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Ask HN: Delivery guy is a chemist with 2 teenage kids. Can this happen to me?

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Re: Ask HN: Delivery guy is a chemist with 2 teenage kids. Can this happen to me?

#21

Post by thatoneuser »

farisjarrah wrote: post #13
fucking_tragedy wrote: post #8

Tech is experiencing probably the biggest boom we've ever witnessed. What we're experiencing completely blows away the dot-com bubble. If you need to trade your labor in order to keep a roof over your head, you are in the same boat as any other person who needs to do the same, no matter the sector or role. The overall trend for labor has been that of stagnation, undercutting via contracting and outsourcing, and repla…

I always wondered about this... What if those big tech giants such as Facebook, Microsoft and Google are pushing coding bootcamps and coding education at such a young age in order to dramatically reduce labor costs in like the next 10-20 years.

Oh there's zero question that what they're doing. They are greedy and they aren't satisfied with the amount they have.

Re: Ask HN: Delivery guy is a chemist with 2 teenage kids. Can this happen to me?

#22

Post by thatoneuser »

Of course it can. Fancy advanced degrees aren't worth anything - that's just the lie colleges tell you so you'll part with more money. You're supposed to be the valuable part. If you aren't valuable, no matter what that means in your modern market, then you could be living in the streets.

Re: Ask HN: Delivery guy is a chemist with 2 teenage kids. Can this happen to me?

#23

Post by dx7tnt »

Maybe his kids are doing well because he has a lot of time to be a great dad and coach them?

Life happens. Shit happens. Kids happen. Enjoy the ride and don't terrify yourself about money or what your life should look like. We all get 24 hours a day on the planet and from a long term perspective, almost nothing of what we do really matters. Maybe by moving boxes instead of schlepping in a lab for some deranged sociopath like Elizabeth Holmes, the guy gets to spend a couple more priceless hours with his kids? The same kids that are going to be so far ahead because of his great mind that they will take care of him once they're adults and he has his time back once full-time parenting is over..

tldr: you sound very young so ponder this tip from a very wise zen teacher I had once "your life doesn't have to look like anything."

Re: Ask HN: Delivery guy is a chemist with 2 teenage kids. Can this happen to me?

#24

Post by dangom »

dx7tnt wrote: post #23

Maybe his kids are doing well because he has a lot of time to be a great dad and coach them? Life happens. Shit happens. Kids happen. Enjoy the ride and don't terrify yourself about money or what your life should look like. We all get 24 hours a day on the planet and from a long term perspective, almost nothing of what we do really matters. Maybe by moving boxes instead of schlepping in a lab for some deranged sociop…

Reminds of Heinrich Böll's wonderful anecdote concerning the lowering of productivity. [1,2] I would recommend anyone reading this comment to check it out. It's an entertaining and enlightening short story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anekdote_zur_Senkung_der_Arbei...

https://www.uni-hildesheim.de/media/_migrated/content_upload...

Re: Ask HN: Delivery guy is a chemist with 2 teenage kids. Can this happen to me?

#26

Post by anigbrowl »

craftyguy wrote: post #14
anigbrowl wrote: post #2

Short answer, yes, it absolutely can. The reason they call it a rat race is that if you stop running (producing at a certain level) you will likely be thrown off the treadmill.

Or, perhaps the added stress (both to them and home life) was more than they wanted and they decided to stop running and go for a nice easy walk in the park.

That'd be nice, but but raising a family on a package delivery driver's income doesn't seem like a walk in the park either. I don't want to go off on a political tangent but I've always been struck by how capitalism is presented as both the great multiplier of wealth and the remorseless driver of competition and unyielding bottom lines.

Re: Ask HN: Delivery guy is a chemist with 2 teenage kids. Can this happen to me?

#27

Post by athesyn »

I think ageism is too overstated in tech industry. If graduates with zero experience can get work, then it doesn't make sense that senior software engineers should struggle in the job market.

Personally, I see the opposite with many job posts asking for minimum X years of experience. If a programmer with many years of expertise is jobless it says more about their personality and their ability to fit culturally speaking. Perhaps they're just applying for the wrong jobs, or use the wrong rhetoric etc.

Too many programmers are concerned with their skill level and less with their ability to communicate their potential. That's what it comes down to when everything is taken into consideration.

Re: Ask HN: Delivery guy is a chemist with 2 teenage kids. Can this happen to me?

#28

Post by negativez »

intopieces wrote: post #7

I wouldn't call it common. People with advanced degrees are less likely to end up in low paying jobs: https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/valueofcollegemajors/ But, it can happen for a variety of reasons, including mental illness, illness or other issues with family that result in the loss of a position. Did you ask this delivery guy why he's doing this job if he used to be a chemist? Believe it or not, sometimes…

You need about 8 figures generating passive income by most estimates.

Re: Ask HN: Delivery guy is a chemist with 2 teenage kids. Can this happen to me?

#29

Post by lucas_membrane »

There was a survey in Silicon Valley some years ago that showed that this kind of fear goes pretty far up, plenty of millionaires fear falling off the gravy train.

I do my family's grocery shopping, and I have several times noticed new clerks at the checkout, men in the 40-65 age range who are a little too well dressed -- very nicely ironed and starched white shirts, fashionable ties and watches. They seldom become fixtures in their new positions; which way they go, IDK.

Re: Ask HN: Delivery guy is a chemist with 2 teenage kids. Can this happen to me?

#30

Post by fucking_tragedy »

mrfusion wrote: post #19
fucking_tragedy wrote: post #8

Tech is experiencing probably the biggest boom we've ever witnessed. What we're experiencing completely blows away the dot-com bubble. If you need to trade your labor in order to keep a roof over your head, you are in the same boat as any other person who needs to do the same, no matter the sector or role. The overall trend for labor has been that of stagnation, undercutting via contracting and outsourcing, and repla…

Biggest boom we’ve ever witnessed and we still accept demeaning interviews ...

That's more of a testament to the general worker's rights climate in America than it is of the tech boom itself.
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