

Ask HN: I'm Busted, Out of Work. How to Visit a Friend Who Needs Me? - MichaelCrawford

I have been out of work for quite a long time.  Not unemployed in the sense that I have my own coding and web projects, but I haven&#x27;t had much paying work for five solid years.  I am willing to accept that as my own responsibility, as a result of the essays and articles I publish online.<p>Consider my frequent railing against Google Analytics.  I recently interviewed with Google but - politely now - ended the interview process when I pointed out to my recruiter that to work for Google would be a conflict of interest.<p>In principle I could borrow the money to visit my friend but I have borrowed so much that I have not paid back, that I am reluctant even to ask, even if anyone were willing to lend it.<p>For reasons of their privacy, I don&#x27;t want to say a whole lot about what is going on with my friend other than that they are in a bad way right now.  She is, just for now, in a safe place but that won&#x27;t be the case for the long term.<p>I am in vancouver washington - just north of portland oregon.  My friend is on the east coast in a big city; again for reasons of her privacy, I don&#x27;t want to say which one.<p>I&#x27;m puzzling over a gofundme campaign but not so sure that would work well, or that it would get funding quickly enough.<p>I&#x27;m happy to do any kind of work that I regard as ethical.  Not just computer programming - I was once a carpenter for example, I have all manner of carpentry tools.
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d4rkph1b3r
Some unsolicited advice: I think you should change your webpage. You have all
the skills of someone who could be charging a good deal to do mobile/client
side development, but I can see how some might interpret your personal page as
a red flag.

I personally don't have any problems with what you've put on your page, but
when someone is looking to hire a short to medium term consultant, they don't
want to see a page that screams "I am a unique, creative, thoughtful
individual".

Maybe move everything you have to an anonymous page and put up something
simple like "here is my skill set, here are some examples of apps I've
created, contact me for rates".

I really don't mean to come off as offensive or disparaging of your site. I'm
just thinking of the very risk averse business folks I know who are also
desperate for iOS developers or whatnot. They have a very clear picture of
boring developers that will work hard for them. I'm confident if you
compartmentalize a little bit more in your public persona, you could be making
gobs of money and still have plenty of creative expression in other outlets.

------
rogeryu
How about driving a car that needs to be relocated for someone or some company
from west to east, for free? It will take some time, but it looks like you
have that.

~~~
MichaelCrawford
that would be a great idea, but I've had some seizures. I have some reason to
believe that I won't have them anymore but before I drive I want a neurologist
to tell me it's safe.

Oddly I can have a seizure while driving a car without anyone noticing.
Several years passed before I was diagnosed. The first seizure that I know
about, it was as if the entire universe sprung into being instantaneously,
with me at the wheel of my car, in a driving snowstorm on a twisty mountain
road, and no clue as to how I got there.

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thaway_x123
Don't mean to seem like a jerk but I have the following things to ask and say
:

1) Why would you go to a Google interview knowing that working for them would
be a conflict of interest ? That seems very odd and questionable to me.

2) You're in debt and out of work (or so it appears). Perhaps dropping
everything, selling your stuff and/or borrowing money to visit them may not be
in your or their best interest right now. Consider that.

3) You seem to have a history of issues (googled your name). You may need to
consider that your decision making abilities may be impaired - especially if
you're upset about something. Have a discussion with your friends and family
before you take any serious steps.

All the best and I hope it works out for your friend.

~~~
brudgers
Something needing to be prefaced with, "I don't mean to sound like a jerk,
but...", will likely be more constructive with the benefit of robust editing.
There's no idea in your comment that requires taking the risk of sounding like
a jerk, and the strained circumstances in the original post make a deliberate
decision to run the risk of sounding like a jerk unconscionable.

~~~
MichaelCrawford
No worries. I've been an active kuro5hin member for 13 years.

You Have Absolutely No Idea.

~~~
brudgers
I am concerned about the general effect of such comments on HN's quality while
realizing that they are habits that people develop elsewhere on the
internet...that's where mine honed.

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DanBC
Does your friend actually need you to visit them? Or is there help and support
that you can provide from a distance?

For example, you could put together a package of information for their city
and the type of problem they're having, and have that delivered to them. Then
you can ask them if they are okay calling the agencies you identified or if
they want you to call on their behalf, or if they have someone else that they
want to onow but that they haven't told yet.

