Facebook Employees Living in a Garage Hope Zuckerberg Will Learn What's Happening in His Own City (cnbc.com) 520
At the beginning of the year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg set a goal to visit every state in the U.S. so he could learn more about the millions of people who use the social network every day. But two of his employees tell The Guardian that they wonder when the billionaire is going to get to know his own community. From a report: The employees, a married couple named Nicole and Victor, are both contract workers in the cafeteria at Facebook's Menlo Park, Calif. headquarters. And they wish they, and the problems closer to home, could also get a share of Zuckerberg's attention. "He should learn what's happening in this city," Nicole tells The Guardian. The couple says they can barely make ends meet. Together with their three children, Nicole and Victor share a two-car garage adjacent to Victor's parents' home. They borrow money from friends and family to stay afloat and occasionally resort to payday loans. Although they earn too much to qualify for state benefits, they don't earn enough to afford Facebook's health care plan.
Three kids? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well there is your first problem....
Re:Three kids? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Three kids? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Three kids? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't understand why you would keep bringing them into this world if you can't afford them.
Maybe if they actually had received effective sex education in school or have access to family planning and abortion services poorer people wouldn't keep having kids. But nope, sorry, abstinence-only sex ed for everyone! Defund Planned Parenthood! People who undertake a perfectly normal bodily function must be punished!
Re:Three kids? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the problem is we're greedy at every level of society.
Individually, we want 'stuff', so we put off kids (sometimes forever) because they crimp our lifestyles. This causes the birthrate to drop below replacement rate. Societally, we want an ever-expanding economy as we've structured pretty much everything to depend on there being more people in the future, and things start to fall apart if that doesn't happen.
So... immigration from places with high birth rates when we really should be content to let our populations shrink so we don't consume as many resources.
Really... why is a stagnant (or even shrinking!) population such a bad thing? No additional housing or extension of infrastructure is required. No ever-increasing issues with pollution, food production, or whatever. No ever-denser urban centers.
In a world with 700 million people instead of 7 billion, our available resources would stretch 10x further and we'd still be far from any threat of depopulating ourselves to extinction.
Greed itself isn't your root problem .... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's easy to blame vices for everything wrong in society. If only people weren't having so much irresponsible sex. If only people weren't so greedy.
But since the beginning of time, humans felt compelled to take actions based on their emotions -- so if these things do make society a worse place, it should be a pretty steady drag on how "awesome" it would be otherwise. None of this is new enough to explain any perceived recent problems.
I reject the claim that the OP made, too, that our need for an ever-expanding economy requires a constant increase in our population (and our failure to do that is causing our economic woes today). The need for economic growth is increasingly decoupled from the number of available laborers! Automation and robotics are displacing workers already in jobs like cashiers, bank tellers and even security guards. Self-driving vehicles will displace MANY more. But growth in these industries won't slow or stop because of that!
IMO, greed is a human emotion that isn't inherently good or bad. It depends on how you direct it. Is it bad to get angry? Depends on if the anger compels you to do something constructive or not, really. Same with greed.
because 7 8 9 (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I had adequate math education; better than adequate in fact and I absorbed it, too.
On the other hand, perhaps it wasn't a math error but an English error. I think my English teachers would be completely onboard with that being the more likely scenario.
Re: (Score:2)
We have become a sad population if we reproach people having 3 kids.
Anything above the replacement rate is reproachful if it's beyond their means. We don't need more people. We need better-educated people.
Re: (Score:2)
We don't need more people.
The U.S. needs more younger people. The majority of younger people in the 21st century will be born in developing countries. Meanwhile, developed countries will have more old people (retirees) than young people (taxpayers). That imbalance will dramatically change society in the coming years.
Re: (Score:2)
They could have saved up some money before taking kids, so they wouldn't have to resort to loans.
Re: Three kids? (Score:2)
No, we have become a common sense population if/when we do.
Re: (Score:3)
There's NOTHING in the world wrong with having 3 kids....if you can AFFORD them...eh?
We're all (presumably) relatively intelligent beings walking the earth here, and one would think they would PLAN and think ahead like adults to make sure they can afford to have any kids before they have them, no?
Ok...hey, let's give them the first one as an accident...it happens. They didn't get rid of it, so they have one...if they are having trouble a
Re: (Score:2)
We have become a sad population if we reproach people having 3 kids.
We have become a sad population if those having kids these days cannot do simple math. The cost of raising a child to age 18 isn't some financial secret.
Proper (Financial) Planning Prevents Becoming Piss Poor. In other words, don't fucking have kids if you can't afford them. Common Sense.
