9M American men in prime working age can’t find jobs. I’m one of them
vox.com
vox.com
"That’s where the irony lies. I know that the way you get jobs is by getting out there and telling people you’re looking. Using your acquaintances as a network and strengthening social connections is the best way to eventually land employment.
One day I’ll work up the courage. For now, my desperation is a quiet one, hiding behind school soccer pickups and the glow of a computer screen. For now, it’s still my secret."
I think the danger of unlimited news is understated. The addiction is as bad as other forms of drugs. Ok, maybe not as bad as heroin, but I don't think we are far form that.
Earlier this year, I read about the book Deep Work in a comment thread on HN. I bought the book and read it pretty quickly (it's an easy read) and it really resonated with me.
The author, Cal Newport wrote a piece a couple of days ago on digital minimalism that I think the author of the vox article should read:
http://calnewport.com/blog/2016/12/18/on-digital-minimalism/
My interpretation is that by compulsively refreshing Twitter (or HN), you're giving away your most valuable assets - time and attention. I'm working on spending my time more wisely and reading Deep Work is already paying off for me.
And still. Despite knowing the issue, we are here commenting on HN. :)
There are plenty of companies needing IT workers across the USA and moving to one of them sounds like a good way for him to get back on his feet.
> I was still able to get customer support position quickly, learning skills on the job
> My background in IT and customer support, both considered the bottom rung at most tech companies, meant that I was expendable
So it seems he didn't really have higher qualifications, working in customer support, which is nowadays often outsourced and probably underpaid.
I feel sympathy for the author, but at the same time one thing that I miss from the article is whether he tried to raise his qualifications in any way. Did he try other market segments? Picked up any courses? Broadened his education in any way in the time he was unemployed? The market is saturated with unqualified workers so it's really not so shocking that people are having hard time finding work.
Raising qualifications usually costs money. He's tried when he had work. When he didn't it sounds like money was so tight and stress to high that he couldn't afford it and was focused on the immediate need to get another job. Strategic thinking and action is actually a bit of a luxury.
He wrote:
> Often, the jobs I could get were so disposable that I was never given responsibilities that could help me grow into a promotion, no matter how hard I pushed.
> Even though my wife works a steady job, money has been tight — we’ve gone through periods where we’ve had only $30 to support a family of four for a whole week. Slipping into neurotic budgeting mode has become a well-rehearsed drill at this point. We cancel [all of the things]...
> [W]e’re still living paycheck to paycheck. We’ve cashed out most of our savings accounts, including retirement, and haven’t been able to replenish them.
> Every day involves endlessly scrolling through a list of jobs on Indeed.com and applying here and there with full knowledge that 99 percent of the time, I’ll never hear back.
That means he is literally wasting time, which he could use in other, more productive ways. Sorry, but if I would be 99 percent sure that something I do will bring me 0 benefits, I would stop and do something else.
If you don't have money to raise your qualifications you can still apply for unpaid practice in many places. It will not help with finances immediately, but will make looking for job easier afterwards.
It's easy to judge someone from a distance.
Browsing twitter from 9AM to 1:15PM (an activity he mentions he does) costs the same amount of money as working through codeacademy.com or learn python the hard way.
I'm not defending the OP; I'm just clarifying that programming jobs aren't as easy to obtain as people might think.
Speaking as someone who's hired in the past, most of the CodeAcademy/bootcamp grads we turned away were turned away because they didn't have anything to show us except things they did in the program. Doing CA/completing a bootcamp tells us they know stuff, but the portfolio was an important piece because it told us they could apply what they learned. Just wanted to pass that on to anyone who is doing/considering one of these things. (Bonus points for creating unique apps that interviewers can talk to you about -- I can't even tell you how many Twitter clones I've seen.)
The steps are codeacademy/whatever -> cool project -> hired. You can't skip step 2.
Codecademy is for free and can teach you to code and earn some money within 1-2 months time if you can commit yourself. And that is just one example of rising qualifications for free. You do not need a degree when you are a freelancer.
Also proximity to the in laws is worth something too.
They also have a non-portable living situation.
> Since moving to my mom’s old house after she switched to a retirement home, our living costs are considerably cheaper than the mortgage we once paid.
