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[Thrillho]

That really is a horrible call to make, isn't it? I am largely stuck in a job with little progression opportunities, playing the waiting game but rather underpaid for what I do - I can easily get paid more elsewhere, but that would just take me out of my career route entirely and with the number of legislative changes in education every year, if you're out of the game for even a year your knowledge stops being relevant.

[Grognard]

I just had to laugh down an IT Specialist position in downtown DC for a USGov contract.
now, I knew I was dealing with a staffing company.
but when the recruiter offered me $14/hour, I couldn't help it.
I laughed loudly in their ear.
then I asked for double their offer.
yes, really.
$24-$29/hour is mid market salary for someone with half my experience and certs.

I don't mean to be a whiner, but it was either Laugh or be insulted.

[Akima]

$14 an hour? At the current rate of exchange, that is barely above minimum wage for a full-time worker in Australia. The recruiter must be an idiot.

[hedgie]

Can't blame you there.  I have the opposite problem.  I have the skills, but they're advertising entry level IT positions that require 5 years of experience.  WTF about entry-level do you people not understand?!.  If you don't mind moving to California (and I can't blame you if you do), the UC system pays pretty well, even though it would take six months for you to hear from them even if you got the job.

[Papersatan]

(though it is nearly double the min wage in the US)

I'm trying to figure out how to ask for more money at this potential job.  It is listed at $15, but they are flexible.  I am bad at asking for money, but I know I am worth more than $15. I'm aiming at $20, though one peer told me I should ask for $25. <sigh> the worst.

[Grognard]

I'm (loosely/roughly/in the ballpark) a professional peer.
And I'm also on the East Coast.

your're worth $30/hour +++

$15/hour is chump change.

ENTRY level in Richmond, VA for NON-Gov't positions is $15/hour.

[hedgie]

Again, if you can tolerate CA, you could probably make a killing, especially if you're fluent in various forms of *nix, and get a healthy pension plan to go along with the pay.

[Papersatan]

This position is not a UX job, or even in IT really, and it is an intern position that is being modified for me as a "let's solve everyone's problems, you need money and we need someone to do a thing."

I would not accept an offer of $15 an hour from a full-time job in my field.  Nothing I've applied to full-time has been hourly actually, but most work out to about 30/hr.


Update:
I just sent the email expressing my interest and I asked for "closer to $24" I'm anxious that I over shot, but since I was unsure about the job anyways, if I'm out of their budget, I guess that's ok. I am doomed to always feel that I am overshooting since I am used to making way less money.  I have to remind myself that I have a specialized set of skills and I acquired a boat load of debt to get them. Self-promotion is definitely my skill most in need of improvement.

[lepetitfromage]

$14 an hour? At the current rate of exchange, that is barely above minimum wage for a full-time worker in Australia. The recruiter must be an idiot.

Hah. I make $14 and change and have been doing the work of an HR director, recruiter, records manager and a little bit of receptionist sprinkled on top for good measure. Not to mention, I've been with my current employer for 7 years. Sadly, I have 60K in student loans to deal with and can't afford to be picky. Also, not having a car in this area is a really easy way to limit your career options. (As is having a degree in Art Education.....that was my first mistake.)


It's sad when being unemployed would be considered a luxury.... 

Ah, crap. Wrong thread...I should wander back into Pessimism & Depression where I belong. 

[Thrillho]

This position is not a UX job, or even in IT really, and it is an intern position that is being modified for me as a "let's solve everyone's problems, you need money and we need someone to do a thing."

I would not accept an offer of $15 an hour from a full-time job in my field.  Nothing I've applied to full-time has been hourly actually, but most work out to about 30/hr.


Update:
I just sent the email expressing my interest and I asked for "closer to $24" I'm anxious that I over shot, but since I was unsure about the job anyways, if I'm out of their budget, I guess that's ok. I am doomed to always feel that I am overshooting since I am used to making way less money.  I have to remind myself that I have a specialized set of skills and I acquired a boat load of debt to get them. Self-promotion is definitely my skill most in need of improvement.

If they really want to hire you, the worst they can do is say 'well, honestly, we can only really afford x'.

[Papersatan]

I'm worried that they will look at my asking and go "hmm, never mind, we'll just get an intern"  which is why I was convincing myself to behave like a rational gametheory scenario participant, and recognize that my value for this job is way above $15, and so if they are set on that, then it was not something I wanted anyways.  Also, because I am over-anxious about these things I am worried the individual people (whom I will interact with in the future regardless of if I get this position) will find my desired rate laughable.  This is not likely, but it's the sort of think I'm prone to be anxious about.


