I'm Begging for Work • Hacker News Board

Re: I'm Begging for Work

#61

Post by mariopt » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 7:14 AM UTC

You can't simply fuck around with your boss without having, at least, a second source of monthly. Next time try to get some freelancing gig before making such a dangerous move.

I don't approve your ex boss behaviour but sometimes companies struggle to get your pay check at the end of the month, it really depends on companies.

One advice: Being "good with computers" does not means that you're worth a 75K wage. When someone in India does Rails apps cheaper, you need the skills to prove 75K and even more. Having a college degree proves that you've learnt the basic toolset to be able to solve problems, however you can learn it on your own. Your challenge is to prove you posses those skills without a diploma. It's possible, I'm a drop out myself, but it's takes time, effort and networking to get there.

Re: I'm Begging for Work

#62

Post by Stratoscope » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 7:14 AM UTC

cplease wrote: post #48

Dude, you got shit on, but your entire post screams unprofessional. If you want to be a professional, and be treated like a professional, you need to act professional. Harsh perhaps but that's the truth. If this is a serious job solicitation and not just catharsis you are doing it all wrong. Starting with how desperate you are, how proud you made your mom, and how shitty you've been doing and been treated does not ma…

This is harsh advice, but it's also some of the best advice in this thread (along with mmaunder's comment). OP should definitely take heed.

Re: I'm Begging for Work

#63

Post by skimpycompiler » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 7:15 AM UTC

ecliptik wrote: post #23

I'd suggest the following, active twitter account completed Linkedin profile active github account active website (Github Pages allows free static hosting) For a remote job search, sign up for a free RSS site (I recommend https://newsblur.com/ ) and add some remote-only feeds, https://goremote.io/rss https://jobs.github.com/positions.atom https://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/feed?allowsremote=True Other good remote…

Why Twitter?

Re: I'm Begging for Work

#64

Post by cplease » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 7:15 AM UTC

pauleastlund wrote: post #59

cplease wrote: post #48

Dude, you got shit on, but your entire post screams unprofessional. If you want to be a professional, and be treated like a professional, you need to act professional. Harsh perhaps but that's the truth. If this is a serious job solicitation and not just catharsis you are doing it all wrong. Starting with how desperate you are, how proud you made your mom, and how shitty you've been doing and been treated does not ma…

I hear where you're coming from, but if he had scrubbed all of that from this post and gone with "professional" -- "I am a self-taught web dev looking for work, I am familiar with Ruby and have recently been doing API work, I want to work remotely and can start immediately" -- would it have gotten anywhere near the front page of HN?

In my corner of the industry, all attention is not good attention.

Re: I'm Begging for Work

#65

Post by hanswang2013 » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 7:16 AM UTC

ak39 wrote: post #19

1. Tell your wife. Trust me you'll feel better afterwards. 2. Keep looking for new opps. Get your CV out to as many places. Keep your hopes up. Spend time with your kids in the mean time. Kids are great company when you are "present with them". 3. Note for yourself: get numbers in writing before making changes to your life about opportunities. 4. Never use the word Fuck or any other expletives or crass language in an…

Can't agree more to point 4.

Stay professional, nothing but just business.

Personal is unwise and not-necessary.

Re: I'm Begging for Work

#66

Post by vruiz » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 7:18 AM UTC

mmaunder wrote: post #25

Time to get your game face on. I'm a CEO, we're hiring but not in your skill area. Having interviewed a lot of candidates lately and looked at many more, I wanted to give you my 2c on getting into extremely hirable shape fast: Update your LinkedIn profile as someone has mentioned already. Sweeten it up, get a great looking but professional profile pic up there, get kudos from friends, etc. Do the online profile clean…

> get a great looking but professional profile pic up there, get kudos from friends

Really? as a CEO those are signals for you? the profile picture is debatable but the endorsements are just a joke and everyone knows it, people just exchange them like they do with twitter follows. If anything, too many of them would be a negative signal for me.

Completely agree with the rest of your comment though.

Re: I'm Begging for Work

#67

Post by tdicola » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 7:18 AM UTC

AdieuToLogic wrote: post #53

tsurantino wrote: post #21

Doesn't this person deserve some form of severance or the equivalent of? It's kind of ridiculous that he was "cut out" from a job like some kind of child who was no longer part of the "club". It's grossly unprofessional to disconnect an employee without any due process or policy. I guess I shouldn't be surprised given the events leading up to the situation.

> It's grossly unprofessional to disconnect an employee without any due process or policy. In the US, it depends on what state the company is headquartered. Many are "right to work" states, which means any employee can be fired so long as it is not for reasons such as age, sex, weight, religious beliefs, or sexual orientation. In those states, an employee literally can be fired for a reason such as "you upset the own…

Actually I don't think sexual orientation and definitely not weight are 'protected classes' against discrimination with hiring and firing. Sexual orientation might be protected now with some of the recent Supreme Court rulings, but weight is sadly something employers can discriminate against with no repercussions.

Re: I'm Begging for Work

#68

Post by ekianjo » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 7:20 AM UTC

skimpycompiler wrote: post #63

ecliptik wrote: post #23

I'd suggest the following, active twitter account completed Linkedin profile active github account active website (Github Pages allows free static hosting) For a remote job search, sign up for a free RSS site (I recommend https://newsblur.com/ ) and add some remote-only feeds, https://goremote.io/rss https://jobs.github.com/positions.atom https://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/feed?allowsremote=True Other good remote…

Why Twitter?

Because that's all where the (rich) hipsters are. you never know who you need to meet.

Re: I'm Begging for Work

#69

Post by Bonogongo » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 7:21 AM UTC

As a manager if someone tries to blackmail me with leaving, I usually say "Then leave". Never let people blackmail you.

Would I hire someone who swears and uses f* in a conversation with his boss? No.

Would I hire someone who creates a blog to make his boss look bad? No.

All of this with 4 kids I surely would not trust on you any responsibibility acting so irresponsible.

So everyone here who wants to hire this guy, a have nice time.

My advice: Try to understand why your boss only wanted you give $45k and work on yourself.

Re: I'm Begging for Work

#70

Post by mikekchar » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 7:22 AM UTC

silencio wrote: post #49

mikekchar wrote: post #41

I'm sorry I can't offer you a job. I can only offer a couple of pieces of advice (some of which I wish I could wait a while to give... but since I probably will never get the chance to speak to you again...) 1. Tell your wife ASAP about the job situation. No matter what stress she is under, learning about it later may cause serious problems. She can help you (emotionally and in trying to find answers to your problems…

> I hate to say it (I really do), but depending on where you live, your salary expectations may not be reasonable. On the flip side, $45k may well be borderline questionable depending on where OP is located. In California, for example, the minimum that a programmer needs to be paid to be considered overtime exempt is $86k/year. It can become fairly expensive to pay for overtime, so that $86k tends to be roughly the s…

Yes. This is an excellent point. There are some websites that show data for salaries (including outliers for extremely low and extremely high values). It is very much worth it to search around for them as opposed to asking other programmers. Some companies routinely pay up to double (or half) of the median rate, so anecdotes can give you very misleading numbers.

$70K may very well be a reasonable starting salary for the OP. I think my main point was that $45K is at least twice the base pay for the plastics factory work (although that probably pays overtime), so even if being abused it still might be worth it as a stepping stone.

I honestly wouldn't worry about having too many job switches at the beginning of a career path like this. You can always say, "I'm trying to get as much experience as possible, and accepted some jobs at a very low pay. I'm looking for stable work now, though."