My most recent hire moved from Chennai to Pune for work. Trump wants to build a giand wall of ice and magic to stop Mexicans from moving to a country where the jobs are, in spite of them not speaking the language or being legally permitted to work.
There are plenty of options. It sounds like this guy is just unwilling to do them, just as he's unwilling to do manual labor.
An honest title: "9M American men in prime working age are unwilling to find work, and I'm one of them."
I bet if this dude got up tomorrow and declared to the world "I am, for the time being, an unemployed stay at home dad and not ashamed of this" that he would not only feel a lot better about himself, but his family life would end up being a lot happier as well. Who knows, perhaps his friends won't even end up shunning him.
There are 9 million unemployed men such as this one (according to the article). This doesn't mean that there are 9 million job openings out there, just waiting for someone with the right resume to show up. Sure, there are probably some, but mostly, this simply means there are 9 million more workers than jobs.
Educating the unemployed will only help individuals beat someone else in the competition of scoring a job, it won't help unemployment as a whole.
After das trumpenfuhrer builds his wall and deports the illegals, there will be about 10M job openings.
Lets be realistic and acknowledge that this guy will refuse to take every single one of those 10M jobs.
> this simply means there are 9 million more workers than jobs
what an outrageous and uninformed thing to say. Can you please edit or delete your comment?
486dx-120mhz.
Right now I'm in a comfortable seniority, renting a townhouse ( Toronto is too expensive to buy) and having a family. The c++ projects keep coming, I don't have to work with anything other than my fingers. Life is good.
Would I, if anything happens, go back to selling toilet paper or digging cannals to survive and strive? Without a doubt.
They raised me to believe there is no shame in manual work, and I still hold that true.
My parents taught me the same way. I have worked many manual labor jobs, and I wouldn't blink an eye to go back if I had to. I wouldn't enjoy it but I have a family to support and I do what I must
Family does changed the outlook quite a bit though for some of the people I know.
What if you didn't have to support your family, since your wife could to that for you? Would you still feel the same drive to do so if it wasn't a "must"?
Personally I feel that that is the crux of the article. He knows he can get a job, but he also knows he doesn't need to, and the sort of jobs he could get won't make a huge difference to their bottom line, and he's having a hard time reconciling all these things to himself.
Feeling "useful" is subjective but can influence one's self esteem a great deal.
On the other end, not having choices can also be motivational. For example, surviving on a single slice of pizza every day ( because it's tax free if it's a slice) will do wonders for motivation once you have a job.
So, it depends, happiness is subjective, but choices matter.
One thing manual work taught me is how to really work. It also taught me that I don't want to do manual work for my entire life, so it ended up being great motivation.
As might very well the guy in the article. The 'problem' is that his survival is in no way at stake. He's looking at the difference between a quite comfortable life and a more comfortable life. When those are the stakes then it's a lot harder to build up that motivation.
He said: "That's the house of the Toilet Paper King."
I've cleaned toilets and programmed computers. I've worked the night shift in a hotel and I've sweated over machines in a sweltering factory. I've sold credit cards and advertising.
Five years I opened a bookstore. Just before I had a conversation with someone who knew my tech background, who was shocked that I would consider entering a dead end industry. I must know future was in tech? Kindle, Amazon, the Internet -- weren't bookstores dead?
Five years in and I make more than I ever did programming. YMMV, but the lesson I learned is do what YOU think is best and don't be ashamed to do what you need to do to get by.
Furthermore, while there may be "dead end jobs", don't ever believe you're in a "dead end life". Stuck working as a oyster diver? Write a best-selling book. Stuck in a patent office? Win a Nobel prize. Stuck in telemarketing? Become a famous actor. You're more than where you are right now.
I'm sure this sounds like heresy to some of you, but you don't have to outrun the bear: you only have to find a temporary local maximum, not an enduring global one. Perfection is the enemy of the good.
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” -- Oscar Wilde
Are you trolling? No one should take this comment seriously.
Is there any way a mod can delete this comment? It seems to violate HN guidelines.
POP: I read that you did telemarketing. How was that?
