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Poor in Tech

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Re: Poor in Tech

#391

Post by maury91 »

StavrosK wrote: post #377
maury91 wrote: post #209

I'm from a "poorish" family, but from Europe. Some stuff is relatable some is not: - People ordering lunch always felt weird for me, in my mind I think "why should I pay 10€ for a bowl of salad, when I can go to the grocery store below the office and have the same for 1€", or even better pay 70 cents for the raw vegetables, wash them and chop them in the office and they will last 3 days - Student debt doesn't apply,…

> - The part of stealing I don't find relatable, even when my bank account was empty I would never resort to stealing, must be some honour system I grew up with Do you mean the last bit about the Macbook and the headphones, or the bit about the snacks? The snacks were more of a "it is fundamentally impossible to steal cheap stuff because we have infinite cheap stuff, why do you even care that someone took it!" mindse…

I was referring to this phrase:

> Because they have never been poor, they had no idea what I might do. Why would I steal, when everyone clearly has enough?

from how I understood it, because she has been poor, she had reasons for stealing.

In companies I worked for the snacks are there for being taken, I notice in every company I worked for there's the rule "the company is going to put stuff in the kitchen in some common areas, everyone is free to take them", I did always ask to a colleague about that, just to be sure I don't steal the pack of chips another colleague left there.

Re: Poor in Tech

#392

Post by sokoloff »

tasuki wrote: post #269
Applejinx wrote: post #155

"Three paychecks is a month and a half of income (rent and two car payments by my fevered calculations, which never stop)" Pay attention to those last three words. This is very important. I've been on both sides too, and to me those words are like a slap in the face: stark reality. If you're poor enough (relative to the costs of your life) you are at a constant exhausting deficit because you CANNOT stop calculating a…

In many places around the world, poor people don't have "old car problems".

I think people wildly over-estimate the costs of driving an older (say 5-15 years old) car and so are prone to over-pay for a new or newer car, believing they're making a good choice based on flawed data. (They remember the time they had to dump $1200 into repairs into some old heap that isn't even shiny anymore. They don't remember that for the last 24 months in a row, they saved $450 in payments, $200 in depreciation, $125 in insurance, and $20 in property/sales taxes each month. They could have a $1200 repair twice a year and still come out way ahead.)

We drive older cars. I can think of 3 times in the last 25 years where we've had car trouble that interrupted or hampered motoring (a failed battery, a failed clutch release bearing, and an electrical short). The battery is a 20 minute swap; the electrical short indeed sucked [because it required a tow home and took me most of a day to find where the short was]; the clutch release bearing left the car limpable and she was able to drive it home with quick instructions on how to start the car and drive it with third gear selected for the whole trip.

On one hand, I'm happy that the market (read: people) wildly underprices used cars, because it makes for cheap motoring for us. On the other hand, it frustrates me that people's third largest expense category is higher than it has to be and many of them could improve their situation by better optimizing this category.

tl;dr: If you want cheap[er] motoring, buy a 4-8 year old Toyota or Honda and drive it until it's 15-20 years old. Drop collision insurance as soon as you've saved enough from this strategy to replace the car. Add that savings to your snowball.

Re: Poor in Tech

#393

Post by soheil »

aphextron wrote: post #389
soheil wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re the top comment on HN right now. What are you exactly complaining about?

I've noticed this trend lately on HN of people digging through user history to make some meta commentary about the poster. It's weird. This isn't reddit. Let the statement speak on its' own regardless of who posted it or why.

This is literally evident in the same thread. Just scroll to the top of the page to see the commenter?

Re: Poor in Tech

#394

Post by OminousWeapons »

Mauricebranagh wrote: post #267
gonehome wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even without the race element - there’s definitely a class thing. I noticed it when I moved to the Bay Area after growing up in western New York. The types of foods people ate or didn’t eat, the restaurants people would or would not go to. The shows people would or would not watch, even the way people talked. I think I hadn’t really seen the difference in class behavior before in America. Now it’s easy to see it. A l…

And also surprising the author did not experience it at Uni where even well off middle class people, suddenly are mixing with much wealthier people. I remeber my cousin who went to UMIST saying this and that side of the family was well off. Its even more noticeable if you went to oxbridge and bumped into some one like Borris Johnson and his Bullingdon mates.

I think this is school dependent. In my experience, many wealthy kids will hide behaviors they know are associated with being wealthy / hide their backgrounds in order to better fit in. The awkwardness goes both ways.

Re: Poor in Tech

#395

Post by kls »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #375
kls wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the article resounded with me, because being raised by my grandparents on a family citrus farm during the transition thru the NAFTA years and watching my family loose what little land wealth they had. It left an indelible mark, a mark of insecurity and fear and it lead to behavior like this. I remember one time, when I just started out in tech, I went to an interview for a group that was contracting for NASA, the…

Great story, helps me see the profound effect that such stresses put on a person. I got another clue out of it. That 'personal friend' was a user, a manipulator, a predator, and preyed upon folks like us. She must have felt something personal toward you else she'd never have said what she did and given up the raw deal she pushed over on you. To threaten to quit and get offered double - that's a situation to run from…

I don't see it that way, she was a friend, she built a company from the ground up and she took care of people. At that time (2002ish IIRC) she was paying me fair market rate which in full disclosure was about $150k USD a year. She knew my worth, she was trying to teach it to me. She saw me build the other company and she saw that I did not extract my value from that deal. She paid me what I asked for when she called me after the exit of the other company and that is the point, I did not ask for more. She needed me to fix her companies technical problems, she knew I could do it and I did, she knew my value, I did not. She came to me in need, and "I" asked for market rate, because I was not working due to the exit and was worried about burning up the small safety net I had just acquired. She was a friend in tilting her hand. Had she just told me you don't make enough here, here is some money. I would not have learned the lesson that she wanted me to learn as a friend.

