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Poor in Tech

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Re: Poor in Tech

#131

Post by Jochim »

emteycz wrote: post #23
8fGTBjZxBcHq wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's normal and cool actually that we can take something that affects a MAJORITY of Americans and is tightly correlated to poverty and make it a matter of individual responsibility and moral weakness.

It is correlated, not caused by poverty. Rich people are often fat too, and the reason is poor education (not even rich people schools teach this) and poor self-control.

Your environment and mood affects self-control. Stress is a huge factor and poverty typically increases levels of stress.

Re: Poor in Tech

#132

Post by [deleted] »

acdha wrote: post #117
magicalhippo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm definitely not poor, and I've always greeted the cleaning staff. That's not a sign of being poor, it's a sign of not being an ass.

There’s a strong correlation, however, which I think comes down to whether you have either done or know someone in that kind of job. People who ignore the staff may not be intentionally mean about it - it’s just outside of their normal frame of reference and they haven’t been introspective about that.

[deleted]

Re: Poor in Tech

#133

Post by o___ »

watwut wrote: post #12

> Gym membership was included in my benefits. I went half a dozen times before it was made crystal clear to me that I did not belong. I would be curious about this one. What did happened in the gym? Not really doubting, some people in gyms are quite unfriendly when you dont look fit. But I am still curious what happened there.

In college, we had the gym "where you goto show off." Gold's Gym was for the rest.

Re: Poor in Tech

#134

Post by Applejinx »

muglug wrote: post #51
emteycz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is correlated, not caused by poverty. Rich people are often fat too, and the reason is poor education (not even rich people schools teach this) and poor self-control.

It’s not just food education. If you’re poor in the US you’re much less likely to live near a source of fresh meat and produce, which makes calorie-rich fast food more tempting. You’re more at the mercy of many multi-billion-dollar industries that serve unhealthy food to the masses.

There's an opportunity cost and a time cost (and an attention cost) to making food properly and eating right.

Opportunity: if your area cannot give you produce (raw materials to cook with) that's pretty direct. Time: I'm fortunate enough that I can blow at least an hour a day just cutting up meat for stir-fry or preparing my omelet and oatmeal, and a lot of this is really time-optimized but it's still way more than the microwave-box lifestyle. That hour (at least, and distributed among all my meals for the day) is also an attention sink that I can't skip, even though I make the same stuff over and over. If I couldn't do that, I'd have to not only be getting different foodstuffs, but also figuring out different recipes every time I got bored.

You can let corporate America do that stuff for you and just pick different enticing boxes of microwaveable stuff, but you will get bombed with combinations of sugar and salt because competing in the supermarket aisle is serious business and those who fail are lost. They'd be putting fentanyl in the Hot Pockets if they dared. Anything to make the sale, it's that or perish.

Then, that's what you eat, if you're poor and can't spend hours doing it yourself and doing it right. And if you're poor enough… the selection at Cumberland Farms is going to be strictly kept to whatever the other poor people in your neighborhood are addicted to, because that's what will sell.

Re: Poor in Tech

#135

Post by kubb »

est31 wrote: post #10

> I knew I was the only poor person at my tech startup because I was the only person who would say hello to the cleaning lady as she meekly made her rounds around us when we worked late. Everyone else had a long habit of ignoring anyone like her. That's IMO the worst behaviour of the rich listed in this article. I've heard stories that at Google, the non-engineering workers at campus may not socialize with engineers…

This might be a learned defence mechanism against a general feeling of wearines with the state of the world. You might work a (relatively) well-paying job at a megacorp, but often you're confronted with colleagues that get promotions through what seems like bullshit projects, you see how useless your directors or even execs seem to be and how much cash they pocket, and you're forced to do some sham work yourself, maybe because whoever is leading your team wants to advance their career. So your everyday work experience is crap, and you have no agency over anything, and you feel miserable.

Then you see the cleaning staff, and you're confronted with their reality, the fact that they have to do work that is both harder and potentially more useful than what you're doing but they don't get any of the benefits, and they get paid a fraction of what you do, and that just makes you feel even worse, like this entire system is somehow fundamentally broken, which makes you want to trow your ergonomic chair out of the unopenable glass window of your open space.

So it's easier to just look away.

Re: Poor in Tech

#136

Post by globular-toast »

As someone from a poorer (not poor, we live in the UK and nobody is poor here) background, I can relate to some of this. But a lot of it is way off the mark. As I read further it sounded more and more like a woe is me piece.

> I knew I was the only poor person at my tech startup because nobody else ate the Hot Cheetos that were stocked in our free snack kitchen > I knew I was the only poor person at my tech startup because I couldn’t restrain myself from eating and drinking myself into an absolute sickness anytime they threw a party and expressed no limits on our consumption

That's not being poor. That's being fat.

> Payday was marked in all caps on my calendar, every biweekly occurrence, forever.

That's not being poor. That's being bad with money.

> I knew I was the only poor person at my tech startup because I wouldn’t dream of Ubering in.

That's not being poor. That's being good with money.

> I gave back the Macbook. I kept the headphones.

That's not being poor. That's being a thief.

Overall I think coming from a poorer background is great for happiness. My girlfriend is from a similar background. We really enjoy small things that other people would take for granted. We've surpassed the quality of life we had growing up easily, so everything else is a bonus. If I were to write an article like this, it would be because I felt sorry for the "not poor" people, not to make people feel sorry for me.

Re: Poor in Tech

#137

Post by TulliusCicero »

codegeek wrote: post #72
culturestate wrote: post #5

To me, this reads more as a list of "from outside the valley bubble" signifiers than it does as a list of things that people who've grown up in poverty might do, even if the former was a result of the latter. There are some exceptions - not noticing missed paychecks is the biggest - but most of it is just stuff that happens every day in other offices. Making your lunch at the office and not bringing Advil from home?…

Yea I mostly agree. For example not greeting cleaning lady has nothing to do with being rich or poor. It is just manners and some of us do it and some don't.

Manners? I don't say hi to the cleaning staff for the same reason I don't say hi to most people I see in the office: I don't know them. If I did, then I would say hi.

Do others greet every single person they see in the building?

Re: Poor in Tech

#139

Post by goodpoint »

muglug wrote: post #51
emteycz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is correlated, not caused by poverty. Rich people are often fat too, and the reason is poor education (not even rich people schools teach this) and poor self-control.

It’s not just food education. If you’re poor in the US you’re much less likely to live near a source of fresh meat and produce, which makes calorie-rich fast food more tempting. You’re more at the mercy of many multi-billion-dollar industries that serve unhealthy food to the masses.

> poor in the US

That's it. There's a huge difference between US and many other countries

It also compounds with the social/cultural context of a living in a city full of very wealthy people.

Re: Poor in Tech

#140

Post by dack »

leetrout wrote: post #27

> I knew I was the only poor person at my tech startup because I was the only person who would say hello to the cleaning lady as she meekly made her rounds around us when we worked late. Everyone else had a long habit of ignoring anyone like her. I hate people that do this. We’re all human and worthy of respect and decency. A simple hello goes a long way.

I definitely agree that being mean to the staff (be it cleaning lady, waiter, etc) is a very bad sign of someone's character.

That said, if I were cleaning an office building I don't think I would want everyone chatting me up - just kindly get out of my way when I'm trying to clean something but otherwise I don't see it as rude to not engage with me when I'm doing my job.

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