Re: Three kids? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously? My wife and I make half that, live in the most expensive county in the country, and are sending the oldest of our two children to college in a few weeks. You have wildly skewed priorities if you don't think you can support one child on a $300K income
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
They probably have $100,000 student loans each. They do work at Facebook. Also where they are has a ton of social programs that are raising the tax.
Re: Three kids? (Score:5, Informative)
They probably have $100,000 student loans each. They do work at Facebook.
The headline is misleading. They work for a company that provides contract employees to Facebook for the cafeteria, as per the first sentence of the report:
The employees, a married couple named Nicole and Victor, are both contract workers in the cafeteria at Facebook's Menlo Park, Calif. headquarters.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
>> We all know how Rich Democrats feel about, "The Help".
>
> Right... and Rich Republicans are so much more empathetic towards "The Help".
Rich Republicans don't pretend to and then try to virtue signal about it while demonizing the other side.
Re: Three kids? (Score:5, Interesting)
Can't speak for all conservative Christians, but I'm quiet about my donations and charitable acts. If anyone is curious, Matthew chapter 6 sums it up.
I treat "the help" better than I treat myself. I do my best to treat everyone better, honestly. It pays off too. The kid taking your dinner order today may not be tomorrow. If you make an impression on people, good or bad, they'll tend to remember you.
Not to mention, it feels pretty darned good to bump into someone you met in a "lowly" position, only to find they've thrived and reached their goals. Every job is worthwhile, otherwise you wouldn't be paid to do it. People who take those entry level jobs seriously tend to also take their careers seriously, and they usually end up doing very well for themselves.
Re: Three kids? (Score:5, Insightful)
Conservatives and religious people donate more money (a higher percentage of their income/assets, not just in terms of raw dollars) to charities and non-profits than liberals and atheists.
I don't know whether or not they feel smug when doing so.
A lot of religious donations aren't used for charity, but they are still tax deductible and are included as "charitable donations". Those donations build churches, pay pastors, gild statues, evangelize their church, and plenty of other things that have nothing to do with charity. Sure, there are many churches that do plenty of charitable work but there are also many that do none and those donations are just as tax deductible.
That all may be beside the point, since this article [latimes.com] cites an MIT study that found that political affiliation didn't have a relationship with willingness to give, although conservatives gave more dollars in total (because they are richer) both sides give at about the same rate. Interestingly the article also states that "only 10% to 25% of church donations end up being spent on social welfare purposes" which backs up my point above, with religious donations excluded conservatives might give at a lower rate than liberals.
Re: Three kids? (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was a kid we went to one of the churches to go to. The amount of money spent on the pipe organ upgrade could have paid to house the homeless in town. The electric bill to cool the place and gas bill to heat it would have paid for the food banks. The building expansion funds, the new bibles, the staff, ... Yep about 10% went to real charity. I saw the budget. The real purpose of most upscale churches is to make sure the kids date the right kind of people. It is a tax deductible social club.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They probably have $100,000 student loans each. They do work at Facebook. Also where they are has a ton of social programs that are raising the tax.
$100k student loans and they're contract employees in a cafeteria. Is that what a college education gets a person these days?
Re: (Score:3)
one should be so lucky with a college degree these days
Re: (Score:3)
Is that what a college education gets a person these days?
Well, with a little bit of luck, anyway...
Re: Three kids? (Score:4, Informative)
SF county isn't the most expensive place in the U.S.; in fact, SF proper is barely even in the top 10 (#9). Washington D.C. is the most expensive, largely because of higher child care costs.
If you're willing to live in the South Bay, it isn't that hard to live on less than $150k per year. Buy a mobile home at ~$300k, pay for it over ten years, and once you're clear of that, you're spending $1k a month on rent for 1800 square feet, and your overall cost of living isn't that much worse than anywhere else in the country.
Re: Three kids? (Score:5, Informative)
Kids are expensive. Ultra expensive if you give them a chance to go to college. They are a major drain on finances. Like it or. Ot their own decisions have put them in the situation.
My wife and I make 300k combined in Atlanta. We are talking about 1 kid. Figuring out how we will budget for daycare, college, food, clothes, etc. plus any life emergencies and our retirement. Three kids would not only break us but be unfair to them.