DEPP: [laughs] I marketed pens—on the phone. But the beauty of the gig was that you had to call these strangers and say, "Hi, how ya doing?" You made up a name, like, "Hey, it's Edward Quartermaine from California. You're eligible to receive this grandfather clock or a trip to Tahiti." You promise them all these things if they buy a gross of pens. It was just awful. But I actually think that was the first experience I had with acting.
Of course there is a Target, Walmart, Home improvement center & large furniture store out on the highway that squeezed the life out of the family businesses a long time ago. It's really sad.
A: in 7 years he couldve gone back to school to learn something else B: most smaller schools I know waive tuition if your unemployed.
C: What's this idea of "stopped looking for work" ? And people say all of us minorities are the ones who want handouts. I've supported a family of 3 on $36k. In New York City. It wasn't easy but I had to do what I had to do.
Could you provide a few examples? I've never heard of such a thing.
You have to reach out to everyone you know for a job. You have to accept people's pity and take whatever you can get.
If you don't have marketable skills, you need to switch to a low-ethics industry - It's less competitive. Find the jobs are considered wrong or unethical and which no one else wants to do - Those pay the best.
When I was going through a hard time, I worked for a gambling company and made a ton of money. Making money feels good.
My philosophy is that if you're a poor person with no savings, you shouldn't worry about how your work affects society; it's not your responsibility - Let those who are wealthy worry about that; they are the only ones who actually CAN do something about that. You do whatever it takes to get the money into your bank account. If society gets worse, then you have to get worse with it.
If society degrades to the point that people are killing each other, you have to be prepared to fight for your survival.
If nothing else, it give you credentials to help avoid this sort of situation in the field you wish to work in.
Not many employers look for humanities majors to run their IT when there are many other applicants with credentials.
How is it a waste of literary talent? To be crass, if they're currently producing something society doesn't value/want to pay for, how is being a cashier a waste?
What they usually mean is "they can't find a job in the area they want, in the industry they want, doing the kind of work they want, at the salary they want, working for someone else."
This is a highly overconstrained search. If / when people loosen one or more of these constraints, they're opportunities open right up.
Like everyone, I prefer to get exactly what I want.
...but it doesn't always play out that way.
When I've needed work and my dream job isn't there, I've worked in garbage industries, on crappy projects, at places that are long commutes, etc., and I've been swamped with work for 25 years.
"There have been times where I’ve wondered if I should just get a temporary service or manual labor job...I would be too humiliated... It would be exceptionally difficult to work eight hours a day hoping with all my might that a neighbor or friend wouldn’t swing by to see me working the cash register or pumping gas."
This is a definitive example of the prideful worker effect. It's kind of crazy how our modern culture substitutes "can't" for "won't".
Meanwhile, this guy says he doesn't have skills with modern technologies and he spends 4 hours/day ("a quick glance at Twitter to see what’s going on in the world, and then I look up and it’s 1:15") procrastinating rather than learning those technologies. Hardly a surprise that no one wants to hire him, I certainly never would.
I have construction skills, so I worked doing demolition and then framing an addition for a friend at $10/hr.
To quote Pulp Fiction
"The night of the fight, you may feel a slight sting. That's pride fucking with you. Fuck pride. Pride only hurts, it never helps."
Over a couple of weeks I made a few thousand dollars, paid the mortgage, and got some exercise.
...and, besides, there's nothing embarrassing about using your hands and your back.
Personally, I agree with your point of view. There is, however, something to be said for people that never settle and by force of will reshape the world around them to conform to their expectations.
Steve Jobs is great an inspiring, because he did X and Y and Z and never compromised his standards.
You know what? You happen to know of Steve Jobs because everything worked out well for him.
There may very well be 20,000 other people who refused to compromise their standards...and perhaps that strategy really sucks and the other 20,000 of them went bankrupt and are working at used car lots now.
"Never settling" sounds great.
I'm not 100% convinced that it is.
But... you have to be careful to stay in reality. Otherwise you end up tilting at the mills.
Two years of unemployment should be enough to indicate that force of will sometimes isn't enough.
If you refuse to try a strategy for 2 years, that's not evidence the strategy won't work.
What he should be trying is a new strategy, not pouring more force of will into this one.
