
Homeless Man Has Three Degrees and Can't Find a Job   - ekm2
http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/08/11/viral-video-homeless-man-has-three-degrees-and-cant-find-a-job/
======
Anechoic
He has a _Masters_ in Electrical Engineering and Acoustics from Purdue
University (a very good acoustics school) and he can't find a job in the
_Boston_ area (home of a dozen or so acoustical consulting companies, another
dozen or so loudspeaker manufacturing companies including Bose, Boston
Acoustics & Loud Technologies), several active audio & acoustical engineering
associations (including Bosotn chapters of the ASA, AES, SMPTE and IEEE), and
several schools with strong audio, acoustical and/or media programs (MIT Media
Lab, BU, Northeastern, Berklee)?

Something does not compute. I highly doubt it's racism (I'm black and very
active in the acoustics community in Boston and have witnessed basically no
intentional racism). Everyone I know out that way is very busy and a lot of
firms have hired recently so it's not a matter of employers not willing to
hire.

There's either more to the story here or people are missing out on a
potentially fantastic hire.

edit: I've put out some feelers to see if any knows or might be interested in
speaking with this guy.

~~~
javaecc123
Well. He's 55 yrs old and has been out of work for sometime. At that age no
one expects to train you so you have to have had a great track record, be
practically a guru and be bringing something to the company to get hired over
a recent graduate. His race might play a part in potential employers being
doubtful that he has those skills (probably a bit understandable given the
number of black acoustical engineers) or not being able empathize with his
situation.

~~~
gavinlynch
I don't really understand this comment. Why would it be understandable that
some employers would not believe that he is a capable black acoustical
engineer?

And even if they did, wouldn't it take maybe 5 minutes worth of correspondence
to figure out if he was or was not? Unless you are saying there is rampant
racism in the acoustical engineering industry to the point that he would not
even advance to a correspondence level with a hiring manager based soley on
the fact that he is black.. Which I would doubt.

~~~
aperrien
Unfortunately, I've seen it, with myself in computer programming and systems
administration. Not the only field where this crops up; fortunately, we're
beginning to have good counterexamples of what black Americans are supposed to
be:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPf03T8YN-4>

------
ig1
A quick look at his linkedin profile shows a 17 year gap in his work history
and a very vague sense of what skills he has, I imagine that's what giving him
problems.

~~~
seagaia
That's possible. I wonder what the reason is, or if this Youtube thing isn't
telling the whole story.

~~~
rjd
Most of the time with sensational stories you only get the 'shock' side of the
story. Like forgetting last years case Ted Williams (radio voice guy) was a
drunk and drug abuser.

Or untold police brutality stories which neglect the office point of view. Not
that I condone police beating the crap out of people, but I understand every
one has a breaking limit, and often after watching those videos I think I
wouldn't have lasted half as long as the cops did. But a cop having to face 3
abusive people in an uphill struggle to do his job... until he pulls out a
baton and pacifies one or two ... is no where near a great story as a abusing
his power.

Lots of homeless people have mental defects that can be hard to see at first.
I wouldn't mind betting there maybe something else as well. Even something as
simple as depression.

I suspect he has these going against him. Age , weight, race, long term
unemployed, homeless, new city, industry knowledge which he probably hasn't
kept unto date on, and drive... lets face it younger people have more drive to
be prove themselves than older people.

Pretty hard to top of the pile when lots of other applicants wouldn't have
that.

I'd say the best thing for him would be teaching, seems he has a warmth about
him, proven kindness (with parents), seems intelligent enough, and as long as
theres no mental defects. One year in a local community college and he'd be
set. No doubt there will be an online effort to help this man out. And I'd
chuck him a dollar to be a teacher.

------
mgkimsal
I didn't quite understand the story - he liquidated all his assets to buy his
parent's home then moved in with them to take care of them. It sounded like he
bought the house altogether. If so, why homeless? Could he not pay the taxes?

In any event, while his sentiments were laudable, I'm reminded of a Dave
Ramsey saying - "you can't help someone from a position of weakness". I think
it was DR, anyway. In other words, to be able to help someone financially, you
need to be able to keep yourself financially strong. As crappy as that might
have been what would have happened had his mom still been alive? He'd be on
the streets with an elderly Alzheimer's parent.

I realize people can't predict the future, but I've got friends that are
continually doing really dumb things with money for their kids and even
grandkids, and are going broke (and beyond) in the process. I think it does
little to help the kids learn a sense of responsibility. My parents both
helped out _some_ when I was growing up and migrating to adulthood, but never
to the point where they put themselves at serious financial risk. I'm grateful
for their help, but we all felt I needed to do most of it on my own, which I
have.

