

Is Any Job Better Than No Job?  - cwan
http://www.slate.com/id/2263335/

======
AgentConundrum
I'm in this position right now, actually. After being unemployed for a while,
my resources are finally almost depleted.

About a week ago, I found a job for a software tester that asked for
experience with a number of programming languages, so I assumed it would at
least be a technical position and it might be a nice change of pace.

They called me for an HR interview n Thursday, and that's when I discovered
that they apparently no longer needed anyone in my area. They said they could
need me in another city relatively nearby (4-5hr. drive from here, so I'd need
to relocate), but the position was just black-box, no-code testing. They also
asked me for my salary requirements, and when I hesitated (as I knew it would
likely be below my expectations), she spoke up and told me the typical range
for the position - about $10k less than I was making before.

I decided I needed the money, so I did their technical interview the next day.
I think it went really well (there were at least two instances where I
answered a question she was about to ask as part of the question preceding it)
so I'm expecting an offer, but it still feels like a major blow to my ego to
even be considering taking the job.

I figure I'll set a one-year limit on the job, training however I need to in
order to get out of there by then, and I'll use my salary to help fund a
project I want to build. Lemonade from lemons.

The point is, sometimes you just need to do what you need to in order to keep
going. If an employer is offering insulting wages or seems
abusing/untrustworthy, or if the job would be too big a burden (uprooting your
family for relatively low financial gain), that's one thing, and I fully
understand declining those jobs. If the job is reasonable, and you can't
afford to be out of work any longer, then your ego needs to take a back seat
to survival.

~~~
bretthoerner
> so I'm expecting an offer, but it still feels like a major blow to my ego to
> even be considering taking the job.

If they sensed that, it might hurt your chances of getting an offer. (I don't
mean to be a downer, and I really hope you get it and it's better than you
expect.)

Oddly enough sometimes an employee kicking ass during a technical interview
and coming off as a "great deal" is a bad thing. They may realize you'll
likely leave in 6 months and they'd rather invest in someone who will need to
stick around longer.

~~~
bho
This exact scenario actually happened to me. I thought everything went
extremely well, but I was ultimately rejected for fear of me using the
position as a stepping stone. I find that logic to be pretty flawed - as
someone who was unemployed for a few months, wouldn't my best interest be to
hold a steady job for a decent amount of time?

~~~
potatolicious
Why would it be?

Employment is like dating - you're more desirable if you've already got a job.
The number of companies willing to speak with you dramatically increases - and
why wouldn't you trade up if given the opportunity, especially if this current
job is "below" your standards to begin with?

------
gjm11
Most interesting sentence, to me: _The median income in 2008 was below what it
was in 1998._

GDP in 2008 surely isn't below what it was in 1998.

What we're seeing here is yet another indication of the big increase in
inequality in the US over recent years.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Or debt-fueled spending has been adding to GDP between 1998 and 2008. Did we
by any chance have a massive debt fueled speculative bubble from 1998 to 2007?

(If you borrow $10 and spend it, GDP has increased by $10. If you spend it on
something other than services, income won't go up commensurately.)

~~~
cynicalkane
?

Every payment is a transfer from one person to another. If you spend $10 on,
say, golden rocks (gold), it doesn't get eaten and wiped from existence by the
God of Golden Rocks, but rather goes into the pocket of the gold miners and
owners of the gold mining capital. It doesn't make a difference that gold is a
commodity, not a service.

Net product is equal to income. You learn this in Macroeconomics 101. Example
financial statement:
[http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/TableView.asp?SelectedTa...](http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/TableView.asp?SelectedTable=43&FirstYear=2002&LastYear=2004&Freq=Qtr)

~~~
yummyfajitas
I believe gjm11 was talking about personal income (i.e., wages/tips/capital
gains), not total income to all entities. At least, that's usually what people
talking about inequality are discussing, since that's the only thing the
government keeps statistics on.

So buying $10 worth of golden rocks will increase GDP by $10, and the balance
sheet of Gold Inc by $10. This will only increase personal income if the owner
of Gold Inc sells $10 worth of stock or receives $10 worth of dividends in the
same year.

~~~
cynicalkane
This could be true, but I find it more likely that the original poster simply
doesn't understand what he's talking about. For example, take your thought
experiment, and modify it such that Gold, Inc. pays out all $10 in
compensation and dividends, and grows its balance sheet by $0.