If by force of will I wanted to work at Google for example, I would take steps to improve my chances of making that happen. This story is not about force of will at all, but someone with low self discipline and possibly depressed (clinical depression could be a factor here and he should look into it).
He complains about lack of something to do. There is plenty to do starting with making a schedule listing things to learn for the day that will improve his chances getting the job he wants. I'm sure potential employers are looking at him asking the same questions people here are asking. You've been unemployed for 2 years and have learned what?
I rarely got to see my friends who were more successful starting their own careers. But what I did have is money to pay my rent and free time to continue learning and honing my skills.
Yeah it really sucked working in that warehouse and it was embarrassing a little bit. I used that as motivation. Fuck pride indeed.
It seems to me that pride really was your motivation... and there's nothing wrong with it.
This. I worked overnight stocking shelves in a grocery store for awhile. It sucked, but I did a good job while I looked for different work. Then I waited tables for awhile after that. All the jobs I have had have taught me various things, but the main one was motivation to not have to do those jobs.
Six years and three failed university degrees later, I started in night shifts myself in customer support because I had no other option and some guy from a mailing list had a heart for someone broke and desperate.
Fast forward another seven years and I'm not just CTO of a profitable company, but also pretty thankful of all my experience in customer support, if only for a good chunk of humility. It's really hard to overcome your initial feelings about such a "downgrade" in socioeconomic status for a chance on a new beginning/industry though, don't know if I would have dared that after 40.
That's an inspiring story.
I was lucky to avoid having to work in the service industry - aside from occasionally having to work the floor at a retailer when we finished unloading/loading a truck early - but my wife worked as a server for a good long while, and we both agree that we will absolutely encourage our children to work jobs like those - aside from earning money, it teaches empathy and how to deal with difficult situations.
I've got no doubt that it would be really difficult to take a low-pay, low-skill job after working on the other end of the spectrum for decades. But after two years of no employment, it seems like the appropriate action. Two years of working as a cashier or a janitor or just about anything else looks better on a resume than two years of no employment.
But I'm also aware of the fact that I'm fortunate to have an extremely good job and I would spend a lot of time looking for a similar job before showing up at Papa John's with my resume.
I was mostly talking for people my age (20s) that went to school for bullshit degrees only to come out 80k in debt and have no hopes of finding a job because they didn't do research into the market before they went to school.
It's like planning on the NBA or acting as a career: a high-risk proposition that requires total dedication in exchange for an uncertain chance of success. There are some people who are OK with that.
I think the conclusion is that only very dedicated students should go into these fields, which would simultaneously reduce the supply of people trying to go into them, and reduce the number of unemployed people with these degrees. I have little sympathy for someone who chose a high-risk degree like biology and then complains it didn't work out (at least the author of the article didn't make THAT mistake). People who think they are guaranteed a job in any given field simply because they have a degree, or that all careers have equal odds of finding steady employment, are completely out of touch with reality.
Yes and no. It can speak to structural inefficiencies in the economy. For instance, I am a Computational Scientist with a decade of experience in scientific research, publications, etc. It would be a massive waste of my training to be working in an unrelated field, for instance.
Underemployment is a very real thing, and it hurts the entire economy. We as a society have a vested interest in ensuring that highly productive roles (data science, medicine, etc.) are filled, because thelse positions are more productive and boost the aggregate economy. To say nothing of the likely higher salary and job satisfaction that comes with a 'good fit'.
This is an example of what I'm talking about.
What's more of a waste of your training? To be work in a career field only 60% overlapping with your training, or to be unemployed (with 0% overlap) ?
Would be interesting to count one as being only 60% employed, in the example you give. So if you had 100 million people all employed at 60% fit, that's an 'effective' employment of 60 million. Of course, I have no idea how one might measure that.
But I am not an economist, there may be similar (or superior) measures for underemployment.
If you want to read more on this look up "search costs"
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1465-7295.1976....
And on the academic side, I'm not a fan of the idea that everything should be focused on the career side. A world without the humanities might get university graduates earning more money, but it'd feel poorer in some sense at the same time.
My point is, that you're absolutely right. It may not be the job you want right now, but it is probably the job you need right now. You can either take it and work on our next move or sit there pontificating if the perfect job will arrive next.
