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Poor in Tech

megelison.com

481–490 of 817 posts

Re: Poor in Tech

#481

Instead of seeing the bright side of life, in which this person clearly vastly improved their situation in life, all they can see is what they don’t have. “I knew I was the only poor person at my tech startup because I had the only fat body in the building.” I’m sorry, but no, being poor doesn’t make you fat. Your eating choices make you fat. Poor people have agency too. Agency is not something you buy. This is comin…

wow never thought about it like that thanks im cured

Thinking about it like that (my eating choices) is actually how I lost 15 pounds once, haha.

I gained it back.

Re: Poor in Tech

#482
You should be proud of it because the fact that the poor and the rich are working at the same company tells you how successful you are

Or at least that's how I interpreted. I did almost the same things you did. My coworker (many of which are now close friends) went to fancy universities, had no gap in education and from a economically stable family. I wasn't. But here I am, working side by side with folks from amazing school and exceptional employment backgrounds... I love it

Re: Poor in Tech

#483
post #176

Many of the comments on this article are so cold. I can’t believe it. When I read the original article I was imagining all the constructive ways HN readers would interpret it and hold a mirror up to their own behaviour. Some commenters are doing this. But it surprises and depresses me how many people are commenting saying “no, this list isn’t what it says it is, it’s a list showing the author has a negative mindset /…

In some ways it's a laundry list of ways rich people in the Bay Area act like wankers, which is interesting, but also quite irritatingly stereotypical. There are plenty who don't refuse to talk to the cleaning staff, lecture others on their choice of tampon, or snob fat people at the gym. I don't want people from outside the bubble (e.g. me, three years ago) to read this and think they'll be surrounded by wall-to-wal…

> Most people everywhere are nice.

While true, places earn their reputations for a reason.

Re: Poor in Tech

#484
post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 depreciati…

Thank you! The days of those stereotypical used cars that fall apart at 100,000 miles are pretty much over. A 10 year old economy car, maintained basically (not obsessively), will probably outlast your need for it.

Yes, a 1980s turbo Porsche or 1990s M3 will eat $10K+ a year due to constantly breaking. Not nearly the same as a 2010 Toyota Matrix, which you can probably get for $5000 and drive forever.

Re: Poor in Tech

#485
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because no-one in life has ever given you _actual_ assistance.

Wow, I didn't consider that. That's pretty sad to think that some one could end up in that situation. That's terrible.

More generally, I've noticed being reluctant to ask others to do things for me even when it's their job is an attitude I have that's hard to shake, and is probably a result of my low-ish social class upbringing. It feels rude or imposing. This extends to hiring people to clean or work on home improvement projects for me—it's hard not to want to help out when someone else is doing stuff for me, even if I'm paying them. I feel bad if I pay someone to mow my lawn. I very much doubt folks who grew up with lots of "help" around feel that way. I expect it'd be damn hard for me to run a business with employees, for similar reasons, at least until I got over the initial discomfort—it makes me feel really bad to pay someone to do something I could do myself, not just because I'm parting with money, but because it makes me feel like a lazy, rude asshole.

Re: Poor in Tech

#486
I'm also poor. I once told a well-off investor that if I counted the hours I spent working on my open source project, my hourly rate over my career would be below that of a McDonald's employee. His answer was "It's an investment in yourself, you'll make it all back later." - He was partly right, it was an investment, but all it got me was a foot in the door at that company as a regular run-of-the-mill software developer, nothing more.

2 years later, I'm a proven 100x developer, working on some of the most complex projects imaginable as self-employed - I managed to pull myself up by the bootstraps but I still earn much less than all my ex-colleagues who work bureaucratic corporate jobs. I don't see anything changing for the better. It only seems to be changing for the worst. Nobody even cares about open source anymore. I'll have to be a 1000x developer by the end of the year just to make ends meet as a self-employed developer.

The situation is getting so bad, I find myself fantasizing about communism. Anything to end this crony-capitalist nightmare.

