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Dorm living for professionals comes to SF

nytimes.com

51–60 of 125 posts

Re: Dorm living for professionals comes to SF

#51
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You go to SF to launch your career then GTFO ASAP to a less 'enlightened' part of the US where you don't have to worry about hyper sensitivity and your dollar actually counts for something.

What nonsense. Sure, the valley can teach you some new JavaScript frameworks and how to best invade your users privacy to sell ads, but real programming happens everywhere. There’s plenty of ways to launch your career without working for Zuckerberg or Bezos.

I ask for one (1) example, that does not include any software hubs that mimic the valley (this includes Austin, New York, Boston, and Seattle, but is not limited to), that has an equal, or close to equal, impact on your career in comparison to the Bay Area.

The only thing the valley has going for it is the saturation of talent and people who hire talent. The bad, is that without it it's got nothing to really show for itself (save a few niche items). The good, is the lack of any other notable qualities is overshadowed by the overcompensation of the only ones it has.

Re: Dorm living for professionals comes to SF

#52

This article says it's "an unusual experiment", but how is this different from an SRO? http://www.ccsroc.net/s-r-o-hotels-in-san-francisco/ Description from this article of the "experiment": "Shared bathrooms at the end of the hall and having no individual kitchen or living room". Description from the SRO web site link above: "A typical S.R.O. is a single eight (8) x ten (10) foot room with shared toilets and showers…

It's not materially different from how I've always lived -- sharing a house or condo with 1 or 2 roommates. I currently share a bathroom, kitchen, and living room with one other person, and I have my own bedroom. We're both well-paid professionals in our late twenties who are friends and happen to be single right now. It's way cheaper and less lonely than living alone.

I don't think there's anything unusual about this. I guess the difference is this company will pick your roommates for you, which sounds worse to me but I guess it's easier for some people.

Re: Dorm living for professionals comes to SF

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seattle is pretty nice, especially if you can ignore the random junkies and homeless tent and RV encampments around town.

Oh no, the last time I visited Seattle was in 2010. Has it gone to shit since then?

Seattle's so full, it's budding into Portland.

Re: Dorm living for professionals comes to SF

#54
post #7

“I feel like I’m in a relationship with everyone I live with,” Ms. Ndrepepaj said. “If their day is bad, your day is bad.” Hardly a selling point. As an introvert it's just within my capabilities living with my wife and playful cat; living in such an environment would be a nightmare for me. The article fails to address the 'bad roommate' situation, which always happens sooner or later with these shared-living environ…

Nobody is so extroverted that they want to have other people peering in to their lives every moment of the day (unless they are walking so closely in lockstep with culture that there's literally nothing about them that could cause friction.) There's a reason why people born in compressed, shared living conditions tend to buy houses when they can. If you don't live in a "dorm" you can control your environment, for exa…

Tons of young adults live in "family" housing with friends or Craigslist strangers. It's standard in SF to convert the living room to an additional bedroom when doing that, so there's really no common space.

Although having my own studio is ideal, I'd vastly prefer a relatively impersonal dorm with generous common areas to a traditional 2-3 roommate situation.

Re: Dorm living for professionals comes to SF

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is so extroverted that they want to have other people peering in to their lives every moment of the day (unless they are walking so closely in lockstep with culture that there's literally nothing about them that could cause friction.) There's a reason why people born in compressed, shared living conditions tend to buy houses when they can. If you don't live in a "dorm" you can control your environment, for exa…

Globalism is going to lead to an averaging out of the standards of living across the globe. People from wealthy nations are in for a rude awakening.

That's only somewhat true. It will smooth out living standards as it crushes working people down by exploiting the lowest wages anywhere in the globe. Simultaneously, the wealthy bourgeoisie will become richer and richer until the internal contradiction in capitalism, that profits come from consumers that must work for wages, tears the system asunder.

The system that follows will likely be fascism, the seamless merger of corporations with the state to force exploited workers to work, or socialism, the people taking control of the government and using it to expropriate the rich in favor of workers. EDIT: Note that this doesn't require central planning, the rad idea these days are socialisms based on co-ops where employees own the organization they are a part of.

If the system is fascist, living standards will sharply drop for everyone subjected to that system. If the system is a form of socialism, then yes differences will even out. The GDP of the United States divided by its population is roughly 55k in today's dollars, though certain services like medicine and housing will have their profits expropriated so 55k will go much further. If we look at world GDP, the income of all people will be closer to 11k USD, which might be barely livable, but will eradicate extreme poverty across the globe.

We have a lot of work to do to treat humanity well and in a way the planet can survive.

Re: Dorm living for professionals comes to SF

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just SF and NYC. The rust belt was gutted and what remains of those Union jobs are now slave wage jobs at places with suicide nets in China.

I agree, but for different reasons. Jobs went to third world workers, while the majority of the productivity went into shareholder pockets. That's an internal policy issue in the US, not a globalization issue (or rather, it's an unchecked capitalism issue). You can use policy to prevent unfettered blood letting of jobs to the cheapest labor sinks in the world. Globalization is not some foregone conclusion we have no…

It didn't really go to shareholders. Maybe a little at first but a global market meant that prices of goods just dropped to compensate for the 'savings'.

Re: Dorm living for professionals comes to SF

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends. The big X tech companies, and hot unicorns in the bay area pay crazy salaries for engineers. 3k a month doesn't seem too bad when you are making 200k+, which is close to ~triple what you'd make in some rando mid sized city. Working for the average SF startup though? Yeah, you'd be better off somewhere else.

Are that many SF tech workers making over 200 grand a year?

I hope so. If they aren’t then they would be better off finding work in some other part of the country.

Re: Dorm living for professionals comes to SF

#58
post #42
post #2

Ah,the American dream. Go through four years of college and 100k of student loans so you can live in a $2400 dorm room while barely making ends meet. I'm moving to the Bay area in a few months and these sorts of stories make me question whether it's the right move.

Those are some extremely skewed numbers. I live in a $1.7k one bedroom. Rent is like 10% of my pay and I'm just 2 years out of college. No student debt because my family is poor. San Francisco is an amazing place for technies if you're not bad with money

You're saying you make ~200k/year 2 years out of college? That is not normal.

Re: Dorm living for professionals comes to SF

#59
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You go to SF to launch your career then GTFO ASAP to a less 'enlightened' part of the US where you don't have to worry about hyper sensitivity and your dollar actually counts for something.

It depends. The big X tech companies, and hot unicorns in the bay area pay crazy salaries for engineers. 3k a month doesn't seem too bad when you are making 200k+, which is close to ~triple what you'd make in some rando mid sized city. Working for the average SF startup though? Yeah, you'd be better off somewhere else.

[deleted]

Re: Dorm living for professionals comes to SF

#60
post #42
post #2

Ah,the American dream. Go through four years of college and 100k of student loans so you can live in a $2400 dorm room while barely making ends meet. I'm moving to the Bay area in a few months and these sorts of stories make me question whether it's the right move.

Those are some extremely skewed numbers. I live in a $1.7k one bedroom. Rent is like 10% of my pay and I'm just 2 years out of college. No student debt because my family is poor. San Francisco is an amazing place for technies if you're not bad with money

Just because you found a good situation doesn’t mean that is typical.
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