Completely unrelated, there has been a helicopter circling my house for a while now, or maybe a series of them flying over? I can't tell.  But I don't live in an area where this is common, though there is an airport reasonably close.  I can't think what they would be doing though.  This is at least the 5th 6th fly over? The cats are not a fan of the noise. 

[Loki]

Have you kidnapped anybody lately?

[Papersatan]

*I* haven't though I guess I can't speak for the rest of the people in my neighborhood.  :/

[Grognard]

no worries.

unless it's black.

and men are perched on the skids.

you don't know me.

I wasn't there.

I saw nothing.

[hedgie]

#`%${%&`+'${`%&NO CARRIER

[pwhodges]

My kitchen is lit by twelve 50W low-voltage halogen lamps.  Well, it was; today I replaced them with twelve 6W mains-voltage LED lamps (removing the transformers took most of the time).  I now have the same or slightly higher light levels, and more uniform, because some of the halogens had lost brightness with age and not all had the same beam width.  I calculate that the saving in electricity consumption will be about Ł1 a day - for a capital outlay of under Ł120 (bulbs and GU10 tails for the fittings). 

I have another room with similar lights and usage which I will make the same change to soon, and a third that is little used so can be left till last.

Eighteen months ago I put into a new extension what at that time were the first LED lights I'd seen whose quality was satisfactory for domestic living.  The new bulbs each cost one fifth as much money - that's how fast things have changed.

[Carl-E]

That needs to be cross posted in "Stewards of the Earth"

[Akima]

My kitchen is lit by twelve 50W low-voltage halogen lamps.  Well, it was; today I replaced them with twelve 6W mains-voltage LED lamps (removing the transformers took most of the time).

I must look at this again. Last time I looked at replacing the 12v track-mounted halogen spot-lights in my kitchen, the LED replacements weren't up to the job, but as you point out, things are changing rapidly.

[The Seldom Killer]

I was at an expo about five years ago looking at some stuff a Chinese company was promoting as cutting edge and whilst the concepts and designs were good, they were a little cagey about the actual quality of the stuff being produced for market. Taking a look a some hardware store stuff recently it seems to be markedly improved.

Sheffield has started rolling out installation of LED street lighting and some of the streets around where I live have been covered early in the schedule of works. Genuinely, I'm quite impressed with the output and colour temperature. I't a marked improvement on sodium vapour. I'm yet to see any failures either.

[Papersatan]

That job has gotten back to me and is offering me $20/hr.  I'm taking it. It will be enough to get us by, give me time to be pickier about a fulltime job, and give me some good experience.  They want a  6 month commitment which I can do.

This has been a busy week for me.  I am talking at an event on Sat, and one of the other speakers is the author of a new O'reilly book which I am halfway through and I love.  I also have interacted with him on twitter some, and he has been in town all week, so I crashed a class he was guest lecturing in, and went to a book talk he gave, and I'm so pleased that I did.  He seems like a genuinely great person with a similar background/way of thinking.  When talking about his journey to writing this book, he said that he used to give a lot o 45 min talks about "this stuff" based on what he sort of felt was right.  That he had ideas about things, and would share them, but then when someone told him he should write a book, and he decided to do it, he realized he had to get some hard research done, and so he spent 3 years writing the book.  What's great about this is I am at the "gives talks about what I feel is right based on an assortment of shallow research" stage of my career, and it's been making me really anxious: for this event on Sat, and the national one in April I am talking about some theoretical shit, but I know I am much, much, less well read than I should be, and I have been in knots about how I can be given this opportunity when I'm basically just spewing my thoughts like I would for some friends.  Now I am looking at it like: you're just him 8 years ago. and I can handle that.  I'd love to be the him of the future in 10 years. I need to remind myself that this has been my field of study for literally a year. No one expects me to have all the answers.

[pwhodges]

A step in the right direction!  Make the most of it, and I hope you can benefit from using it as a stepping stone.

[celticgeek]

Yes, keep on going, Papersatan!

[Lines]

Hooray, Kat!!!

[Welu]

YAY!

[Akima]

Good news!

[lepetitfromage]

Woooohoo! Go Kat! That's awesome 

[Is it cold in here?]

Yay!

