and get benefits, but that's what unemployment insurance (which is mandatory) is for and you know... your own savings. You are putting away savings right?

The real problem here is that I find most middle-class people have no idea how welfare works. None. They've never had to apply for these things. They just think they're for "welfare queens" and "drug addicts." They don't realize that these programs are pretty much everywhere in the USA. For example, food stamps are mostly used by white people. So these people have unrealistic ideas of what loss of income means. They think they're going to debtors prison and being forced to die in their basements from lack of healthcare. Europeans like yourself buy into this nonsense because they have an anti-US bone to pick. The reality is that you're both being incredibly disingenuous. Perhaps you should do some basic research before making these shoddy generalizations?

Its also worth mentioning that every HP product we use is fairly terrible. All of our servers, printers, etc. A lot of sysadmins I've talked to are either considering moving to Dell or already have moved. These jobs are going to migrate to Dell or elsewhere I imagine. That's how competition works. Yeah, its ugly, but HP has not been competitive for some time in many areas. You can't expect a lifetime of labor without shake-ups, especially in the volatile tech sector.

> The real problem here is that I find most middle-class people have no idea how welfare works.

I got a taste when I applied for PFL in California when we had a baby. The scale of people the State serves is insane, and navigating the system could be a full-time job in itself.

(PFL is California's supplemental program that pays some fraction of your salary for family leave - in my case new child bonding)

I took 3 weeks leave, and on the last Friday got a phone call from the PFL office: "We have a question about your PFL application, and if you don't return our call today we will deny your claim". I call, and after battling the phone tree got, "Our system is over capacity. Please try again later click". I finally got through at the end of the day via email.

I finally got paid the first day I returned from leave (!). Luckily for me I wasn't depending on the money or else my kids would have been eating rice. What a nightmare. I don't envy anyone who has to use social services.

>For example, food stamps are mostly used by white people.

Not how ratios work. In absolute terms, there are more white people who use food stamps than non-white people because 3/4s of the country's population is white. Per capita, many more non-white people are on food stamps than white people.

I am wondering about using Chile as another example - as far as I know they have public healthcare?

If your dad becomes unemployed and has very little income, he would most certainly qualify for a heavily subsidized ACA health care plan with caps on maximum out of pocket expenses. And that would tide him over until his mid 60s when medicare (and social security) kicks in. Point is, don't stress too much, they will likely be fine. Health care for the poor and elderly in the US is a much more accessible and affordable resource than we are led to believe, especially in a state like MN which has lots of doctors.

> They cannot afford to lose healthcare coverage.

And with Obamacare, they don't have to. They should be able to purchase decent coverage on the exchange, right? That's what we did when I quit my job.

The amazing coverage they have is barely cutting it. He pays pennies on the dollar for the coverage they get. I can't imagine it would be like this at all on the exchange.

Years ago I did a website for a person who sold health insurance for businesses. It turns out that a business is defined as 2 people and can come in most any form. With business healthcare they accept anyone even if you have pre-existing conditions. It gets around trying to buy health insurance directly. Cost is pretty reasonable.

Great advice - also, there are a few states that allow a one person business to qualify for group coverage.

I forget all of them, but I think the following states still allow "groups of one" with respect to a business acquiring health insurance:

Connecticut, Delaware, Mississippi, North Carolina

My apologies if I'm wrong on any of these, it's just off the top of my head since the last time I looked into it.

There are no pre-existing condition exclusions in private insurance through obamacare. That was the biggest change it brought and is the reason for the mandate (so you don't wait to get sick and then take advantage of the lack of exclusions).

A two person business won't be able to negotiate a group rate or decent benefits package very well. At this point you're better off looking at these ACA exchanges. They've done the negotiation for you with these larger carriers.

You're right - private health insurance will be far more expensive than what he's paying now.

I don't think there's any way around that.

If he can afford to pay the vig, then COBRA makes the most sense for the short term.

cobra is often much more expensive than obamacare; at least it was for me

If his employment does end, he can do COBRA for 18 months (although he'll lose the employer contribution of course).

Afterwards, ACA guarantees that a plan will be available. Depending on the state, you may be able to even get a quick quote online to get an idea of what the cost would be today.

You don't need to go on COBRA and exhaust its benefits before signing up with the ACA. IMHO, the only reason you would want to sign up for COBRA is if you or a family member are undergoing care at a hospital and you don't want the continuity of that care interrupted.

The ACA is going to be far less expensive than COBRA . If you are on COBRA and the company declares bankruptcy, you lose COBRA and must sign up for the ACA.