Me and my wife live in Atlanta (well, Woodstock) and are talking about our first kid as well. We make less than 1/3 of what you do. Of course, we live in a suburb, own a house that is priced and sized correctly for our income and expected family size (2k sq ft) located in a very desirable neighborhood(10 minute walk, 1 minute drive to physically be in downtown Woodstock), own 2 cars outright, and paying off about 30k in student loans (one of the loans we just paid off in cash a few months ago). We contribute to my 401k monthly from my salary, my wife contributes to savings monthly from her salary, we do not live paycheck to paycheck, and have plenty in bank accounts to account for medical/home repair/car repair emergencies. If we have a kid, we could easily get by on my salary alone while my wife stays home to take care of the kid/does some light work from home or side jobs. You are doing it completely wrong. Move out of your Buckhead condo or John's Creek McMansion, stop leasing brand new Mercedes or BMWs every 2 years, and on 300k a year you could easily have enough for retirement and to put your kid through college debt free.
Re: (Score:2)
Downtown Woodstock, GA - the city that never sleeps.
Re: Three kids? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
You can have a family, live large, accumulate investments, and retire early on far less than that in a flyover state like Atlanta.
Although the tax code does kind of ravage W-2 income of that size.
Re: Three kids? (Score:4, Funny)
Re: Three kids? (Score:5, Insightful)
I expect you are not willing to make some sacrifices for your family. Which I am not going to judge, you probably have the money to not have to make them, but you could find ways to save money and still live well. But people with much less income, can and should be able to survive with a family of three.
The problem is we are equating their money that they make is equal to their value to society. A lot of people who are poor are valuable to society and are worth extra support. This guy is working on feeding the Facebook employees and keeping them productive, avoiding them from getting hungry and unproductive. However normal supply and demand means that his job will pay less, as it is easy to find other people who can do his job.
There is a myth if your work hard you can make it. This is only partially true. If you work hard then you fall into a group of Hardworking people, which there is a larger demand for less of a supply of. However the Supply of Hardworking people is still large, and the demand trade-off between a hardworking person and a average one, is very elastic. So this will limit your earning potential, and not enough to have you make it. The other people at Facebook who are making the big bucks, may or may not be working as hard as the Cafeteria worker. But they have skills that are not as easily found, and there is a demand for. So they get paid more for a job that may mean less work.
However to society, feeding people may be more important to society, then that facebook developer who is finding a new way to shovel advertisements in front of our face.
Re: Three kids? (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is we are equating their money that they make is equal to their value to society. A lot of people who are poor are valuable to society and are worth extra support
The amount of money you have directly indicates your worth to American society. People making that equation are correct. Poor people are NOT valuable to society, and not worth much extra support; if they were, society would be showing its support for them. It does not, hence they are not valuable.
In short, if we as a society actually believed this stuff you spout, our society would look very different.
To be kind, that is a naive economic assertion. Ideally, this would be true in an efficient free market, but in reality, it is not. People do not make purely efficient financial decisions where the money or attention they spend reflects a pure preference based on economic value. Additionally, collusion or even criminal behavior among the haves can lead to undervaluing of the economic benefit of the have nots. It is also a false assertion as eliminating the minimum wage would result in some being paid less, but their value to society would actually increase since they would be providing the same work for less compensation. Also, do you really think that every celebrity provides several magnitudes greater value to society than each trash collector, construction worker, line cook, or grade school teacher? Another counterexample - if I buy the rights to a drug and mark up the price 100 times to make a profit, what value did I just provide to society?
Something wrong with our society (Score:5, Insightful)
Kids are expensive. Ultra expensive if you give them a chance to go to college. They are a major drain on finances. Like it or. Ot their own decisions have put them in the situation.
Statements like this make me queasy. You're telling me that we now have a society where we have decided that it's ok that raising the next generation is too expensive for ordinary people to do. There has to be something wrong with a society that considers raising the next generation to be something ordinary people can't participate in.
My wife and I make 300k combined in Atlanta. We are talking about 1 kid. Figuring out how we will budget for daycare, college, food, clothes, etc. plus any life emergencies and our retirement. Three kids would not only break us but be unfair to them.
YOW! $300K and it's not enough to raise children?
Really, you are telling me that there is something very, very wrong with our society.
Re:Something wrong with our society (Score:5, Insightful)
No. It's just him.
Re: (Score:2)
No...not saying that, BUT, saying that people should plan for and make sure they are ready to have kids.
In today's society, it takes $$ to have kids. If you don't make enoug
Re: (Score:2)
This is a pretty rational reaction for anyone with half a functioning brain cell. It retards family sizes even in demographics notorious for large families.
Their example is a bit extreme but not entirely unreasonable.
It's hard to escape from your past when you make the same mistakes. I chose to avoid some of those mistakes myself.
Re:Something wrong with our society (Score:5, Insightful)
You're telling me that we now have a society where we have decided that it's ok that raising the next generation is too expensive for ordinary people to do.