Also I would look into some hobbies that could potentially bring in money(twitter analyst?)
If he was doing some sort of software support for obsolete programs there is a dwindling demand for such skills in US. (ahem outs...)
On the other hand being underemployed in the wrong kind of job that saps all the energy could actually be counterproductive in the longer term.
According to the article the author is applying to jobs, getting a mininum wage job would not really change that nor drastically improve family finances in SV.
Disclaimer: I speak as someone who earns roughly the US minimum wage at my official job.
What they usually mean is "they can't find an employee in the location they want, with the credentials they want, with the skills they want, at the salary they want, who's been trained by someone else."
This is a highly overconstrained search. If/when employers loosen one or more of these constraints, candidates show right up.
Like everyone, I prefer to get exactly what I want.
...but it doesn't always play out that way.
When I've needed staff and my dream candidate isn't there, I've hired imperfect people that I had to train, raise the rate I was willing to pay, put together attractive relocation packages, etc., and I've never had a problem hiring in 20 years as a manager.
(Both parties in an employment relationship may not have equal bargaining power, but I take issue with the implication that employers have no agency and workers no power.)
EDIT: A point I wanted to include or imply, but couldn't really shoehorn into this inversion, is that just as employers set bounds on what they offer employees, workers set bounds on what offers they accept. Sometimes it's rational to hold out for the right role through an extended period of unemployment (while focusing instead on finding the right role and acquiring or sharpening marketable skills) than to take underemployment that leaves you with no time for improving your position.
Supply and demand curves _ALWAYS_ meet. It's just that the point where they meet tells you what the market-clearing price is.
Sometimes this information makes one sad.
Managers who "can't hire good people" are sad because good people cost more than they want to pay.
Employees who "can't find a job" are sad because jobs that match their skills and other requirements pay less than they want to receive.
Nifty little device to make a an important point.
How exactly? The author has not provided (and neither have you) any examples of how age discrimination has affected him except through vague feelings.
On the other hand, in the story alone, it's already been demonstrated that he's not really resilient in the face of adversity. Just because he gets rejected from an interview, he stops looking for a job for a few weeks? That sort of attitude will get you nowhere, no matter where you are.
I'm an attorney specializing in compliance and privacy, so most all of my work is 'consulting'. But I run into companies every day who enjoy being constantly understaffed. It's the fashion in IT atm. A company without dozens of open positions isnt considered 'lean' and so they keep many open just so they can say they are there. (Some hr depts probably also think open positions are a headge against downsizing. They arent.)
He said he had to shut down his business - couldn't find anyone willing to learn the trade.
He said no one wants to get their hands dirty anymore.
He said it's a shame, they could basically charge as much as they like - write their own tickets.
I'd add basic mechanics to this list -- things like changing my own oil and replacing my own battery have saved me a TON of money and there's a satisfaction that comes from being able to fix your own stuff.
As an aside, my wife and I do home improvement projects 'for fun'. Our largest so far was updating a bathroom. Youtube is amazing for learning, and worst case you end up hiring someone to fix what you broke :)
But I had watched what they did, and nothing seemed that complicated. Ever since, I just do the plumbing repairs myself for a couple bucks instead of several hundred.
Probably for very similar reasons.
Are you a vegetarian? Then doubtful. If you've ever had a factory egg before, they shove the male chicks into a woodchipper.
> operating the gas chambers in Auschwitz?
And we're at Nazi already!
15 minutes walk and I was able to find 8 retails job offers. It was 4G upload speed that was slowing me down adding new posts...
Jobs are everywhere and I couldn't agree more: "they can't find a job in the area they want, in the industry they want, doing the kind of work they want, at the salary they want, working for someone else."
Ditto.
Moralizing about how they're all too lazy and prideful to get a job is itself lazy. At least take the step to identify why you think the number of the prideful lazy has increased.
Also: you said you've been in the workforce for 25 years. Have you considered that not everyone shares your particular history of entering into the workforce right before an extended boom time? That's a huge difference from people who entered in 2008, only found a paying job in 2010, and as a consequence of timing are behind people who graduated a year or two later than them.
