Laid off Morons

Karl fails to make a distinction between laziness and plain old stupidity. Stupid is easy, lazy is hard. Laziness is a positive attribute, without mankind's inherent laziness, all progress would cease. Only a lazy man spents 10 hours trying to find a way to turn a 1 hour job into a 10 minute job. Laziness is the root of all progress.

Jeremy, I think you and Karl are more than a little out of line, not to mention hurtful. I've been out of work nearly two years now and I can tell you my experience is nothing like what Karl described, nor is it true of the several friends who are either still looking or switched to (much lower paying non-computer) jobs. I've applied more than once at Yahoo, for example, but can't even get a call back even though my resume is far more substantial than what's described--why don't you help out by getting my resume in front of a hiring manager?

Karl's assessment assumes that there is no such thing as supply and demand.

Re: career changes:
Seeing as I haven't RTFA yet, I'll just say that I too have been thinking of a career change. Maybe get out of computers as a job completely, or mostly. Coding is wearing down on me, and while I love it, I am finding less and less desire to do it for 8 hours a day, much less for another few when I get home for my other stuff. Maybe do the Office Space thing and work in construction or something, except I'm lazy. I need a job that takes minimul effort/time and brings in the same as a contract programmer working 40-60 hours a week :) Maybe high priced call-man?

I don't know, Bill.

Seems to me that 2 years is an awful long time to be out of work.

Now if you've got plenty padded away and your travelling to Asia for fun on your earned money, that's one thing....

But if you're running around complaining every day, leeching off of your loved one, and refusing to sell any of your 50 PC's to pay your bills (and I've met a TON of people like this), then I just can't muster very much sympathy.

Some other people don't think the same, and naturally that's fine. I've even seen guys who haven't worked for a year and a half get donations from concerned netizens. I think they're suckers, but hey....

If you're REALLY looking for a job, and you're REALLY running low on cash, I would think maybe 3-5 months is the maximum before you start thinking about maybe doing general clerical stuff to make ends meet. Is it glamorous? Fuck no. Will it pay the rent? Sure as hell will.

It will pay more bills than waiting for Yahoo to call you back will, and taking a shitty job by no means is a padlock that doesn't let you leave when something better comes along....

Karl, I think you may know one or two Bobs, I'm not saying there are none like that, but your description hardly fits most of the unemployed folks I know. Personally, I haven't leetched off of anyone just yet and I only have one PC which I got before losing my job; it is true that I made a semi-fortuitous financial decision before this all happened so I don't need (yet) to take a job at Starbucks but that doesn't mean I am not suffering emotionally from the lack of success in searching.

Seriously, check out my resume, posted on my site, and you'll see that I'm not someone who backed into a dotcom bubble career. Jobs these days are being filled through networking so perhaps your post, well intentioned as it might have been, could do some good.

hmm. I think I agree partially with this. I was out of work for a brief time (less than 40 days) last year, and now am fully employed. I also got (and accepted) a job down in SoCal (in San Jose now). In addition have been called about 5 times in the past 60 days by hiring managers/HR/headhunters asking if I would be interested in a job they had.

On the other hand, I know of someone personally who was in "IT" for 6 years before being laid off 2 years ago. Hasnt found work since then. But then again, he has no degree, and the only job he had since being in California was the place he worked at for 6 years as a junior then mid level "IT" person. (I was his supervisor, not the one who laid him off tho..I had already left for another job)

In my humble opinion there are SO many people out there looking that it is very difficult for employers to find people now...as they get so many resumes it is hard to find the gem.

Also, in the past 6 years or so, a lot of people claimed to be "technologists" that, for lack of a better way of saying it, they need to go find another profession so people like you can find a job.

I know someone at Yahoo who does hiring in one group, and he has a large problem finding the right people. he recently hired two people, and it took about 45 days and TONS of interviews. Of course he is VERY picky, but he feels like he needs to be picky as what these people are being hired for is to manage the look and feel of most of the properties.

Bill, you're saying you've been out of work for 2 years? Yet your resume shows that you *did* work last year:

http://www.billsaysthis.com/about/resume.phtml

Anyway, visit join.yahoo.com. Find one or more jobs that are interesting and you think you're qualified for. E-mail me and I'll send your resume in. Really.

I've done this for several folks.

Karl isn't saying all unemployed people should just suck it up and get over themselves. He's saying "Bob"'s should, which is entirely true.

If people had read the actual article they'd know that. At least that's how I read it. Lazy arse people who shouldn't have been in the profession in the first place hanging onto a dream that doesn't exist anymore.

That's far different from creative, competent professionals who are furthering their educations, looking for jobs, taking what they can get and remaining dedicated to their "craft", IMO.

J

And I was starting to think that *nobody* actually read and understood the article. It's about Bobs! Not all unemployed tech workers.

Geesh.

:tup: mate. I just laid off a bunch of folk here, and I'd hate to call them idiots or lazy for that.

Karl, the reason I commented here, as opposed to at your blog, was precisely the point you just made, that not all of us are Bobs, and because Jeremy seemed to go a step further with the hurtful language, mainly the title. I guess it's odd how our emotions respond in situations like this, with someone we've never even met but feel a certain, err, relationship with by reading their weblogs. I mean, when is someone from the Bush Administration going to send me an angry email over what I've been writing about them?

Jeremy, thanks for the offer, I will take you up on it.

Aside: I would hardly consider two months of very low rate contract work (the bit last year) real employment. Given who it was with, though, I'd hoped it would be a springboard but that has not been the case. Oh well, at least I was able to help out the Blogger users for awhile.