I often think of the quote "In communism, we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us." - The "pretend to work" aspect sounds like an upgrade over the deal I'm currently getting.

Re: Poor in Tech

#487
Man, I felt this stuff a lot when I was in college. Coming from a lower middle class family in a poor state to a private school in California, there were so many little things to make me feel like an outsider. The part about hobbies was the most memorable because it made my social anxiety worse early on. I always struggled to think of something more interesting than "video games" or "reading". And, of course, the food stuff. Took me years to get into the habit of ordering a salad when out for lunch like a civilized human. But unlike the author's experience I was so much better off than many Americans with backgrounds like mine because I went to a private university that provides enough financial aid to students who need it. So for the most part, I was already better off in college than I was growing up, and I graduated with a manageable amount of debt. But there were times when my family needed a little help and I was scrambling to find some free food to get through to the next paycheck or wondering if Mom would pay me back in time to make the phone bill. I also wasn't the "only poor person" around, and I found others like me which really helped.

I think all the useful political points have been made by others but I think it's also worth saying whatever happens with society overall it can get better for you personally. I hope others who relate to the post find a job that values them enough to start chipping away at the accumulated disadvantage. Once the major financial stress is removed, you can and will acculturate, start worrying less about these little things, and even become more like your peers, and I think it's ultimately a positive thing. These cultural markers are, in part, adaptations to the situations we're in, and if you're working in tech it makes sense that you will find things that newly resonate with you and shed some of the things inherited from parents whose work society decided to value less.

Of course there is at least one serious obstacle to this, which the author astutely points out and which I don't have any good advice on because I still struggle with it:

>I knew I was the only poor person at my tech startup because I was afraid to seek mentorship from anyone above me, convinced that even asking would seem like bothersome begging. I watched the people around me network effortlessly, assured of favors and good words put in. I could only think in terms of what I could offer and how I could survive; they were thinking on the next level where they never had to wonder if they were good enough.

Re: Poor in Tech

#488
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.

Never fucking do this. Learn the name of everyone who comes into the office, greet them, and if they have a foreign native language, learn to say hello in it.

I absolutely remember and judge those of you who treat your fellow humans like furniture. I see you. There will never not be a moment that I remember this, no matter how groovy you are, no matter your political posturing, no matter your accomplishments.

Re: Poor in Tech

#489
post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need anything even close to overly "fancy"; if you're the average poor person, you can vastly improve your image simply by wearing any sort of formal clothes, as in a suit and tie. Even if others "know who you really are" they'll still appreciate that you're making the effort to relate to them, and that's what matters. We tend to forget stuff like this as we lose sight of the value of enduring traditions, b…

But poor people hate feeling like they have to change their appearance to get the approval of the privileged classes. Feeling like you have to visually and verbally code switch to get "better" people to respect you just feels bad. Spending precious money on the cheapest formal wear you can find just so people will take you seriously further cements the divide poor people feel.

> But poor people hate feeling like they have to change their appearance to get the approval of the privileged classes.

You say that like everyone else isn't doing the exact same thing. Being privileged is all about playing the "get everyone else's approval" game. But coming from a different social context it's even more basically a way of showing others respect and earning their trust, so it's not without consequence.

Re: Poor in Tech

#490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your intelligence is based on how much money your parents made? Your intrinsic ability to be educated is a function of someone else's wallet? Something seems off in this statement. I wish your parents had money, then your statement would probably be coherent!

No, intelligence is mostly inherited. If your biological parents were smart then you will almost surely be smart and vice versa. And smart people end to earn more money, so intelligence is indirectly correlated with parental wealth. But when you put kids from poor parents into rich households they will continue to do poorly. They do a bit better, but their biological parents still matters more. If it was easy to prod…

This doesn't hold up to the smallest amount of rational thought. Is everyone from a poor country less intelligent? How about a poorer city, they are stupider? This sounds like an argument made by a lucky person who wants to attribute that luck to some personal superiority.
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