The fourth pizza delivery guy in a row.....

[tcsenter]

Yep, I know a guy in mid-40s who hit the misfortune trifecta all within a period of about two years; Company closed after he worked there for 17 years, a divorce, and real estate bubble (combined with the other two) claimed his home. Wiped out all his savings/retirement, too. Looked hard for a decent job but the family court judge threatened to start fining him or put him in jail if he didn't start paying child support. So he's been delivering pizza for two years.

 

[jpiniero]

Yep, I know a guy in mid-40s who hit the misfortune trifecta all within a period of about two years; Company closed after he worked there for 17 years, a divorce, and real estate bubble (combined with the other two) claimed his home. Wiped out all his savings/retirement, too. Looked hard for a decent job but the family court judge threatened to start fining him or put him in jail if he didn't start paying child support. So he's been delivering pizza for two years.

So the moral of the story is... don't have kids?

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Is this recession really that bad? I always have an easy time finding jobs close to home regardless of the economy it seems.

FWIW, I had 3 interviews last week and got 3 job offers. I look at the IT job sites for my market (Indy) and see tons and tons of jobs. So I think it depends on your field and your market.

 

[Exterous]

A lot of jobs 'require' a bachelors degree. But not a lot of these jobs 'require' a bachelors degree. If you know what I mean. They just want one because they are so prevalent and weed out some of the lower quality people, or so they think.

And it's in Georgetowns best interest to show that education is important for employment. If they didnt, people would stop going to college. That wouldn't be good for business. And Higher Education is most certainly a big business now. A REAL Big Business.

Sure - I am not trying to argue about degree inflation but the job still requires a degree so that 'bullshit' education is still necessary to get the job. There are some skilled non-degree jobs out there with shortages but the job market still largely favors the degree holders.

And you suspect Georgetown's studies not because of any real factual basis but because of some imagined and unsupported bias? If you want to attack the study how about you use actual numbers or actually read the study. Perhaps you think the Census Bureau and BLS - where they got the numbers for the study - cooked the books? Its not like their educational studies are considered to be top notch or anything...

http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/CollegeAdvantage.FullReport.081512.pdf

 

[Mixolydian]

So the moral of the story is... don't have kids?

and don't get married.

 

[Via]

My best drivers made $200+ in tips every Friday and Saturday night. I would say don't feel sorry for them, but then I'd be hurting their tips. A customer might look at them and wonder how they fell so low, to need to deliver pizzas, never realizing they can make an extra $400 on the two days they have off from their regular job.

Your best drivers? What does that mean?

They drove the shit out of their cars? They hustled to the door? They flirted with MILFs? What makes a delivery guy your "best driver"?

I don't recall a driver hierarchy from the time I delivered.

I think you're mixing up "server" and "delivery driver".

 

[skipsneeky2]

Friend of mine is a small time actor who mostly has done commercials,got paid real well and his mailbox always had a 4 digit check almost every week.

Not anymore,apparently jobs like his have went to Canada and at the ripe age of 57,he is chasing jobs down like security and even taxi driving jobs.

The talent is there for people like him,just the jobs have disappeared or have been exported it seems and its sad and frustrating.

 

[Fox5]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/30/ceo-to-worker-pay-ratio_n_3184623.html

"The ratio of CEO-to-worker pay has increased 1,000 percent since 1950, according to data from Bloomberg. Today Fortune 500 CEOs make 204 times regular workers on average, Bloomberg found. The ratio is up from 120-to-1 in 2000, 42-to-1 in 1980 and 20-to-1 in 1950."



If you aren't born wealthy, start busting your ass and make no mistakes while you are still a child and make 100% of the best decisions always, or not incredibly lucky (like lottery winning lucky) in this country, you are fucked.

Nowadays average kids have to be fucking Rudy to get anywhere, it sucks. You have to overachieve like crazy just to not starve in the streets.

I disagree on the overachievement part. The average person used to have more discipline, work harder, study harder, and read more. Now our lives our filled with distractions and parenting has gone to crap. People struggle because they weren't raised with the values of hard work, and only try to work hard once adversity has struck.

Work hard, everyday, and you'll have capital (monetary, skills, or elsewise) to weather a rainy day. And live within your means. Even someone making $100k a year will be poor if they have 3 kids, a stay at home wife, frequent vacations, and live in a giant house in the nicest suburbs.

That said, there is some failings of our education system. The bachelors degree has become the new high school degree, but it comes at great cost, and there simply isn't a low risk option alternative.

Let's say 100 of us got together and wanted to start a new Amazon. And let's pretend for a moment that we had 20 of the best programmers on Earth. We also had some great PR guys, a few very good marketing guys and even had a few rich guys to bank roll us (all huge assumptions). We get started and start carving out a nice little niche. Until amazon decides to undercut our prices very aggressively, taking a short term loss and forcing us to do the same (and lose money) or to sell out to them, close business or lose customers to a lower price.

Too big, too fast. You would (rightfully) never get the investment needed to get off the ground to start a copycat company with that many people.
You start small and reasonable (say 3 employees) and work through existing frameworks. You'd probably want to become an Amazon affiliate, and try to work within the existing system, not overthrow it overnight.
Amazon was a small company 15 years ago. So was Google. Microsoft was a small company 30 years ago. These companies worked within the existing frameworks and didn't dream of being kinds overnight. Do you remember that Amazon used to be a book store?

Opportunity for success doesn't mean you just get to decide you want to be the next Amazon. Do the work and figure out a viable path to success, if you can't plot the points of your growth and have nothing more than a bold idea, you're doomed for failure. Pursuing what you love without thinking it through is almost a sure path to defeat. Sure, you may have some short term success, but you're gambling, and every gambler loses eventually.

 

[brianmanahan]

FWIW, I had 3 interviews last week and got 3 job offers. I look at the IT job sites for my market (Indy) and see tons and tons of jobs. So I think it depends on your field and your market.

same thing in cleveland/columbus area, i get people bugging me about applying all the time for software jobs