It's not just him telling you that; it's much of the middle class. Look at the birthrates in developed western nations. Society has indeed decided that raising children is too expensive for middle class people to do, and society has structured itself this way, so they're not doing it.
There has to be something wrong with a society that considers raising the next generation to be something ordinary people can't participate in.
Perhaps. We'll see in a few generations how that works out I guess.
There's been lots of societies on this planet in the past which made various choices collectively; some societies were successful, others not so much. In a century or two, we'll see how successful modern American society is, with policies like this and a culture like this. It is isn't, that's OK; not everyone can win; some other society will rise up and take its place.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
At 300K/year, you're obviously pissing away money left and right. You either live in an over-priced house, are paying for private school, spend money on shit you don't need like sub-zero refrigerators, or a combination of all three.
Before I met her, my wife as a single mother managed to raise a child on less 1/10th of what you make. THAT was hard. You're just delusional.
Re: Three kids? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Three kids? (Score:5, Insightful)
Having an average of 2 kids or more each is vital to our economy. If itâ(TM)s unaffordable to have children, we have a big big problem on our hands.
Of course we have a big problem on our hands. That's been the case for at least 30 years. The owners of capital are taking a larger and larger share of the economic pie. The population has largely been propagandized to think that forming unions leads to corruption and constraint, thus blunting the only power they have; their numbers. Our economic system is set up to serve business. If your boss wanted you to have kids, they would have made them part of the benefits package. Hell, we have had to pass laws to keep pregnant women from being fired!
Hardly anyone with any power is looking at the long term. There is little sense of shared destiny. Those kids won't be needed to replace the workforce for 20 years. But there are profit target bonuses to be had now! So employers pay as little as possible. If people can't afford to have children on that pay (if people are even making that calculation) then too bad. The people running things now sure don't give a shit.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I think most of the people who want to tax the wealth view rich people like Scrooge McDuck. The rich all have swimming pools inside vaults, full of gold coins to swim around in.
http://s3.fantasticfest.com/_u... [fantasticfest.com]
This is their view of rich people.
Re: Three kids? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think most of the people who want to tax the wealth view rich people like Scrooge McDuck. The rich all have swimming pools inside vaults, full of gold coins to swim around in. http://s3.fantasticfest.com/_u... [fantasticfest.com]
This is their view of rich people.
The financial chasm between the wealthy elite and the other 99.999% of the planet isn't fucking shrinking, and their pool is called an offshore tax haven. They swim around in $100 million dollar yachts, wearing diamond-encrusted watches.
Scrooge McDuck looks like a saint compared to Greed N. Corruption that controls the world today.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you decide to have three kids while on a cafeteria worker's income, you deserve some reproach.
Money buys you everything in this society; including the ability to have a family. Is there anything Capitalism won't put a price on?
Re: (Score:2)
Not capitalism. Nature. If you can't hunt and gather enough food for your family, you all starve and die. It really has nothing to do with any construct of civilization.
Re: (Score:3)
Nature. If you can't hunt and gather enough food for your family, you all starve and die.
Is it a safe guess that you bigly object to universal health care?
It really has nothing to do with any construct of civilization.
Some people would say that one sign of civilization is not letting the weak starve and die.
Replacement level is 2.1 children per (Score:2)
TWO kids is the magic number of kids to have to not increase OR decrease world population.
2.1, actually: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
If you're bothered by the idea of fractions, consider that as 90% of the women having 2 children and 10% having 3 children.
Re:Three kids? (Score:5, Insightful)
Simple math tells us that if couples don't have at least two kids, population will decline. Having just one more kid than that shouldn't be a problem. If it is, then that's a problem.
Re: (Score:2)
Having just one more kid than that shouldn't be a problem. If it is, then that's a problem.
Maybe, but you don't solve that problem by ignoring it.
Re: (Score:2)
Which is a sound argument against no fault divorce.
It's Virtue Signaling; They Don't Care (Score:5, Insightful)
Google spends millions to provide WiFi to "refugee" camps in the EU as if there aren't poor people in the US that could use help. It's virtue signalling with political overtones and nothing else.
Re: (Score:2)
Google spends millions to provide WiFi to "refugee" camps in the EU
Wow! Google is selling their data, even before they even become integrated into the EU!
Ok. easy to fix but would you go along with it? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is simple. FB needs to relocate the staff in their unit to some rural site in in North Dakota where those FB employees could no doubt afford palatial houses.
What you don't want to live there, you want to live in a CA area with insanely high real estate prices? That's not Zukerberg's problem, it's yours.
Re:Ok. easy to fix but would you go along with it? (Score:5, Insightful)
So do you propose all the other FB employees walk to North Dakota at lunchtime? You can't relocate a cafeteria.
