Homeless Man Has Three Degrees and Can't Find a Job
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Something does not compute. I highly doubt it's racism (I'm black and very active in the acoustics community in Boston and have witnessed basically no intentional racism). Everyone I know out that way is very busy and a lot of firms have hired recently so it's not a matter of employers not willing to hire.
There's either more to the story here or people are missing out on a potentially fantastic hire.
edit: I've put out some feelers to see if any knows or might be interested in speaking with this guy.
Basically, analyzing large, complex systems (especially economic and social systems) is hard and we should try to do it with an element of formality.
Whenever someone comes along with actual acoustics training and/or experience, companies are usually falling over themselves to hire the applicant since the hire can be effective from day one.
Perhaps Mr. Johnson doesn't want to do acoustics and hasn't applied for an acoustic position. Or it could be transportation problems or something logistical. But I have a hard time believing that he applied in the field and no one in the Boston area would hire him.
And even if they did, wouldn't it take maybe 5 minutes worth of correspondence to figure out if he was or was not? Unless you are saying there is rampant racism in the acoustical engineering industry to the point that he would not even advance to a correspondence level with a hiring manager based soley on the fact that he is black.. Which I would doubt.
I doubt that would be much of an issue, especially since a lot of the acousticians in the Boston area are around that age and I can think of at least a half-dozen Boston-area hires in that age group.
>and has been out of work for sometime
If I had to guess, I'd say this is the big issue.
>His race might play a part in potential employers being doubtful that he has those skills
Maybe, but again I've seen no evidence of this around Boston-area acousticians. I've certainly can't remember ever being on the receiving end of it.
He's 55 years old now. He was 33 in 1990, when he stopped working (according to him). The idea that an electrical engineer and physicist with tons of programming experience to boot, and with references from Lockheed as a Senior Research Engineer, could not get a job from 1990 to 2007, is just not plausible, even if he took a lot of time off to care for his parents. The story is not reasonable, and there are parts of it we're not hearing and parts that have been distorted (I doubt he really got to Dartmouth at age 16).
People pass this along as two things: a) a sad personal story, and b) a commentary on the sad state of the country. The fact is that it fails as both. As a personal story, it is implausible and clearly incomplete. I feel like I am being pulled around by the nose. I feel like I am hearing only one source, and that source is less than totally truthful. The real story is probably still sad, but it's probably different and less pithy. Right now, I just feel like I am being manipulated.
And it clearly has nothing to do with the state of America in 2011, since this man's problems existed decades before, and in an excellent economy.
I've taken a class on homelessness. The short version is that it is usually rooted in intractable personal problems: Chronic health issues, abusive childhoods, mental illness and so on.
That is not intended to blame the victim. That's just reality: Employers pay you for value added to the business, not as a charitable act. If you have very big personal issues, you may not be very employable. I have a chronic illness myself and was very fortunate to be able to be a homemaker and military wife for a very long time. The good medical coverage from my husband's career was a godsend and it was helpful to be able to claim "homemaker" instead of "unemployed bum for 20 years" after I was finally diagnosed and well enough to work. I still had a hard time getting a job at all and I am still "underemployed" if you go by my education/skills. But until very recently, the job I currently have was all I had energy for. Anything more demanding would have gotten me fired.
I will also add that my understanding is that there is a general rise in homelessness, which points to systemic problems. That should concern everyone, not just folks like me.
EDIT: also, that same LinkedIn profile claims he started his masters degree in Plasma Physics in 1972, when he would have been around 16. Come on people, engage some critical thinking here. You're not hearing the whole story, and you're not hearing it from a reliable source.
This is an excellent point. I was working for a Boston-area acoustical consulting firm in the late 1990's and we had a hell of a time recruiting people. After an unwillingness to so so, the firm had to start giving out signing bonuses to attract candidates and still lost applicants to competing firms.
In his case there definitely turned out to be more to the story.
Or untold police brutality stories which neglect the office point of view. Not that I condone police beating the crap out of people, but I understand every one has a breaking limit, and often after watching those videos I think I wouldn't have lasted half as long as the cops did. But a cop having to face 3 abusive people in an uphill struggle to do his job... until he pulls out a baton and pacifies one or two ... is no where near a great story as a abusing his power.
Lots of homeless people have mental defects that can be hard to see at first. I wouldn't mind betting there maybe something else as well. Even something as simple as depression.
I suspect he has these going against him. Age , weight, race, long term unemployed, homeless, new city, industry knowledge which he probably hasn't kept unto date on, and drive... lets face it younger people have more drive to be prove themselves than older people.
