Well, Dartz, I'm sorry for what you had to go through -- and to everyone else who has been out of work. It probably doesn't mean much coming from me: I flunked out of grad school, and spent 4 years sponging off my parents before seriously looking for a job. I got a remote programming job at California wages in about a week's worth of searching. I am such a lucky... guy.
It was painful for me upon first leaving grad school after falling out of love with my field, and having no idea what to do with my life. It's a thing that, in retrospect, seems silly given that some of the characters I wrote were living my dream life and yet I didn't know what I wanted to do. Still not the same kind of experience though, of being insulted for being on the dole. Of having people tell you how worthless you are on the television every day.
To any of those still unemployed: If you can, set goals to keep yourself sane in unemployment. During my time off I remodeled a house; I wrote open-source programs and contributed to a compiler. I started watching anime and learning Japanese. Eventually I started a wiki. The one weird trick is to find something that gives your life meaning which no one can ever take away. But depression is hard to break, and joblessness definitely causes depression -- especially in men. And for some reason, you can't tell someone to stop being depressed.
I support Universal Basic Income (UBI) in large part because it takes away the stigma of being on the dole if everyone is on the dole. And thus I also stand for elimination of food stamps, unemployment benefits, and the minimum wage in order to support a new economy based on UBI. We need to move to an economy where no one gets left behind when technology brings production increases -- where getting work always means that your earn more -- and where you can't game a bureaucracy that doesn't exist. I want an economy where people can choose to give their lives to creative or humanitarian work can do so, while the vast majority of us who want to have more things can get jobs. And I want an economy that doesn't drive increasing numbers of rural Americans to heroin addiction and suicide. UBI would help.
-- ∇×V
It was painful for me upon first leaving grad school after falling out of love with my field, and having no idea what to do with my life. It's a thing that, in retrospect, seems silly given that some of the characters I wrote were living my dream life and yet I didn't know what I wanted to do. Still not the same kind of experience though, of being insulted for being on the dole. Of having people tell you how worthless you are on the television every day.
To any of those still unemployed: If you can, set goals to keep yourself sane in unemployment. During my time off I remodeled a house; I wrote open-source programs and contributed to a compiler. I started watching anime and learning Japanese. Eventually I started a wiki. The one weird trick is to find something that gives your life meaning which no one can ever take away. But depression is hard to break, and joblessness definitely causes depression -- especially in men. And for some reason, you can't tell someone to stop being depressed.
I support Universal Basic Income (UBI) in large part because it takes away the stigma of being on the dole if everyone is on the dole. And thus I also stand for elimination of food stamps, unemployment benefits, and the minimum wage in order to support a new economy based on UBI. We need to move to an economy where no one gets left behind when technology brings production increases -- where getting work always means that your earn more -- and where you can't game a bureaucracy that doesn't exist. I want an economy where people can choose to give their lives to creative or humanitarian work can do so, while the vast majority of us who want to have more things can get jobs. And I want an economy that doesn't drive increasing numbers of rural Americans to heroin addiction and suicide. UBI would help.
-- ∇×V