[Loki]

So I was sitting at a rather lonely bus stop a few minutes ago, browsing my phone. Two guys sat down next to me, and the one closer to me chatted me up, and the following exchange happened:

Guy1: Hey, what kind of phone is this?
Loki: Uh. Dunno *puts phone away in case they are going to yank it from me or something*
G1: It is a Samsung?
L: Yeah.
G1: What kind?
L: Dunno.
G1: Is it an iPhone 6?
L: No?
G1: Do you want an iPhone 6?
L: *shakes head* Nope, sorry. Don't want one.
G2: We can also get you two or three.
G1: Yeah, want two or three of them?
L: *amused at this point* Dude, I don't want even one. What am I gonna do with three of them?
G1: Huh. So, do you smoke weed?
L: *shakes head, seeing where this is going*
G1: Got any friends who smoke?
L: ...yeah.
G1: I am asking because I have got weed.
L: Thought so.
G1: You looking to buy?
L: Nope. (I explain at length why not.)
G2: Coke?
G1: Coke maybe?
L: Nuh.
G1: *some slang I don't understand*
L: Huh?
G1: *confused for a moment* Extasy.
L: No. Look, dude, you are wasting your time.
G2: Women maybe?
G1: Yeah, I can get you some women.
L: *intrigued* How'd that work?
G1: You pick one, then, uh *gets slightly uncomfortable* you fuck them and I get 100 bucks from you. *goes on to explain the women are beautiful etc*
L: How do I pick them? Pictures or what?
G2: We can do pictures, we can do in person.
L: Heh. Nope, sorry.
G1 has to take a phone call or something, the bus I am waiting for conveniently arrives at this moment, I say my farewell and get on the bus.

I am still really confused by this encounter.

[cesium133]

Sounds like a cop who is really bad at his job.

[Loki]

Tbh, to me it looked like guy 2 was showing guy 1 the ropes.

[Aziraphale]

Sounds like undercover cops. Especially when they act like that. I scared the living shit out of somebody one night who tried -- repeatedly -- to sell me drugs. At a bus stop. Would. Not. Take. No. For. An. Answer.

Finally I'd had enough. There were about a dozen people around. I'm usually very quiet. Wasn't this time. "LISTEN. For the LAST fucking time. I do not USE drugs, I will not BUY drugs, and if I was going to buy them, I would not buy them from a fucking cop.

I don't know if he was a cop or not, but he literally ran away. I saw him a couple times after that and he kept his distance (once or twice I saw him cross the street if he saw me coming), which was fine by me since about all I ask from most people is that they just leave me in peace.

[Welu]

My brother told me about one time in a nightclub, a guy came up to him and asked he wanted "stuff" and my brother reacted the exact same I would: With utter naive bewilderment. Eventually the guy realised my brother had genuinely no idea what was going on and went, "You know, coke, you want some cocaine?" and my brother's response, "OOOOOHH.... No, thank you."

[Lines]

Do drug dealers actually do that? Is that why cops imitate that? Because that seems really stupid.

[cesium133]

My brother told me about one time in a nightclub, a guy came up to him and asked he wanted "stuff" and my brother reacted the exact same I would: With utter naive bewilderment. Eventually the guy realised my brother had genuinely no idea what was going on and went, "You know, coke, you want some cocaine?" and my brother's response, "OOOOOHH.... No, thank you."

That reminds me of a phone call I got one night...

Me (just woken up by my phone at 2 AM): Hello?
Caller: This is Irish. I have the stuff.
Me: Who?
Caller: Irish.
Me (still mostly asleep): Who?
Caller: Irish.
Me: I think you have the wrong number.
*click*

[explicit]

So I figured I'd go for a unplanned workout yesterday just because. So I'm thinking, "great, I did something healthy, I don't have to worry about my health much for a little while". I then immediately followed that up by downing a 750 of 90 proof whiskey. Mistakes were made.

[Masterpiece]

When I was in London East-End with my cousin there was this one guy everyone knew standing at a street crossing, saying "Charlie cocaine" to everyone.

[BeoPuppy]

Do drug dealers actually do that? Is that why cops imitate that? Because that seems really stupid.

Oh, god, yes, I have had days just walking in Amsterdam, broad daylight, that I have had to swat the bastards away.

Not literally, obviously, that might end up as a bad idea, but still ...

[The Seldom Killer]

Rozzers don't usually try to hook end users these days. It's not really much use in quotas which are usually more focussed around crime reduction than arrest figures.

Last time someone tried this with me it was someone who owed a dealer trying to keep their line of "credit" open.

[Aziraphale]

Rozzers don't usually try to hook end users these days. It's not really much use in quotas which are usually more focussed around crime reduction than arrest figures.