Doesn't sound like the guy in the article has tried, but he may find his situation is a lot worse when it gets to that level of desperation.
The reason is of course that if you're running a McDonalds or supermarket, you don't want a guy who you know is actively searching for something else and will leave immediately when he finds it. There's a cost to finding and training people, even if it's a lot less than finding a dev.
I remember being out of work for quite a bit of time. It was right out of MBA school (after working ~10 years as a software developer), I graduated into the Great Recession. Could not find anything--programming or otherwise. I started burning through savings, and was very tempted to just take any gas station job I could in order to make ends meet. It's like a game of chicken where you wait as long as you can before jumping out of the way of the truck.
Through a great miraculous fortune, at the last possible moment, I found a mid level software job and took it with zero negotiation, being about 1 month away from insolvency. It was totally beneath me in terms of qualifications but when the alternative is going broke, you take it. I was pretty close to walking into McDonalds at that point asking if they needed a janitor.
I know it shouldn't bother me this much. I have had 7 interviews in my life and I only failed 2 of them. One of them being back in high school when I applied to Pepsi for stocking shelves.
I know that if I would to ever actually end up in that kind of position, it would most likely be because of feared it so much that I made it happen to myself.
And with offical unemployment at 4.5% as some else has mentioned jobs may not exist for these guys given the current economic structure. The demand is not there. Hopefully, no matter how imperfect, a large infrastructure investment happens and stimulates demand for prime age male workers.
A slew of survivorship bias comments that seem to focus on the 1 sentence of the article, where the author is saying they do not consider a manual labor job to be practical, and neatly ignoring everything else.
Here are some things most commenters have willingly ignored from the comfort of their privileged ignorance of economics:
1. Depending on your health, working a manual labor job at 47 may be a net negative value. Your body does not heal or recover that well from prolonged repetitive tasks, so working long days for a $12/hr wage may actually be a worse deal from not working at all. If this country had federal health care, then it might have made sense, but since we have the for-profit approach, it doesn't.
This can be true even if he's in perfect health right now.
2. Ageism is more real than you think. Especially ageism when it comes to the resume and job history. Since he's not an engineer, the thought process of a potential employer goes like this: this guy is 47 and he hasn't held a management job once in his life, nor progressed beyond basic tech support and customer service. He also has a family, so he likely won't be willing to work extra hours for free and be as willing to be exploited as someone who is 23.
3. Applying for shitty jobs is more costly than applying for higher paying jobs. The application process for a job is taking a certain amount of time regardless of the job itself, but the since the payoff for a better job is much higher, it makes sense to apply only for jobs that pay above a certain threshold. This is especially true when you consider he is providing some benefit at home as a stay at home dad (presumably). If he's providing $10,000 in value by staying at home, It will be 6x as costly to apply for a $15,000 job than for a $40,000 job.
4. The social stigma and not being able to network: Networking works great when you're a professional that is able to get job offers without networking. It helps you get better jobs or more interesting jobs, but it doesn't suddenly elevate you from a non-professional status (tech support + customer service) to the status of a professional with the corresponding salary and benefits. The only case where this work is very entrenched nepotism, where someone unqualified could get a job for which they are not suited with compensation higher than their "real" market rate.
Networking is mostly useless if you don't have the skills to back it up, like this guy.
5. The twitter sentence. I'm honestly shocked at some of the vitriol from the HN community here. Do none of you ever procrastinate? If I'm not mistaken, it's working hours right now, but most of you are finding the time to comment here, on HN. If you had ever spent job hunting for a significant amount of time, you'd know it's at least as mentally draining as any job, so getting distracted or having some down time isn't unwarranted.
I could go on and on, but the gist of it is: show some goddamn compassion and maybe step outside of your bubble for once.
The fact that this person is one of 9 MILLION should maybe at least tell you that it's a systematic problem, and not just a problem of "not being willing to work any job for fear of embarrassment" For every one unwilling to do manual labor like this guy, there's another one who is (aka the other 4.5 million).
Citation needed. Most of my coworkers are easily over 40. The best programmers I've met at most of my jobs are late forties/fifties. What studies are you using, rather than your hypothetical "though process" of the hypothetical employer?