COBRA is not a realistic option for most people. Without the employer contribution, most health plans end up costing more than $1k/mo. That's too much for a steadily-employed person to afford, let alone someone who was just laid off.

Good news: you're almost certainly wrong :)

Obamacare in MN is through https://www.mnsure.org/ . Your father being fired or laid off qualifies as a special enrollment event.

If your mother is seriously ill, look at gold plans and simply look at the maximum out of pocket. Find a plan with a maximum out of pocket of $2k or even $1k pp. They'll spend it all, and after that, your out of pocket expenses will be limited to copays. They will even be eligible for assistance paying for it if your parents' income falls.

From a brief poke around the above website, for zip 55401 and two adults born 1/1/1960, you should be able to find a plan for under $1k/mo unsubsidized with a $3k/family/year maximum out of pocket. This is almost certainly less than cobra will cost. Be careful of narrow networks though, particularly if your mother is being actively treated by a doctor/hospital.

Good luck to you and yours.

At $1,000/month that's over 10% of his pre-tax income at his current job. That's a lot of money if you aren't working and your income goes to zero.

If you have someone in the family with serious medical issues, though, it's free money. A trip to the ER and a few days in the hospital runs tens of thousands.

Yes, but if that happens, thanks to the other half of Obamacare (the Medicaid expansion), if income goes to zero / povertylevel for any adult (no longer merely special classes of disabled or child-raising adult), then healthcare becomes free.

People with big enough health problems that the heavily subsidized Silver market category is insufficient, but who have only a middle class income, do get stung in this system; But before Obamacare they would have been treated much, much worse should their employer fail to provide them with good health insurance. The Silver market plans are supposed to represent the standard level of care, and be subsidized on a sliding scale from 99% right above the Medicaid threshold, down to 0% at ~$100k income or so, IIRC.

From what I can tell it doesn't do this until you've been unemployed long enough to file a return with zero income.

No, you can call obamacare (not the insurer), explain the loss of income, and ask for the credit. You'll get it, obviously with penalties if you lied.

Note also that this is reliant on not being in a state where a Republican governor has decided to turn down federal money for Medicaid expansion because Obama is a Communist Muslim Death Panelist.

MN, thankfully, has chosen to implement Medicaid expansion.

Well, you have two options:

1 - If you have enough income, you will still be eligible for obamacare through the national but not state obamacare organization: healthcare.gov . The coverage gap is between medicaid on the low end if you have a family (no coverage if you're a single adult) and 100% fpl where obamacare kicks in.

2 - if you have too little income, and you should go on Medicaid expansion but unfortunately live in a state run by bigoted morons, you can always lie and claim your income is higher than it is. It turns out nobody will go after you for this. You just have to claim enough income to get yourself out of the medicaid income bracket and into the obamacare income bracket. You'll still end up with health insurance that costs (guessing) on the order of $50 to $100/mo after maximal tax credits.

In most states, that is $11,770 for a single adult. Your circumstances may be complicated, though; ask someone local. There are people who will help you with this.

and oh yeah: pull your head out of your ass and vote for Democrats. And make sure all your friends and family know that they're not just voting against communist muslim death panels, they're actively hurting you as well.

Do they not count the most recent income? What if you get laid off (or even quit) and suddenly have no income, but for the last year you were making a lot?

The tax credits are calculated on your annual income. So if your income suddenly falls, you have two options:

1 - if you have the savings, just pay the bill and you'll get even with Uncle Sam when you do taxes next year

2 - call obamacare and ask for immediate credits. The credits are based on your annual income, so for example if you got laid off in June you'll get one set of credits for that year, since you had an income for half of it, and larger credits the next year, assuming you still need obamacare and don't have a job.

You don't have to imagine anything. Get a quote from their 24 hour telephone hotline.

https://www.healthcare.gov/contact-us/

I think with the mother you would want at least a gold level plan, right? That's pretty expensive.

With what money?

Posts like this remind me how shitty the business model of most Fortune 500 companies is. They lay off people just to increase profits regardless of productivity goals. For most management councils out there everything is about numbers. Perhaps we ought to do something as a community to stop such practices. Like boycott the shit out of companies that adopt them.

they're laying off not to increase revenue but to slash costs. It's a defensive move not an offensive one.

HP is particularly dumb in this area. My personal acquaintance with this was with their strict "up and out" policy that was in effect several years ago. A decade ago I had a secondary responsibility of supporting a legacy DEC terminal environment.