~~~
reduxredacted
_As crappy as that might have been what would have happened had his mom still
been alive?_

You are completely right when you're in the position to think rationally. My
only thought is that ... it's his Mom. I'm a married man with a few kids and
am the sole income provider for my family (by choice not circumstance). I
would _move heaven and earth_ to ensure my family (my bride and children) were
taken care of. Were I single, I'd live on the street if it meant the
difference between my mom being tossed out of her home or me being able to
prevent that.

It's completely irrational behavior from a Dave Ramsey standpoint (I'm a fan
of his), and I know that elderly care isn't a choice between "stay in your
home" and "suffer/die in an alley with dementia", but it's difficult to make
sound decisions when dealing with such a serious emotional circumstances.
(case in point, I don't even know the meaning of _living on the street_ , but
I know what decision I'd make regardless).

There's a bit of hindsight at play here. When I decided to move out, my dad
did everything he could to convince me to _buy a house_ rather than rent
(throwing your money away! Tax deductions!). From a cash flow perspective, it
didn't make sense. I had no savings and would have had to game the system via
several different types of loans, but from the _conventional wisdom_ of the
time, it was: _your house will never decline in value_. I rented and I'm glad
I did. I'm now a homeowner with a simple 15 year fixed that's nearly paid off.

------
dwc
Three degrees. That could mean he's industrious, curious and driven. Or it
could mean he had money enough to delay entry into doing something meaningful
in life, and too little drive to do anything but. I know both kinds. Would
anyone hazard a guess about which group has a better employment outlook?

I don't mean to belittle the very real problems in both the job market and our
education system. I do mean to quibble when journalists try to find extreme
examples where commonplace examples abound.

~~~
reduxredacted
Having managed (paid) interns and full time employees picked right out of
graduation (I'm in a somewhat experimental role and that means the only staff
I'm going to get is junior level), I can't possibly restate the importance of
not _delaying entry into doing something meaningful in life_ , if I take your
_meaningful_ to mean advancing your experience in your desired field.

The _best_ employee I've ever had wasn't a Computer Science or MIS major (I
believe he switched later). It was an accident that I even got his resume
(coincidentally, a _staffing intern_ at my company mixed it up. It was due for
the bin [ _HR and staffing_ are for another rant, I'll leave it alone this
time]). He was a brilliant guy. He interned for the half of the summer. In a
few weeks he went from zero experience with databases and directX, to
developing a solution using both technologies (he wasn't a magician, the end-
product was _good_ , but required some reworking of code due to his applying
knowledge from one language to another, but it was _done_ , _usable_ and with
a bit of work _supportable_ ). We offered him a full time position on the spot
and he declined (he wanted to be in academia at the time, but ended up in
industry a few years later).

Degrees are important. Experience is important. _Intelligence_ is important,
but being intelligent and having degrees doesn't equate to success or the
deserving of success. I used to work with a guy who was the sort of guy you
wanted to go out to lunch with (if you're a geek). Very intelligent, had all
sorts of ideas, could talk about anything related to his field (networking)
and would challenge you to _think_ about things differently. Unfortunately, he
could talk all around theory, but he couldn't execute. It was a strange sort
of inability to choose between several equally good approaches to solving a
problem. Every project he worked on got about 3/4 to completion and then fell
flat into failure.

And of course, the story of my two coworkers is certainly not a rigorous
statistical understanding of the world. It's my observation mixed with bias.
But it's worked so far in finding good, terribly unqualified individuals that
can produce far more than they take away from me in time-spend.