Also, please don't forget to protect yourself. You can't help your friend as
much if you are ill.

~~~
MichaelCrawford
It has been helpful to her so far, that I've been emailing her every day for
months.

I've known her for many years but only recently have we become close.

She presents a false front, in that she appears to be a great deal stronger
than she really is. Like a picture of a stone wall, rather than real stone.

Over the last couple weeks I've been asking her for some advice about my work.
While she's been, strictly speaking, helpful, she's also been quite harshly
critical. I got a mail from her a few days ago expressing her furious anger at
not being able to get medical care, to which I replied - loosely speaking -
"Call 9-1-1".

I didn't hear from her for several days, I prayed that she was in the hospital
yet feared that she was dead. Finally she emailed me this evening, she is in
the hospital.

She is completely convinced that she has not a friend in the world. That's not
even remotely true but she is convinced of it. So while strictly speaking
there _is_ a great deal I could do from here, there is a lot more to do were I
there in person.

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MichaelCrawford
I've been up all night, I need to get some sleep so don't be concerned if I
don't post for a while.

Thank you all for your thoughts, as well as the many upvotes to this
submission.

My friend emailed me just now, she's doing better than she was. I apologize I
don't want to say much more than that. I think she'd be OK were she her normal
self but just now she is quite fragile.

------
brudgers
Sorry to hear about your situation.

I am not in a position to hire you but I wonder if you would undertake
software development work where transport could be part of payment?

If so, this might work well for an east coast shop in need of experienced
temporary help with interesting work.

Good luck.

~~~
MichaelCrawford
yes. That's just what I was hoping to achieve.

It's not quite that I am unwilling to accept gifts nor loans but that I very
strongly believe in self-reliance. Were someone to give me the money, or lend
me the money, that's money they could not give or lend to someone who needs it
more than I do.

In a moment I'll send my resume to what I think your gmail addr is. Mine is
mdcrawford@gmail.com

My SO is [http://stackoverflow.com/users/2368132/michael-
crawford](http://stackoverflow.com/users/2368132/michael-crawford) if you'd
like to look over my history there.

~~~
brudgers
I'm not on the east coast nor in a position to hire anyone, but shoot me an
email and we can chat. If there's anything you need, just let me know.

~~~
MichaelCrawford
Ah, my apologies, I misread your post. I do see now that you were referring to
a shop other than your own.

------
MichaelCrawford
I've been puzzling over what I could reasonably say about my friend, but it is
complicated by the fact that they are well-known. Not famous like a rock star,
but well-known within their field of work.

I use "they" rather than "he" or "she" so as to avoid identifying their
gender, not for their privacy but because while not well-known there are some
people who know they are a close friend.

EDIT: Sorry, I meant to avoid writing "she" and "her" but screwed up.

I might sell my workstation; I'm not dead certain as I am quite attached to it
however it's a lot easier to replace a box than a close friend. It's not
really _current_ technology however it is quite powerful and the case looks
really cool. I'm not sure what to sell it for however I will figure that out
by tomorrow afternoon:

    
    
       2.5 GHz Core Quad Xeon e5420
       16 GB FB-DIMM memory
       1000 watt power supply
       16-lane PCIe 1 GB ATI video (don't recall the model #)
       SuperMicro Motherboard (forgot #)
       Really Sexy CoolerMaster case - 10 5 1/4" drive bays!
       generic floppy drive
       supermicro dual-layer Blu-ray burner
    

The video card has two DVI sockets.

The motherboard has six internal SATA sockets, I've brought two of them out to
eSATA. Also two gigabit ethernet.

Serial, parallel, legacy mouse and keyboard connectors, 4 external USB, I
think there's six internal. Sound on the motherboard, I think it's Intel HD
Audio.

The motherboard has two Xeon sockets but only one is installed. It can take a
maximum of 64 GB of FB-DIMM, with 4-way interleaving.

FB-DIMM is largely out of style as it uses more power but it really is better
than DDR* for multithreaded code; the buffer enables different CPU cores to
read and write the same address ranges at the same time. While you can do that
with DDR in a strictly logical sense, the memory controller arbitrates the bus
so in reality that doesn't actually happen, thereby slowing down multithreaded
code.

Optionally, four Antec hard drive coolers.

I'd rather keep the four drives and my hardware raid controller, as the
controller was given to me by a former employer (I worked on the OS X driver
for that same card).

I have a drive I don't really need, that while not brand new is in mint
condition. I can install any OS you like; I have a fully-licensed Windows 7
OEM installer, with the sticker and everything, or I could install any Linux
or *BSD distro you like.