> If he's providing $10,000 in value by staying at home, It will be 6x as costly to apply for a $15,000 job than for a $40,000 job.
It will be 6x more costly to accept the 15k job than to accept the 40k job. The application costs are still the same. Also, by applying for the 15k job in your example, you are able to a) spend 10k to offset the value you bring at home or keep the 10k and let some chores remain undone and b) Keep 5k regardless.
> but most of you are finding the time to comment here, on HN.
We are not the ones who have to stretch 30 dollars a week to cover expenses for a family of four. If you have a steady job that doesn't frown too heavily on some procrastination, go ahead.
> If you had ever spent job hunting for a significant amount of time, you'd know it's at least as mentally draining as any job, so getting distracted or having some down time isn't unwarranted.
We're talking about degrees here. I'm procrastinating right now, but if I procrastinate too long I will end up unemployed, just like this guy. There's a difference between getting distracted and down time, and taking weeks off between interviews.
> show some goddamn compassion and maybe step outside of your bubble for once
From all accounts, this man who wrote the article is the one in the bubble. It's all about how he feels, how his friends will hurt his feelings if they figure out he's unemployed. He's the one that needs to step outside himself.
> Citation needed. Most of my coworkers are easily over 40. The best programmers I've met at most of my jobs are late forties/fifties
Programmers. Programmers. Programmers.
This guy is not a programmer. He's not in a senior or even a middle role. Did your coworkers all start coding bootcamps and get their junior positions at the age of 40 and over? If not, then your anecdata is equally as useless as the example you're trying to disprove.
> It will be 6x more costly to accept the 15k job than to accept the 40k job. The application costs are still the same. Also, by applying for the 15k job in your example, you are able to a) spend 10k to offset the value you bring at home or keep the 10k and let some chores remain undone and b) Keep 5k regardless.
Yes, and he'll have to work 40 hours. You have no idea what his utility preferences are, so suggesting to trade 40 hours/week of work for an additional 5k of compensation is laughable. Especially coming from someone in a position of privilege.
> We are not the ones who have to stretch 30 dollars a week to cover expenses for a family of four. If you have a steady job that doesn't frown too heavily on some procrastination, go ahead.
Irrelevant.
> From all accounts, this man who wrote the article is the one in the bubble. It's all about how he feels, how his friends will hurt his feelings if they figure out he's unemployed. He's the one that needs to step outside himself.
And by all accounts you mean your account. Like I already said, someone in your position lacks the perspective to understand what it is to be in that position, not to mention the possible economic trade-offs available. So the value of your account/opinion is null. And no, just because you worked a manual job at some point in your life doesn't qualify.
Wow, even when you set up straw men you can't knock them over.
> This guy is not a programmer.
This guy said ageism is big in the valley. He said nothing about roles.
> You have no idea what his utility preferences are, so suggesting to trade 40 hours/week of work for an additional 5k of compensation is laughable.
Reading comprehension much? I said it doesn't cost him more to apply, just that it costs him more to accept.
> Irrelevant.
Ridiculous.
See how you need reasons for your opinions before they convince anybody? Maybe you should take some rhetorical courses before spewing nonsense.
> So the value of your account/opinion is null.
That's ridiculous. That absolutely negates all discourse, as you can simply write off somebody's thoughts/reasons as not relevant, because their situation is not exactly the same as yours.
You notice that the more examples your arguments can apply to, the weaker and sillier they sound?
Buddy, you're in a rut. You're only 47 -- that means you've got 20-25 more years to work. If you do it right and earn the ability to retire. What happened yesterday is done. It's tomorrow you have to focus on. The only race is with yourself.
You're letting the world get you down, and there's no reason for that. Every day is a new day to reinvent yourself; learn a new skill, fix a character trait you don't like / or that isn't working. Humans are fluid, adaptable. But... if you don't constantly seek change by perpetually improving yourself, you'll have to deal with change imposed on you by others -- making your own choices is how you stay empowered.
Going to go through a bit more, point-by-point, and highlight why I feel this article is a cautionary tale.
> While I majored in the humanities, I was still able to get customer support position quickly, learning skills on the job.