The crew supporting it were HP badged guys not making alot of money, but being billed at some wacky rate. Never heard from HP hq until some VP of something flew in to tell me the whole crew was being laid off due to not getting promoted. (Keep in mid they were easily clearing $2M a year in profit)

Long story short, they all left, started a little consultancy and were able to win a bid at half the billing rate that 3x their take home.

You can restate that as "HP encourages employees to form their own business" :)

Its important to note this is a dying company with no hope at all for the future. The more employees they shed, the faster they shed them, the longer they can minimally keep on operating, or rephrased they're hoping the total sum revenue will be higher if they stretch out the death of the company as long as possible.

And the reason why that's important is it doesn't matter how good of an employee he is, there's no way to stretch the death of HP out 15 years, so he needs a plan for WHEN hp dies, not IF.

The alternative is to fire everyone all at once in maybe 4 years.

Maybe Alcatel can swoop in and buy them up.

The new corporations are about efficiencies they are not paternalistic as their post-war incarnations. The situation is unfortunate but HP Enterprise Services has a goal of 60% off-shore workforce (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/meg-whitman-hp-offshore-60-224...). That would mean HP is going IBM route even though IBM got wacked big time.

What was IBMs service offering? I'm not very familiar with the industry. The joke is, my father "gets paid to drive" because he's always in his car. Probably... 65% of the time he's in his car, 30% onsite, and 5% at the home office.

Can't offshore that, or can you?

They really, really try. Back when I was an AS400 jockey they started the transition. It went from having a guy on-site whenever we needed anything to having someone on the phone walking someone (usually someone unsuited for the task) through a debugging process.

In other words, "offshore all jobs except the ones that we need to keep our lucrative government contracts."

... And those jobs will be done by indentured H1Bs.

If there's as much demand for him as you're describing, he could probably make a much better living doing consulting for these companies than he could working for HP.

I don't know why I didn't think of this. I'm 24, a bit naive, bleh. I let him know in a text. Thank you.

I referred to HN as "my Silicon Valley friends"

Definitely. Or, if consulting isn't to his taste, take a job with one of them.

In his shoes, I'd also make sure I keep contact information for all his best customers. Because if he gets laid off suddenly, he'll want to go back to them at least to say, "Hey, do any of your vendors need a reliable field service engineer?"

keeping contact information is probably against his contract, and covered as customer information under noncompetes

discovering an interest in being linkedin friends with them is not afaik

Yeah, I was suggesting the latter. The purpose of a non-compete is to keep him from taking information to the competition, so if he merely uses his phone contacts list to get a job, I don't think HP's going to sue.

I am sorry if this question comes of as naive. Is the medical cost so high that it can only be covered with an insurance? Would a small amount of savings set aside for this purpose be viable in case somebody loses their medical insurance? Also would you not be able to take your own medical insurance which is independent of the company you work for? I am just trying to understand how the medical system there works. I hope I phrased the question appropriately.

Medical expenses for major problems can very easily run into the millions of US dollars (open heart surgery, etc). I'm not joking.

The market for private insurance is somewhat better now with Obamacare (depending heavily upon the state you live in) but it still can be very expensive. Especially if you're unemployed.

If you have a family member in poor health, employer-sponsored health coverage can be worth an order of magnitude more than your cash salary. If not more.

CA/usa, broken ankle, two surgeries: $110k in billings. All told, probably 10-12 doctor-hours.

Insurance, beyond insuring you, does something perhaps more important: they negotiate massive discounts with all medical practices/hospitals/etc. My insurer negotiated that to something reasonable (approx $35k, though memory fails me); I could even afford that if I needed to. Crucially (and I understand this is fucking stupid; go 'murica), uninsured people pay way more than insured people even including what the insurance pays. Like integer multiples greater than 3 and up to 20 times more.

> Like integer multiples greater than 3 and up to 20 times more.

Or maybe even real multiples. :)

wow that is lot of money, India should seriously kick medical tourism. Already happens but this can scale lot more. May be US can sponser MBBS students (There is huge amount of students does not opt for MBBS due to cost of up to $150,000 which includes donation to institutions) and then setup operting theators here in India.

Anecdote/comparison: there is a guy on YT doing Taiwan motorcycle tours, one of the US guests broke an ankle falling off the scooter with no tourist insurance. They went to the hospital and asked to pay in cash. Xray, cast, emergency room, all in all few hours of work came down to below $1K no questions asked.

"uninsured people pay way more"

A minor but important correction is they are billed way more, not necessarily pay way more.