Pretty hard to top of the pile when lots of other applicants wouldn't have that.
I'd say the best thing for him would be teaching, seems he has a warmth about him, proven kindness (with parents), seems intelligent enough, and as long as theres no mental defects. One year in a local community college and he'd be set. No doubt there will be an online effort to help this man out. And I'd chuck him a dollar to be a teacher.
I'm guessing the question really is: is what we're listening to and reading an honest portrayal of events. That's anybody's guess.
It's not the whole story, for sure. It's a story with details and facts chosen based on the biases of the folks covering it (I believe the business of news, particularly news magazines, is closer aligned with the entertainment industry ... having a story go viral increases pageviews, advertising dollars and subscriptions [I'm not implying malice, here, just trying to analyze perspectives]).
I am not homeless but not able to land work and have been working in a different industry for 5 years but want to get back in to what I went to school for which is Computer Engineering.
I'm a freelance writer slash "creative". I've been that way for over five years. I also have creative projects and those have been generating revenue and opportunities for me.
It's not easy. I was homeless for several weeks about a year ago. Couldn't cover the rent. But I've done factory work for many years and I'd choose this any day.
Personally I'd suggest finding a new project that's up and running with a very committed founder, and put a lot of effort into contributions.
If you pick something like openphoto, you'll be able to make a difference, make a good track record of work done by yourself, and if openphoto takes off, then you'd be in the perfect position to get hired to work on it.
By the way, the reference to "SoloFX Enterprises" is fake. As I said, I was unemployed at the time, so I just made something up. You'll find several other articles from me right around the same time period.
In any event, while his sentiments were laudable, I'm reminded of a Dave Ramsey saying - "you can't help someone from a position of weakness". I think it was DR, anyway. In other words, to be able to help someone financially, you need to be able to keep yourself financially strong. As crappy as that might have been what would have happened had his mom still been alive? He'd be on the streets with an elderly Alzheimer's parent.
I realize people can't predict the future, but I've got friends that are continually doing really dumb things with money for their kids and even grandkids, and are going broke (and beyond) in the process. I think it does little to help the kids learn a sense of responsibility. My parents both helped out some when I was growing up and migrating to adulthood, but never to the point where they put themselves at serious financial risk. I'm grateful for their help, but we all felt I needed to do most of it on my own, which I have.
You are completely right when you're in the position to think rationally. My only thought is that ... it's his Mom. I'm a married man with a few kids and am the sole income provider for my family (by choice not circumstance). I would move heaven and earth to ensure my family (my bride and children) were taken care of. Were I single, I'd live on the street if it meant the difference between my mom being tossed out of her home or me being able to prevent that.
It's completely irrational behavior from a Dave Ramsey standpoint (I'm a fan of his), and I know that elderly care isn't a choice between "stay in your home" and "suffer/die in an alley with dementia", but it's difficult to make sound decisions when dealing with such a serious emotional circumstances. (case in point, I don't even know the meaning of living on the street, but I know what decision I'd make regardless).
There's a bit of hindsight at play here. When I decided to move out, my dad did everything he could to convince me to buy a house rather than rent (throwing your money away! Tax deductions!). From a cash flow perspective, it didn't make sense. I had no savings and would have had to game the system via several different types of loans, but from the conventional wisdom of the time, it was: your house will never decline in value. I rented and I'm glad I did. I'm now a homeowner with a simple 15 year fixed that's nearly paid off.
I don't mean to belittle the very real problems in both the job market and our education system. I do mean to quibble when journalists try to find extreme examples where commonplace examples abound.
The best employee I've ever had wasn't a Computer Science or MIS major (I believe he switched later). It was an accident that I even got his resume (coincidentally, a staffing intern at my company mixed it up. It was due for the bin [HR and staffing are for another rant, I'll leave it alone this time]). He was a brilliant guy. He interned for the half of the summer. In a few weeks he went from zero experience with databases and directX, to developing a solution using both technologies (he wasn't a magician, the end-product was good, but required some reworking of code due to his applying knowledge from one language to another, but it was done, usable and with a bit of work supportable). We offered him a full time position on the spot and he declined (he wanted to be in academia at the time, but ended up in industry a few years later).