Now, we have $10 in debt-fueled spending, $10 in increased personal income,
and the original poster is still wrong.

~~~
gjm11
I fail to see how your criticisms indicate that I simply don't understand what
I'm talking about, though of course that's always possible.

Aggregate personal income is typically roughly proportional to GDP. GDP has
grown quite a bit over the last decade, which suggests that aggregate personal
income has too. The population hasn't grown much over that time, which
suggests that mean personal income has also grown quite a bit. (More
quantitatively: US GDP growth has been something like 40% per decade recently,
US population growth more like 10%, so mean income has grown by about 30% over
that period.)

If median income goes down and mean income goes up, that typically indicates
that richer people are gaining while poorer people lose. (It doesn't _have_
to; imagine, e.g., that everyone below the median income jumps to $1/year
below the median. Result: the median stays the same while the mean goes up.
This is not at all what typically happens, though.)

If the growth in aggregate personal income has been slower than that in GDP,
that indicates that businesses' profits are growing faster than what they pass
on to their employees. That translates in the not-much-longer term to more
money for the owners of the businesses. Who are, surprise surprise, on average
substantially wealthier than median. So, again, more gains for the wealthy
than for the not-so-wealthy; so, again, increasing inequality.

What any of this has to do with the bizarre notion that when you buy gold the
money gets eaten by a golden rock god, I'm not sure. (I can kinda see how you
might have got the impression that _yummyfajitas_ thinks that, but immediately
after making the golden-rock-god comment it seems like you start speculating
on how I probably have no clue what I'm talking about. Highly mysterious, but
I'm probably just being dim.)

~~~
cynicalkane
I mistakenly thought both posts made by Mr. yummyfajitas were made by two
different people. Sorry about the confusion.

~~~
gjm11
Aha, understood. I hadn't appreciated that, and hence thought that when you
said "the OP" you meant me rather than yummyfajitas. Sorry for getting
confused.

------
akshayubhat
if a job is in Dubai then it is surely not worth it. I have heard horror
stories of people who went to work there.

Indians, Europeans (My guess mostly from western poor countries) go to Dubai
because 30K $ a year is a huge salary jump, but for US citizens its not much
different from they would get here.

~~~
ig1
The airline industry typically pays poorly in the US, it wouldn't surprise me
if the figures were in-line with domestic airline pay.

~~~
jrockway
Right, but the job is not in-line with a similar job in the US. Working for
Emirates involves immigrating to another country.

------
marze
A nice improvement to the current system would be to continue unemployment
benefits for three months after someone starts a new job. As it is, the
termination of benefits [edit: upon taking a new job] is a disincentive to
take new job, unless it is an awesome job.

While serving to reduce the likelihood of a sharp crash, the extending of
unemployment benefits is also slowing a recovery by reducing the incentive for
people to do work or start a business, even if it doesn't pay well.

Edit: for clarity

~~~
d2viant
The termination of benefits is a disincentive to take a new job? I would think
the continuation of benefits would be a bigger disincentive to going out and
finding a job.

Why not just eliminate unemployment benefits altogether? As a working
American, why is it my responsibility to foot somebody else's bill while they
search for a job they "like"?

~~~
chopsueyar
It is not your responsibility. The unemployed person receiving unemployment
paid into the system with deductions from his/her payroll.

Had that person not been employed last year (2009), and began working in 2010,
and was subsequently laid off, that person would not be eligible for
unemployment.

~~~
d2viant
At the state level, but not the federal. There are federal unemployment
benefits being granted. We didn't pay into that through past payroll
deductions, so where is the money coming from if not current workers servicing
the federal debt?

~~~
chopsueyar
China?

------
mgrouchy
I think one has the right to be picky. You do your job for a large part of
your waking hours during the week. You want to be appropriately compensated
for this time.

However, this all depends on your current financial situation, if you need the
money and you have more then yourself to support, its time to start looking at
any job is better then no Job. Its better to have some money come in rather
then no money even if it is only while you are looking for something better or
even in your feild.

------
donaldc
_part owner Mark Sperry says he has been looking for $13-an-hour machinists
since early last year_

Apparently, either they aren't needed all that badly, or else they're finding
some. Otherwise, he surely would have raised the wage offered.

~~~
billswift
I don't know where he's hiring, but $13 is an _incredibly_ low wage for a
competent machinist; it sounds more like he might just looking for a machine
operator.

~~~
donaldc
My point is that, whatever it is he's looking for, he's been looking for a
year and a half, and hasn't yet found it. By the laws of supply-and-demand
(the basis of the free-market economy) he's not offering a high enough wage.

Of course, it could be that his business is marginal enough that it wouldn't
be profitable at a higher wage, in which case it's likely that the days of his
business are numbered.

------
mmphosis
No. I think that "any job" is not better than no job. I've done both, and the
"any jobs" were not worth it other than learning that the "any job" was not
what I wanted to do. "No job" offers a lot of non-monetary benefits like free
time, flexibility, friends and community. I stopped feeling desperate that I
needed to have a job, and I let go of major things in my life that cost money:
rented sleep space, and most store-bought food. "No job" is probably not for
everyone, or maybe "no job" looks totally different for you. In maintaining my
"no job" lifestyle, I found that well-being, maintaining health, became
important.

I am employed at a job now, but not just "any job" because I actually love
what I am doing.