For example I dated a girl who just out of high school with no insurance had a really badly broken arm (car accident IIRC) and the hospital "charged" her, in total, $100K+ as an imaginary amount, complained at her for awhile, and then they wrote her off after some token payment (more than they would have gotten in bankruptcy, less than it would have cost her in legal fees to file bankruptcy, but a moderately huge amount of money at part time minimum wage income).

Now whats important is the difference between the imaginary retail price of $100K and what it actually cost to provide services is incredibly valuable from an accounting standpoint. Also from a marketing standpoint her "$100K" of services was donated by a gracious company to the poor, they sure as heck don't publicize the actual cost of providing that service was only $10K even including minor surgery and recuperation. They did a good job, by the time I met her, I had no idea her arm had been so ruined just a year or two ago until she told me and showed me her arm, by no means did they cheap out on her care or recovery just because she was uninsured.

Finally the hope is that if they charged that poor girl a fair $10K then it would be hanging over her head for years until she could pay it off or more likely bankruptcy filing fees costing less than $10K they'd get nothing at all, but if they "charge" $100K then they might jackpot and she could qualify for some govt grant or fundraiser or whatever. If they know she's going to declare bankruptcy no matter what they charge and they're going to get $0 revenue, then game theory shows they should ask for $100M on the off chance by a miracle she wins the lottery, or qualifies from some weird govt grant or school support fund or something.

I think something foreigners often don't understand is we charge poor people $100K for a broken arm but we only charge them like $2K to file bankruptcy, so there are no acute medical problems that cost more than $2K, and for chronic problems they make life hell until either the chronic problem goes away and so do the bankruptcy bills, or the victim dies, but its not really expensive. The business model ruins middle class aspirations (how will I have the vacation home and RV if I file bankruptcy?) but we solved that problem by shipping off all the middle clss jobs to China, not having a middle class means not having to worry about a middle class anymore, there's just really rich people and peasants who own nothing.

Except:

1. Bankruptcy can only be filed once every 7 years. What happens if there are medical complications and you are re-hospitalized after you filed for bankruptcy? Answer: You are screwed.

2. It's usually far cheaper and less hassle to purchase an ACA policy to prevent being presented with these large bills in the first place.

Your main point is not true.

First: hospitals are required by law to stabilize you regardless of your ability to pay. Stabilize. They are not required to treat you beyond getting you to the point you won't die on your way out of the ER.

Second: many of the better medical practices, UCSF Ortho for example, will not treat you if you don't have insurance.

Third: bankruptcy is not quite as straightforward as you make it sound, and if you have any assets, you may well lose them. You can have $10 or $20k and still find a $100k surgery very expensive. For example, in CA, you can only protect $3k or $5k, depending, of value in your car during bankruptcy. And there isn't a $3k or $5k car in the US worth a damn.

Do you think it would help if prices were openly displayed before the procedures? (That would certainly encourage shopping around.)

Yes, even minor* medical issues can run into six-figures. I developed a non-critical arrhythmia last year, medication didn't fully control it, so I opted for catheter ablation.

The procedure itself, plus the related office appointments and tests, was around $50,000 (after insurance discounts). That included separate bills from the surgery center, the hospital (I was admitted overnight), the cardiologist, and the anesthesiologist.

That's for a one-off problem that is now corrected. If it were cancer, or something else that required ongoing treatment, costs rise rapidly.

* To the degree that any medical issue can be minor; my life was never in danger and risk permanent disability was low.

I'd call "minor" something like wart removal or an ear infection, not heart surgery.

There are a few elements to this.

Many providers, including public providers, are exceptionally reluctant to see uninsured patients. If push comes to shove they cannot outright refuse, but they can be highly disinclined.

Insurance isn't just "we cover your bills", but "we negotiate rates with providers". Much healthcare billing is basically funny money. Or more specifically, there are huge fixed costs, but charges are based on specific services billed (HMOs excepted, though internally they likely operate somewhat similarly), so that what in a tremendous number of cases, the healthcare provider cannot tell you, as a private individual, what you'd be billed for treatment. But some hospital procedure or stay can billed entirely differently depending on who paying, with hugely varying rates.

And, since the uninsured has zero effective bargaining leverage (health plans can threaten to drop a provider or apply other leverage), they get the highest rates.

On top of all this, billing is tremendously disaggregated. You might see charges for facility, individual supplies, labs, transport, and individual medical personnel who charge independently. Many (if not most) doctors aren't employees of a hospital, but are independent service providers who charge separately.

It's a mess.

