Seattle is not for young people. The dude pool is 2:1 in a market where beer is regularly 6.50 a pint.
Am I correct in inferring from your second sentence that by "young people", you mean "single, straight men"?
Seattle, in Midst of Tech Boom, Tries to Keep Its Soul
181–190 of 312 posts
Re: Seattle, in Midst of Tech Boom, Tries to Keep Its Soul
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here in the DC metro area, pretty much the first question you get upon meeting someone is: "So, what do you do?" Unfortunately, it's not SOP everywhere.
I've never understood the problem with that question. It's been a normal thing to talk about everywhere I've ever been. Work is a defining feature of one's life, the single activity people spend more time on than any other; what's wrong with asking about it when you want to get to know someone?
Your job can imply your socioeconomic status. When it's the first thing you ask, it can come across as deciding whether you're worthwhile or not. Maybe you're not worth the connection because you're a fry cook at McDonalds, but the doctor over there in the corner is.
Learning what someone does for a living is, to me anyways, far less important than learning what they like to do, what interests they have, etc. I can be friends with anyone where there's common ground, not just fellow software folks.
Talking with work is fine, it just can be interpreted as rude if it's one of the first things you ask.
Re: Seattle, in Midst of Tech Boom, Tries to Keep Its Soul
#183Re: Seattle, in Midst of Tech Boom, Tries to Keep Its Soul
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
I keep reading all these scary stories about how unwelcoming people from Seattle is; I moved here back in February and my experience until now have been completely the opposite: almost every Seattleite I meet is super friendly and talkative, at the point that it feels almost like being in a small town. Maybe I am just lucky? but I think Seattle is one of the coolest cities in the US, except of course for the traffic.
I think it depends greatly on your personality, how you spend your free time, what part of the city you're in, and how your first few experiences shapes you perception. I find Seattle to be unwelcoming, personally, but it's not that people aren't friendly when you can get them to talk. It's the pervasive avoidance of eye contact and general desire not to engage with strangers that can make it a lonely place.
Yes. I grew up in Seattle and people rarely make eye contact. It's terrible. It wasn't until I visited other areas that I realized that it wasn't just me.
People here do want to be forced out of their shell though. If you don't require the slightest bit of affirmation in your personality, you'll do fine in Seattle. If not you'll most certainly get the blues. I do fine on some days and then sometimes it's just a chore.
Re: Seattle, in Midst of Tech Boom, Tries to Keep Its Soul
#185Took a job in Bellevue in April and moved from Philadelphia to Seattle. So far it's a been an interesting experience. I've encountered many people hostile to software engineers in general. A bunch of people immediately ask if I work for Amazon with a hint of disdain after I state my occupation. So it hasn't felt super welcoming so far. I get it, even in some neighborhoods in Philadelphia the same thing is happening.…
Seattle has never been particularly welcoming to newcomers; people there tend to be insular and it can be hard to make friends if you don't already know people (even before the amazon/tech stuff -- plenty of articles about 'the seattle freeze' that predate it). Being from there helps. Not being in tech helps -- there are so many new software engineers meeting one just isn't very interesting. You can hardly blame peop…
It's crazy how insular Seattle is. My wife--whose family came to Oregon on the wagon trains--once interviewed at a law firm in Seattle. They asked her: "so I see you have ties to the PNW, but what are your ties to Western Washington?"
Re: Seattle, in Midst of Tech Boom, Tries to Keep Its Soul
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
You may not have inherited great wealth directly, but it's a fair guess that you "inherited" some or all of the following: * Parents who pushed you to focus on your schoolwork. * Parents who owned a computer, or bought a computer specifically for their kids' education. * Parents who lived in a house with consistent water, electricity and internet service. * Parents who made sure you got glasses if you needed them, so…
Sure, ascribe everything to luck, and then so what? Where does that leave us? With less of an appetite for technology and progress? With more of a use for people who have no salable skills and hungry mouths and envy for the good life? Or does it just leave us with a bunch of people who contribute nothing more to society than constantly exclaiming that things aren't fair? We know they aren't fair. They've never been f…
Couldn't have said it better myself. Those folks are straight out of an old (early) USSR caricature on how Lenin shared a watermelon with a passing peasant - took his watermelon, dropped it on the ground, picked up half of it and walked away.
Spent a decade educating yourself and endless nights practicing your craft? Its all "privillege" and "luck", now give me some of that money.
Re: Seattle, in Midst of Tech Boom, Tries to Keep Its Soul
#187The people who (allegedly) don't perceive Seattle's shitty attitude are almost guaranteed to already be card-carrying turboleftist hipsters + standard uniform, pretty much every single time.
edit: OK, sometimes they're attractive college-aged women. Because progressives have such deep respect for their cultural contributions and intuition, I'm sure.
Re: Seattle, in Midst of Tech Boom, Tries to Keep Its Soul
#188> John Criscitello placed posters in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood proclaiming “Welcome! Rich Kids,” and “Wish you weren’t here.” Its hard not to feel angry at people like this. "Rich Kids" really? These "Kids" spent years developing their engineering skills to get to the point where they are now. Are engineers paid a lot? Of course. But we're certainly not in the same category as those who inherit wealth. Most…
You may not have inherited great wealth directly, but it's a fair guess that you "inherited" some or all of the following: * Parents who pushed you to focus on your schoolwork. * Parents who owned a computer, or bought a computer specifically for their kids' education. * Parents who lived in a house with consistent water, electricity and internet service. * Parents who made sure you got glasses if you needed them, so…
I worked my ass off to get here. Plenty of my peers with the same advantages didn't work hard, and aren't here.
Re: Seattle, in Midst of Tech Boom, Tries to Keep Its Soul
#189Took a job in Bellevue in April and moved from Philadelphia to Seattle. So far it's a been an interesting experience. I've encountered many people hostile to software engineers in general. A bunch of people immediately ask if I work for Amazon with a hint of disdain after I state my occupation. So it hasn't felt super welcoming so far. I get it, even in some neighborhoods in Philadelphia the same thing is happening.…
I totally agree, people are generally cold and non-friendly here.
Re: Seattle, in Midst of Tech Boom, Tries to Keep Its Soul
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
What makes you say that "rich kids" implies second-generation wealth? Everyone I know who uses it in a pejorative sense is pretty clearly referring to how most of the people in question are still being carded at bars. A 23-year-old making $120K is on the lower end of upper-class and can safely be assured of moving upward barring very unusual circumstances. And if you work in startup-ish/leading-edge tech, I'll lay ev…
Fair enough, "rich kids" can also mean fresh-out-of-mom-and-dads' with too much money and not enough impulse control. I guess the reason I assume the backlash is against 'kids' and not 'rich' is, to use my own anecdote, most everyone I know in this industry who might be incorrectly classified as "rich kids" came from much humbler circumstance, and they also try to keep perspective on their extreme good fortune as you…
I think you and I are probably pretty much on the same page! I dig how you put it in your last paragraph, but I tend to see that as more immaturity than the actual state of being a child. And many (I'd say "most" but it could just be that the many are loud) of the folks I deal with on a daily basis are deeply socially and societally immature; my hunch is much more that that's an artifact of being so insulated than anything. I do tend to work with leading-edge, startup-bait technologies and for the organizations that use them, which may further color my perspective.
I don't think the tech industry or the people of it want to coexist with other people, and I very strongly feel like the mean streak of turbocapitalist libertarianism shooting through tech encourages a culture of not feeling a need to coexist.
And now I'm bummed again. Grumble.