Degrees are important. Experience is important. Intelligence is important, but being intelligent and having degrees doesn't equate to success or the deserving of success. I used to work with a guy who was the sort of guy you wanted to go out to lunch with (if you're a geek). Very intelligent, had all sorts of ideas, could talk about anything related to his field (networking) and would challenge you to think about things differently. Unfortunately, he could talk all around theory, but he couldn't execute. It was a strange sort of inability to choose between several equally good approaches to solving a problem. Every project he worked on got about 3/4 to completion and then fell flat into failure.
And of course, the story of my two coworkers is certainly not a rigorous statistical understanding of the world. It's my observation mixed with bias. But it's worked so far in finding good, terribly unqualified individuals that can produce far more than they take away from me in time-spend.
Almost textbook description of ADHD. ref: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2877100
I have children, and I've worked with a few folks who have been diagnosed as ADHD, but I think the focus always lands on the "Hyperactivity". In retrospect, he could very well be ADHD (it was called ADD when I was a kid, and "shut up and sit down" when my dad was a kid), but I my armchair quarterbacking (psychologicalicking [made it up]) can see the signs there. He was a very organized individual, coupled with the observed behaviors (hyper focused, often a part of ADHD that isn't associated with the condition).
Still, the article mentions he sold all his stuff and spent his savings on paying for his parent's house. First, that means he doesn't have to live on the streets currently (his parents have a house), and second he should have just let his parents go bk then help them get set up again. That's for starters, and there's probably a few other things he could do that would make a big difference in getting it together.
I was unemployed for a year and a half, and even Wal-Mart wouldn't hire me.
I've had several colleagues in the past few years do this. They'll join a master's program at a University somewhere. The colleagues will suddenly go from unemployed to a rising student with prior, verifiable work history. Once they get a job, repaying the loan is fairly easy, especially if it's a state school.
Also, a 0% loan is still a loan, you have to repay the principle, and if you overpay for an education (itself overpriced for the same reasons houses were overpriced), you'll still have to pay that back.
Start with the library, that's free.
The library doesn't reset your resume. This does. You don't actually need to finish the degree, find a job while in school.
If that's the goal, let's say you only go back to school for a year. What does grad school cost these days? 28k for public, 38k for private? So you're paying $30,000 for someone to essentially vouch that you're doing something with your days while looking for a job?
Seriously, I'm just not seeing where this makes practical financial sense?
http://www.fis.ncsu.edu/cashier/tuition/gradtuition.asp
Plus, as a student, you get access to the career fair as well as the internship program.
No one wants to admit that nearly every business except tech is sitting on cash and just working their existing employees to the bone because they can (and because it's more profitable). The real hiring is overseas, as it should be.
People like the guy in the video and 99ers may need to start their own businesses if they can't find anything. Necessity is the mother of invention (and entrepreneurship).
If you are able bodied, hard working, and reasonably bright, then contact local apprenticeship programs. They are almost always desperate for new people these days. These sorts of jobs cannot be outsourced and are in high demand since the society in America these days so highly encourages everyone to seek university education.
Food service jobs are actually quite difficult for most people to land compared to most jobs. The reason people use it as an example of where unemployed people could work is because lots of teenagers can get those jobs meaning that people who say that are remembering back to when they or their buddies got those jobs.
EDIT: I'm not pulling this out of my ass here, I say this from personal experience. For about 5 years before I got into uni I worked a few jobs in demo (gutting, nothing specialized, just swinging a sledgehammer) and as a migrant farmhand (most of that work as general labour at various processing plants down the coast). Most of my friends from that time went on to get apprenticeships in various trades. I don't care to think about how many pounds of asbestos I probably inhaled, but it was work.
Two extra points:
1) At the age of 55, I am not sure how vast a swath of jobs are available in construction. I know crane operators make major bucks, but there is a long waiting list for the training. Perhaps someone with more experience knows of other non-labor intensive jobs in these industries a 55 year old man could find. But maybe in this instance, for this man, it's not the right fit.
2) Regarding asbestos: I hope you're joking. Having three degrees does not entitle anybody to any job. But everyone in America deserves safe working conditions at the jobs they can find!
The fact is, computers and large-scale engineering projects are really fucking interesting and siphoning off talent from other areas. The dreaded brain drain. Meanwhile, our grid is crumbling and we're playing it conservatively--minor fixes, if anything. If there was some serious thought and excitement put back into it, to not just modernize, but futurize our utilities--we'd see a lot more people start to join.
NIMBY is a problem: no micro-wind farms, no upgraded rail projects, no weird bio-tech projects, nothing new or innovative. If anyone's intellectually curious, why the hell would they want to join something as boring as a public works project?