So why not learn to code? You lived through the dot-com boom... no reason why you couldn't pick up a book and get more into technology. You've been around technology longer than some startup CEOs have been alive. Stop standing still, there are plenty of online resources and courses on how to learn new skills.
> Budgeting has become a well-rehearsed drill
Everyone should budget. If you don't have money you need to. If you have money and you don't budget, well... you'll probably need to soon enough. Also... move. Plenty of places that are a lot cheaper than California.
> The job hunting process is pure drudgery
See previous point... you need to keep working on improving yourself. The job process is "drudgery" because the market is saying, "We don't want what you're selling, go get something else and sell that." Additionally, if you ever get to this point where you are feeling down and out and hopeless... why would anyone want to hire you? Take the time you need to collect yourself, come back fresh. Again... not so much a choice, you won't have success trying to apply for jobs if your head isn't in the game -- so either you choose to take the time to get better, or you continue in a rut.
> The days are long and boring
So, you have lots of time to learn new skills, new technology, new platforms, or just read books? My mom used to tell me when I was growing up, "Only boring people get bored." If you're depressed, and it sounds like you are, just focus on moving. Walk as far as you can in a day. Try to beat your high score the next day... until you feel like doing something else.
> There’s social stigma
There's a stigma around saying, "I'm a failure, I'm a failure." Look at failure as an opportunity to learn. You talked about "being a consultant" and there's no reason why you can't be a consultant... fake it until you make it... all that. Maybe 1% of real SEO consultants know what they're doing... they all seem to make money off it (and even to be in that 1% doesn't take that much knowledge) -- an example of a non-technical job you can self-teach yourself into.
Seven years off... I have to think there's something going on here. Possible someone is enabling you to make shitty life choices that put you in a depression spiral? You have the time, you have the ability, you the resources (as most of them are free and just require a computer)... you just to start taking small steps. Learn HTML + CSS, learn SEO, learn JavaScript... learn how to install WordPress themes (literally no coding required), learn how to use HubSpot, or Google Analyitcs, or any of the huge assortment of tools that people can make a living off of using. And don't stop learning.
Set goals for yourself, and be wary of anyone who makes it easy to ignore those goals... Yes, it sucks to fail... and it's nice to have a warm bed to come home to -- win or lose... but when given the choice... skip the easy path (rut), go for the challenge -- that's how you learn and grow. The solution to your problems isn't on the easy path, you say you've been on that path for 7 years without success... time to try something new.
Seriously? You're living in a house your mother gave you, and you've got two children to feed, and you don't want to work at a gas station because you'd be embarrassed?
Is this a weird cultural thing, where ten years of Russian upbringing followed by a decade plus in Texas, both rural in urban makes me incapable of feeling sympathy for a man who'd be too embarrassed to be seen feeding his family?
How is that more shameful than writing an article for the world, admitting that you're too scared of a bit of social stigma to get a temporary job to help you get by?
I don't believe in "men's" work, "woman's" work, "immigrants" work... there is only work that needs doing. Being someone who is know to take on whatever needs doing is a great way to get better jobs.
Would you want to hire one who spent the last 3 months doing nothing because he couldn't find a job?
I wouldn't care, personally. You gotta do what you gotta do.
Also, that implies that you have to disclose your entire employment history. You can skip over jobs that don't directly apply to the job you're currently applying for.
> The stigma is real and it's more than just pride.
No, it's pretty much just pride. There's no stigma, at least in my social circles. To take care of your kids and your family you do whatever it is that needs doing.
The author knows exactly what he is doing and he is succeeding. I'm certain he will either have several thousand dollars in donations or a high-paying job by the end of the week.
This is the age of entitlement. You only have to do what you feel like doing and feelings are all that matter.
Oh, cry me a river. I put myself through school on retail. I am a programmer. If I lost this job, I'd be back to retail in a heartbeat while I worked to find a new IT job. I have a very hard time having sympathy for someone who goes on and on about how bad he has it while he's not willing to work a job that is "beneath" him. What classes are you taking? What are you doing to get more relevant? Github is free. Resources are free. Many classes are free. Get your StackOverflow on. Shit, I get offers from there frequently and all I have done is answer some questions.
Your kids are hungry because you're too good to get a job at a freaking grocery store??