~~~
picklestime
_Very intelligent, had all sorts of ideas, could talk about anything related
to his field (networking) and would challenge you to think about things
differently. Unfortunately, he could talk all around theory, but he couldn't
execute. It was a strange sort of inability to choose between several equally
good approaches to solving a problem. Every project he worked on got about 3/4
to completion and then fell flat into failure._

Almost textbook description of ADHD. ref:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2877100>

~~~
reduxredacted
That's very interesting, thanks for the link.

I have children, and I've worked with a few folks who have been diagnosed as
ADHD, but I think the focus always lands on the "Hyperactivity". In
retrospect, he could very well be ADHD (it was called ADD when I was a kid,
and "shut up and sit down" when my dad was a kid), but I my armchair
quarterbacking (psychologicalicking [made it up]) can see the signs there. He
was a very organized individual, coupled with the observed behaviors (hyper
focused, often a part of ADHD that isn't associated with the condition).

------
oscardelben
I doubt his three degrees have anything to do with the fact he can't find a
job.

------
dave_sullivan
There's a lot of people out there in really bad situations that aren't likely
to get better. It really bums me out when I consider what it would be like to
be 55 and homeless in Cleveland.

Still, the article mentions he sold all his stuff and spent his savings on
paying for his parent's house. First, that means he doesn't have to live on
the streets currently (his parents have a house), and second he should have
just let his parents go bk then help them get set up again. That's for
starters, and there's probably a few other things he could do that would make
a big difference in getting it together.

------
Jarred
This might make me sound inconsiderate, but in his position I would take
nearly any job I could just to make some money. He can't afford to be picky
about what he gets if he's living on the streets.

~~~
sudont
It does.

I was unemployed for a year and a half, and even _Wal-Mart_ wouldn't hire me.

~~~
muhfuhkuh
Yeah, that's what I don't get. Everyone says "hey, all these unemployed could
work at McDonald's". The last time they had that massive hiring event millions
showed up to fill 50000 positions.

No one wants to admit that nearly every business except tech is sitting on
cash and just working their existing employees to the bone because they can
(and because it's more profitable). The real hiring is overseas, as it should
be.

People like the guy in the video and 99ers may need to start their own
businesses if they can't find _anything_. Necessity is the mother of invention
(and entrepreneurship).

~~~
burgerbrain
If you are able bodied and hard working, you can almost always find jobs in
construction or demo (one or the other is almost certain to be doing well in
any particular economic situation). These are not good jobs, but they are
_jobs_. At the very least it is generally quite easy to get under the table
work with these sorts of gigs.

If you are able bodied, hard working, _and_ reasonably bright, then contact
local apprenticeship programs. They are almost always _desperate_ for new
people these days. These sorts of jobs cannot be outsourced and are in high
demand since the society in America these days so highly encourages everyone
to seek university education.

Food service jobs are actually quite difficult for most people to land
compared to most jobs. The reason people use it as an example of where
unemployed people could work is because lots of teenagers _can_ get those jobs
meaning that people who say that are remembering back to when they or their
buddies got those jobs.

EDIT: I'm not pulling this out of my ass here, I say this from personal
experience. For about 5 years before I got into uni I worked a few jobs in
demo (gutting, nothing specialized, just swinging a sledgehammer) and as a
migrant farmhand (most of that work as general labour at various processing
plants down the coast). Most of my friends from that time went on to get
apprenticeships in various trades. I don't care to think about how many pounds
of asbestos I probably inhaled, but it was work.

~~~
georgieporgie
Regarding apprenticeship-type programs, my father works for the Corps of
Engineers, and my uncle is a life-long electrician. Both are work with
training programs these days. Each of them has said that it's extremely hard
to find someone who is both reasonably intelligent (or able to put down
his/her smartphone long enough to appear so) and able to stick with a program
through completion.

~~~
sudont
One of the reasons I could never do manual labor for the rest of my life
(after working on farms and road crews) was the sheer intellectual loneliness
of it. No matter how strong I was, or how fast I worked (I'm still pretty good
with a pick-axe), I was still the loser who didn't go out and blow money at
the bar. Worse yet, the area was like 70% male and I couldn't get a date as a
laborer to save my life.