When that happened I was annoyed, I went and interviewed and I asked for as much as I thought I could get. I had never interviewed when I did not need a job, it was the first time I has ever interviewed without a sword over my head and I had to do that to learn the lesson that she knew she could not teach me, but was in the position to nudge me into. She was stupid rich, it did not hurt her one bit to pay me double, the key was I never asked for it, because I thought like a poor man. Money was very valuable to me, to her it was an afterthought as compared to the important things she needed accomplished.

When you are poor, money and the retention of it, is the bottom line. When you are rich it is not. It is a factor, a rich person is not going to go into a bad deal and loose money intentionally but in her case she was loosing millions in lost opportunity. Had I asked for $500k, her mind would have still been on the Millions is lost opportunity, not the $500k it will take to pursue it. It is as simple as that.

Re: Poor in Tech

#396

Post by j-pb »

A lot of passive aggressive dietary preference shaming for someone whose supposedly an advocate for body acceptance.

Feels more like a salty rant to subconsciously justify her own unhealthy eating habits.

Re: Poor in Tech

#397

Post by username90 »

domador wrote: post #388
username90 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I think that dumb people deserve good lives as well, having policies that only works for non dumb people is dumb.

Hmm... I'd agree that policies should help everyone, including people who are "dumb"... but not that poor people are categorically dumb.

Not all poor people are dumb, but most are. And since we are talking about statistical level effects poor people being dumb will greatly influence them.

So instead of asking "why are poor people fat, we should fix that!" you can also ask "why are dumb people fat, we should fix that!". The second gives a lot of different angles and can help find solutions the first question wont find.

Re: Poor in Tech

#398

Post by Aunche »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #306
kardianos wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you live in a remote area or small town away from a large city, your access to fresh and non-processed foods is heavily reduced. Do you really think this? I know the sticks. You apparently don't. You can live off potatoes, eggs, and oatmeal and not be fat. Those are available anywhere. There is a "poor" culture, there is an "elite" culture, and then there is a "responsibility" culture. I grew up financially poor…

"The Road to Wigan Pier" had a great bit about this, which hits the nail on the head based on my experience being working class: The basis of their diet, therefore, is white bread and margarine, corned beef, sugared tea and potatoes—an appalling diet. Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter to the New Statesman…

>The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots.

The only people who think that have a very privileged upbringing. My SO worked in an archaeological site in central Asia, and the vast majority of the hosts meals were just raw onions and stale flatbread.

Re: Poor in Tech

#399

Post by soheil »

isomorph wrote: post #386
soheil wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re the top comment on HN right now. What are you exactly complaining about?

I'm complaining about what I wrote in the comment. It wasn't the top comment when I wrote it. That happened after I wrote it. It got a lot of upvotes so I guess people who agree with me were more comfortable upvoting/replying after I wrote it than commenting before me. Maybe because they knew that the comment would attract criticism like yours

Is the complain still relevant now that you have the most votes? To me it seems like HN loves to agree with people whom it thinks are shunned by HN, but in reality you are the voice of HN. Again, as evidenced here after a few minutes of posting your comment.

Re: Poor in Tech

#400

Post by TheNewsIsHere »

don-code wrote: post #295
ludamad wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being HN, people love to debate, and god forbid you give an in for moral high-grounding. My student loans were crushing at one point. Now I require my friends and family to remind me the weight of a 'few thousands'. I feel drawn towards a bubble where I can do opulent activities without guilt. I've heard people say to me "yeah, eventually you just cut off those friends still working at McDonald's". I've never agreed…

> yeah, eventually you just cut off those friends still working at McDonald's That's profound. As "the friend in tech", I've never had this said to my face, but have definitely felt it. There's an us-versus-them mentality when it comes to dealing with those who aren't also in tech; that, somehow, there's no reason to be friends with those who aren't also white-collar professionals. What's more, my own tendency to be…

This hits home with me as well. My spouse and I live a “DINK” lifestyle - dual income, no kids. He works from home for an established (not a startup) multi-billion dollar multinational in the Valley, so we live on the East Coast. He is well compensated enough that I don’t have to work, but I do run our investment property and a small business we founded.

The problems we have now are ones most of my own family can’t relate to, so I just don’t share them. His parents used to run an extremely lucrative firm, but that was after they raised him in much less lavish circumstances. So I can talk to them about some of these parts of life, and he and his parents know the value of a dollar.

It can be isolating to know how “both halves” live, and I definitely feel a sense of guilt as to the amount of privilege I have and how radically more easy we have it.

It does start to become hard to relate to people who don’t have this kind of socioeconomic standing because so much of life is built on how many assets you do or don’t have. Last year we were at Home Depot buying a new, rather pricey appliance for our new home and I realized in talking to the sales lady exactly how out of touch I had become. She had never had what we were purchasing and we were buying a high end model from a high end brand. I was trying to make small talk and I’m sure I sounded like a classist asshole, but I was trying not to.

I’m trying really hard to cling to a realistic relationship to money and class.

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