1) Everyone should have at least one outfit that is super classy. A cheap solution is a Salvation Army or Goodwill store in a nice part of town.
2) People who live on the dole and buy things they clearly don't need or deserve. Rocking an iPhone 5 while using your food stamp debit card at the grocery store to buy junk food is the typical "Stupid" poor person move most people hate to see. There's no justification for that.
If you wear your super classy outfit to an interview AND you have the iPhone 5 instead of a prepaid Android phone (or worse -- a prepaid non-smartphone), it's going to show that you "belong" and that you're not poor.
Some people really do pay attention to what kind of phone you have, particularly for these gateway-straddling jobs that the author talks about in the article.
It would be cheaper to look for a job in an environment that is more interested in what you can do rather than what you tote.
That is, after all, what most of us end up doing.
This is what I'm trying to get across with my posts on this topic.
People keep using reasoning from within a higher-class group where you already know the rules and assumptions of the game. The whole point is that the people below don't.
A smart phone is a valuable tool for a professional. Being able to send an email or call from the road when you're running late, or to receive same when your counterpart is running late - people expect this nowadays.
Of course, during the actual interview, it should go without saying to put it on silent and leave it in your pocket or purse.
The company I currenlty work for recently hired a technician. The role is something we would call technical today but probably 15 years ago would have been the product of a vocational education. Those programs have been eliminated and pushed on companies to train for instead, companies that usually want experience before they will train. This week, our new guy (24 years old, self supporting, has a kid and a house) sent his first email. Obviously not all of these apply to every situation but the level of abstraction required to understand why this makes no sense to people like us isn't easy for most people.
Deserve? Where does deserve come into this? Posessing money makes it easy to aquire things, but having it or lacking it doesn't say anything about if someone deserves something or not.
Flat out wrong. There are three ways to acquire things:
- Trade (with money or goods of value)
- Beg
- Steal
I ordered that list in order of HARDEST to EASIEST way to acquire things.
Are you making a moral judgement about income?
If you are on the dole and you are a buying things that aren't necessary to survive, you are stealing.
A relative of mine owns several condos and some of his renters are "Section 8". The state pays for 90% of their rent, they only need to come up with 10%. One guy who couldn't come up with his 10% (and got evicted) had an xbox connected to a big screen TV. How is that not stealing?
If you take money from others to pay for your food or for your rent you don't deserve an xbox, a TV, an iPhone 5. You deserve to go the public library and learn something to make yourself more marketable. You deserve to work 3 jobs until you can pay your own way for necessities.