And a distressingly ineffective one. There's been very little real improvement in health outcomes since the 1950s (and for quite some time they got worse). Much of the improvement can be chalked up to improved environmental and lifestyle factors (removing lead from paint and gasoline, asbestos, less smoking and drinking). It's been improved health outcomes for the poor and minorities which account for much of the life expectancy gains as well. Earlier improvements largely came from public health measures: fresh, clean drinking water, sewerage systems, municipal waste removal, and quarantines for infectious disease. Even vaccinations and antibiotics were relatively late and minor interventions by comparison.

As it's been stated, the problem is that insurance negotiates a lower rate, in addition to helping pay for it.

Example: I needed a sinoplasty/septoplasty. The procedure was $26k if I was uninsured. My insurance company had negotiated the procedure to $4k. I owed 10% of the procedure cost at $400. This is for a minor outpatient procedure. So, losing insurance means paying 6500% more for healthcare in this case.

A job working for a hardware vendor like HP doing local area field support? That will probably be impossible to find.

I think the trick is to find a different (yet related) role with a company that is expanding rather than contracting their business.

Datacenter tech springs to my mind -- a fair number of tech companies have midwest sites (mostly Chicago, sometimes Minneapolis or Nebraska or elsewhere) that don't have local techs. Issues are often handled by the east coast team flying out, which is less than ideal. Someone with that many years of hardware experience is pretty hard to find for those types of roles.

I feel for your father, and mother. I hope they weather the storm.

I was going to mention, that if they are proactive; they might be able to keep their health care expenditures reasonable if they apply to Minnesota's department of health and human services. They will need to spend down assets, but they can usually keep their house, and car. (I know in California, the quality of medical care has gotten much better with the funds from the health care act--much better.)

I just noticed that Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty's (R) recent executive order intended to stop the implementation of federal health care reform in Minnesota? I just don't get his thinking? He's refusing millions in free money?

Again, I hope your father doesn't loose his job. I went to Sonoma State university, and all the business graduates went straight HP to fill out job applications. The company's corporate office was within throwing distance. After I graduated, the number one question was, "When are you going to apply to HP?" I hated anything related to tech back then, but the people who got jobs seemed pretty happy. Back then it was a pretty secure job.

I still cringe whenever I hear Carlie Fiorina brag about her tenure at HP. You don't brag when you pretty much ruin a company?

I had an difficult relationship with my father too.

Mark Dayton (D) has been the Governor of Minnesota since 2010.

Because the governor wants to appear "tough on Obama," even if it means making things worse for his citizens.

I always thought the field service guys would be the last to go. But, after a number of conversations with SEs it seems that the efforts IBM/HP/etc have put into producing "choose your own adventure" guides to repairs and escalating everything else to remote "engineering support" have changed that. At least in the mind of the bean counters, my experience with a lot of the newer service engineers is that they can't actually fix anything that isn't already in the manual. AKA, the quality of service sucks and no one cares. My last couple of interactions were basically cases of me telling the SE how to fix the problem after the field service guide (which I asked for) failed to be helpful and the 24 hour turnaround to china for engineering support was dragging on for weeks.

A lot of people have given advice. I like the one about striking out with his own team. He is going to be scared. If you can be there for him in some way it will be great. Do you have a job where you can be with him for 1 weekend a month? Just be there to talk things out, help him, be able to ask for advice (like here on HN) when neither of you have answers. Be his on-call. He absolutely has to do it soon/now for himself and family (healthcare). He has the clients which are always the toughest to get, but he has to start the process now (incorporation, etc).

I know you said you do not have the best relationship, but you recognize he is human. You have compassion. He is family. I want your Dad to succeed. I am sure others in this thread do too.

The company I work for very likely would hire him. We are field-service for hardware and have techs in Minneapolis. While it may not be as flashy as software development or support, the job field still exists and jobs are still available. Have a little bit of optimism!

That's how I feel when the local factories lay workers off. Guys and gals with 30 years in at the same plant, assembling parts day in and day out. On their feet for 12 hours a day, the factory shuts down and what is there for them to do? You might lay 3,000 people off from a plant and all they can do is work at Wal-mart or McDonalds.

Email me if he gets let go, there are tricks to getting healthcare that are questionable, but technically legal depending on the state that he is in. I'm not sure about Minnesota, but I could look into it.

I wish your dad all the good luck. I feel like the position and age combination he has is the worst to be at the moment, it's going to be tricky to move on.

Give him a hand if you're in the position to do so.

Have him take a look through the current openings at MTS.com in Eden Prairie, we hire FSEs and related skillsets.

If he brought in $4MM in revenue and he's only making $98k he's incredibly underpaid.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com