That sounds almost exactly like my last programming job. Except it was more like 90% male. :-)
I know people with the opposite experiences. I know people who are just gutting, cleaning, sledgehammering and etc that are constantly looking for more work, taking it where they can find it, and living paycheck to paycheck. There is a work drought. We're talking people without high school educations who have worked jobs like this for years but have been having a harder time now than ever.
On a higher level, I also happen to know the owners of a construction firm. They make solid money (don't know how much for sure but over $150K/yr) who have complained about how they are dipping into savings, investing more than ever in advertising, and still having problems finding projects to do.
I think there is reason to be suspect about the guy in this article, but that doesn't mean times aren't really tough all over.
He did not disparage people who become unemployed, it is obviously something that happens to qualified, hard-working people every year for various reasons.
I agree with the poster's sentiments. If I was ever in a position where I was unemployed, I would take whatever job I could find if the alternative was becoming homeless. Obviously, if Wal-Mart turned me down, that is not a job I would be able to take.
But the biggest deterrent is the motivation to go out there and really push hard to make yourself relevant. He did couple of times mention the 'color' and it seems that he is feeling like a victim. In order to succeed, you need to get out of that mentality and start thinking positively about the value you can bring to an org.
I also get very suspicious when someone has multiple degrees at the same level, in this case 2 master's degrees. I can't put my finger on what it is, but people who collect degrees seem like they are more often completely incompetent.
It's not societies fault that someone can't find their ideal job in a dying city, and it's not news.
Yes, maybe this specific person is not a good example. Maybe he has suffered mental health issues or substance abuse (though I find the accusation appalling). Maybe he does suffer a severe lack of skills.
But the fact that a highly-educated person had to sell all his assets in order to support his parents, and consequentially is now job and homeless, says something about society.
So, yes, it is societies problem. No one is to guarantee that tomorrow that person will not be you or me. And from that perspective, things look a hell of a lot different.
I live in Israel, and right now the majority of the Israeli people are uprising [1] (democratically and peacefully) against the absurd cost of living that we have been suffering for the past 20 years. Thankfully, our macro economy numbers are good, and people have jobs - but raising a child or buying a house is nothing short of impossible nowadays.
Over the past month the entire Israeli public has been asking itself "Why do we deserve this? If our country is doing so well, why are we struggling from paycheck to paycheck? If things are so good, why is everything so bad?"
Eventually, people will begin to ask questions, and demand answers from their government. Once that happens - and by looking at recent global events, it will - prepare for radical economical and political change.
[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_housing_protests_in_Israel
Co-workers tell me what they pay for kinder garden and it's unbelievable. I can judge the general prices for housing and basic needs myself and again it's weird. I moved here from one of the most expensive cities in Germany (I think it ranked on place 2-3, depending on the report), this is 1.5 times more expensive in general, ignoring obviously crappy (from my point of view) fees for kinder garden, university etc..
Given the severe lack of social services in the US for mental health or addiction, I wouldn't fault him for either of those.
I took the article to say "look at this person, he can't find a job for 14 years, despite all these amazing qualifications".
I have a suspicion that there is more to the story, because I find it implausible that a hardworking competent person would could go that long without finding any work. Add to that the description of him as 'homeless and living at a shelter'. So he can't even find work that he is overqualified for? An office 'tech guy' will get somewhere around $50k in Boston, to install printers and do basic desktop support. People just out of highschool get that job all the time.
So, how did he end up homeless? There is obviously much more to the story that the article completely omits. And that is my criticism, it's misleading to only mention all his good points and use his story as a vehicle to indict our whole economic system.
I don't feel avarice for this gentleman, but I don't feel appalled that he can't find a job, because I believe the story is making several lies of omission.
I hear this a lot, but it's not that simple. McDonalds hiring day got an order of magnitude more job applicants than it's available positions. Whenever unskilled or semi-skilled positions are open, they get flooded with applications, and someone with three degrees is simply not going to be hired, for plenty of reasons.
From the article, though, he's only been out of work since November. Any number of economic factors could have led to his becoming homeless since then.
Now if they were earned at different times, perhaps even different universities, and don't seem to complement each other, I agree that I find something off about it.
An exception to this (this is a very loose sense of "off", there are many factors going into it) could be someone who's first degree is a liberal arts degree and their second is something more useful for getting jobs like an engineering degree.
I've seen all types of changes and there is no reason a person should be stuck in a path they are not happy with just because they picked a different major when they were in college. Some ex: Comp Sci to med school, Neurosci Phd dropout who works in animation, chemical engineer who decided to get a MFA, there are countless examples.