The fact is, computers and large-scale engineering projects are _really
fucking interesting_ and siphoning off talent from other areas. The dreaded
brain drain. Meanwhile, our grid is crumbling and we're playing it
conservatively--minor fixes, if anything. If there was some serious thought
and excitement put back into it, to not just modernize, but _futurize_ our
utilities--we'd see a lot more people start to join.

NIMBY is a problem: no micro-wind farms, no upgraded rail projects, no weird
bio-tech projects, nothing new or innovative. If anyone's intellectually
curious, why the hell would they want to join something as boring as a public
works project?

~~~
georgieporgie
_I was still the loser who didn't go out and blow money at the bar. Worse yet,
the area was like 70% male and I couldn't get a date as a laborer to save my
life._

That sounds almost exactly like my last programming job. Except it was more
like 90% male. :-)

------
americandesi333
I think what he could do to close that gap is re-train himself. There are
unemployment agencies in every city (called WIB) that provide free training
resources to people who are looking for jobs.

But the biggest deterrent is the motivation to go out there and really push
hard to make yourself relevant. He did couple of times mention the 'color' and
it seems that he is feeling like a victim. In order to succeed, you need to
get out of that mentality and start thinking positively about the value you
can bring to an org.

------
fractalcat
To everyone who's saying his university entry at sixteen is implausible:
actually, it's fairly common. I started uni at sixteen (B of Technology,
RMIT). So did my best friend (BCS, UTS). My partner started at fourteen (BCS,
U of Canterbury). Anecdotal yes, but it's not exactly unheard of.

~~~
glimcat
It is fairly common, but it was much less common.

------
mmatey
Since when does having three degrees equate to being a good employee?

------
glimcat
I love how Time decided to prepend the headline with "Viral."

------
justin_vanw
Who wants to make a wager, that he has a serious substance abuse or mental
health problem? The other issue is that he refuses to leave Cleveland. There
are no jobs for an electrical/acoustical engineer in Cleveland, and there
probably won't be for a very very long time, if ever, and the effect of race
in a city like Cleveland is far more likely to come up than in a less racist
area.

I also get very suspicious when someone has multiple degrees at the same
level, in this case 2 master's degrees. I can't put my finger on what it is,
but people who collect degrees seem like they are more often completely
incompetent.

It's not societies fault that someone can't find their ideal job in a dying
city, and it's not news.

~~~
yuvadam
Geez. I know America is nowhere close to being a socialist country, but one
cannot be so oblivious to the fact that something here is rotten from the
foundation. Have we lost all solidarity? Hell, even basic decency?

Yes, maybe this specific person is not a good example. Maybe he has suffered
mental health issues or substance abuse (though I find the accusation
appalling). Maybe he does suffer a severe lack of skills.

But the fact that a highly-educated person had to sell all his assets in order
to support his parents, and consequentially is now job and homeless, says
something about society.

So, yes, it is societies problem. No one is to guarantee that tomorrow that
person will not be you or me. And from that perspective, things look a hell of
a lot different.

~~~
yuvadam
I feel a strong urge to say one more thing.

I live in Israel, and right now the majority of the Israeli people are
uprising [1] (democratically and peacefully) against the absurd cost of living
that we have been suffering for the past 20 years. Thankfully, our macro
economy numbers are good, and people have jobs - but raising a child or buying
a house is nothing short of impossible nowadays.

Over the past month the entire Israeli public has been asking itself "Why do
we deserve this? If our country is doing so well, why are we struggling from
paycheck to paycheck? If things are so good, why is everything so bad?"

Eventually, people will begin to ask questions, and demand answers from their
government. Once that happens - and by looking at recent global events, it
will - prepare for radical economical and political change.

[1] - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_housing_protests_in_Israel>

~~~
darklajid
I'm mostly standing on the side walk here, a new resident and not a citizen.
But yeah, these topics basically dominate all smalltalk recently.

Co-workers tell me what they pay for kinder garden and it's unbelievable. I
can judge the general prices for housing and basic needs myself and again it's
weird. I moved here from one of the most expensive cities in Germany (I think
it ranked on place 2-3, depending on the report), this is 1.5 times more
expensive in general, ignoring obviously crappy (from my point of view) fees
for kinder garden, university etc..