Last time someone tried this with me it was someone who owed a dealer trying to keep their line of "credit" open.

Where are you from? 'Cause here in the States, it's pretty much the direct opposite of that; it's all about arresting end-users and small-time dealers to keep arrest numbers up. The same philosophy applies to "broken windows policing" and "quality of life offenses". It's theater, meant to show that the police are doing their jobs by going after small fish so they don't have to go after the larger (and, one would assume, better-armed, better-financed) ones.

[Papersatan]

Also, arguably because many governments in the US have actual prisoner quotas... Privatized prisons are only profitable when they are full, and so many prison/state contracts have guaranteed prison population rates... and if that's not the most fucked up thing you've heard all day...

[explicit]

Well, I can attest to the opposite (and I know, anecdotal evidence I"M JUST SAYIN'). They didn't prosecute the people who broke into my house and beat me over the head with a gun, because they were trying to get the upper guy in whatever type of shitty gang they were in. Actually, maybe that's proving one of your points seeing as they were going after the drug guy who sent them and not the violent perps... I dunno which is worse really.

Huh, apparently instead of italics I tried to make those words an image. That's kinda dumb.

[Carl-E]

Ah, but remember, you're a member of a minority group, which brings a whole different set of policing issues with it...

[Aziraphale]

Reminds me of the time I got mugged. I never saw who it was (I was knocked unconscious briefly). I went to fill out a police report, and they brought out a binder full of mugshots. The cop who was showing me the photos kept trying to steer me toward a couple of particular people (who, needless to say, were black and Latino -- not that there weren't white people in that binder, but they weren't the ones he kept saying "You sure it wasn't this guy?" about), and was getting really agitated when I wouldn't pick a few of them out because -- as I kept trying to explain -- I hadn't seen who'd done it.

[explicit]

Those are usually people they already have in the system. I do know in my case they only showed me black and Puerto Rican men, but then again that pretty much fits the description of who broke into my house. They also put a lot of people they knew weren't guilty just to make sure I could remember correctly.

[Aziraphale]

I don't know. It just seemed a bit off somehow that there were a couple of people they were really insistent on, like they were looking for an excuse to bring somebody in and my say-so would do as good as anybody else's. Just got a really odd vibe from the whole thing.

[explicit]

It's possible, I mean, I do only have this one experience and I hope I never have to have another one. It's the reason I wear hats now.

[Welu]

Still bummed that filming got cancelled but it kinda got made up for by someone reaching out to me for help on their film. Helps remind me that I've made films before and they've turned out well enough that people recognise it, even if I'm in a slump right now.

[Papersatan]

Those of you who follow me elsewhere know that I had a long and stressful day today. I put a pan of oil on the stove to heat up, forgot about it and went to the grocery store.  Stephen was home, thankfully, and managed to put the fire out, but there is a bit of damage. 



The whole kitchen ceiling is also black from the smoke, and there is smoke damage in the hallway and the living room too.  We took the cats to the vet to have them checked, and the vet wanted to watch one of them overnight, so we left them both.  Stephen went to the ER as well, because he was working in the smoke for a while.  He is fine, but was there for almost 6 hours. 

We can stay here tonight, because the bedroom is ok.  Our landlords are an older couple and one of them was in surgery at the time, so the other one is coming tomorrow with a contractor to look at the damage, and well find out what the next steps are.  One small worry is we are not supposed to have a roomate, though I don't know if they would actually care.  She is out of town, but it's pretty obvious that there is a bed taking up what used to be my office.

Stephen and I got a pizza for dinner, and after we are going to try to start some clean up. 

I leave stuff on the stove pretty often, but I rarely leave the house, just forget until it's smoking.  Just last week, I overheated some oil until It was billowing smoke and I had to hold the pan out the window to keep the smoke from setting off the detectors.  It's an ADHD thing for me that, I start to cook, then wander away, and I don't remember until I remember I am hungry again.  I think this has motivated me to actually go see someone about it.  We all make mistakes, but I have come perilously close to making this one more times than I can count, and it's really hitting me how close I came to actually burning the house down, and injuring Stephen or the cats.

[Aziraphale]

Thankfully everyone's okay, though I'm sure it gave you one hell of a scare.

[Grognard]

I suggest using a kitchen timer.

either set the microwave timer for 3-4 minutes or get one of these...



the DING-DING alarm and the ticking are audible reminders: might help.

* I am glad everyone, sans kitchen, is AOK.  Accidents happen.  which is why there is renter's/homeowners' insurance