Not even allowed to use the gym (Score:3, Informative)
Facebook treats them like shit. They can't even use the gym, showers, healthcare, or recreational facilities at Facebook. He pays them squat. To Zuckerberg, these hard working folks are untermenschen. The irony is that Zuckerberg is the real untermenschen.
Re:Not even allowed to use the gym (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not even allowed to use the gym (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Large companies outsource their IT labor to contractors and those contractors get a sub-standard wage and no health benefits.
I've been contracting for the last 20+ years. Contracting agencies started offering full benefits after ObamaCare got passed in 2010 to comply with the law and stay competitive with each other to attract the best employees. If a recruiter offered me a contract job without benefits, I would laugh in their face.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Untermensch. It's singular.
Whole area has unreasonable real estate (Score:2)
Relocate and prosper.
Re: (Score:2)
On top of that, their employment - even as contractors - for facebook ends up ultimately being a red mark on their resumes. When they go to other markets, potential employers will know - at least in general terms - how much these people were paid and will not want to even interview them as they will not be able to afford to
Re:Whole area has unreasonable real estate (Score:5, Insightful)
Relocate and prosper.
Why do you assume that people who can't make ends meet on a monthly basis have the thousands of dollars it costs to move a family?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I moved my family across the country to find a better job. It doesn't cost that much. Just don't take the furniture with you.
"contract workers" (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, there's the problem right there. They're being paid by the contracting company, not FB, so their real beef is with their actual employer. FB doesn't employ them, FB employs the contracting company. FB is using the cheapest bid for food service they could get.
So how are actual FB employees faring at the company?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, there's the problem right there. They're being paid by the contracting company, not FB, so their real beef is with their actual employer. FB doesn't employ them, FB employs the contracting company. FB is using the cheapest bid for food service they could get.
So how are actual FB employees faring at the company?
Exactly. As long as there is a middle-man involved, Facebook doesn't have to give a fuck. It's like when I hired that contract company to have t-shirts made in Bangladesh for $0.10 an hour. I'm not the one exploiting those workers, the contracting company is. So I was completely blameless in that situation. I mean, sure I got the cost savings from paying those people so little, but I don't see how that enters into the equation at all.
Re: (Score:2)
FB is using the cheapest bid for food service they could get.
. . . Facebook employees eat Soylent Green . . . ?
Re: (Score:2)
What you are talking about are contract workers that have a contract with facebook and will receive a Form 1099-MISC . In those cases some courts have ruled that they are in fact really employees of the company.
Re: (Score:2)
Contract workers are just a way for Facebook to shirk their responsibilities.
Most Silicon Valley corporations are structured to contract everything out except engineering and management. The days of being an lowly employee in the right place and time to get rich from an IPO are long over.
Headline is a lie. (Score:3, Interesting)
The two people are not employees of facebook they are employees of Flagship Facility Services and happen to be working for their company at facebook hq.
What has society come to (Score:2)
What has society come to when these poor people aren't allowed to quit and find better employment. We should be ashamed of ourselves for forcing slavery on to our own citizens.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh I know this one! A world where there is unemployment and even having a job isn't a given!
Welp,I'm convinced; slavery is a much better system.
I'd like to write off a road trip, too (Score:2)
Getting paid to vacation FTW!
Comment removed (Score:3)
Fix cost of living (Score:5, Informative)
The root of the problem is a lack of affordable places to live that aren't several hours' commute from places where people work. I live in the NY metro area, and even 60 miles away house prices are high in good school districts. Northern California is way worse -- you're starting at a million for ownership of any kind of home, which means you need a job that pays an outsized salary just to have a massive mortgage payment.
This problem is repeated in cities all over the US to lesser degrees. Atlanta has very affordable housing if you're willing to put up with hours of driving, and Georgia has almost no property taxes...but in my opinion sitting on the road for another 10 or 15 hours a week isn't worth it.
One fix I could see is to make retirement stability easier to maintain. So many people in our area have little saved for retirement and are banking on selling their high-priced house and moving to North Carolina or similar. It's their only retirement asset, and in the current environment it's in everyone's best interest to keep these mini housing bubbles inflated until they can cash out.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
60+ stories is not necessary. 4 stories would be enough. But even that's illegal, most of the Bay Area is zoned for single family homes.
California is screwed (Score:2)
High costs, high taxes, and high regulation [battleswarmblog.com] that are driving people and businesses out of the state. The minimum wage hike is only going to accelerate the trend by driving more business to other states and causing those that can't move to either invest in automation to replace their existing workers, or just hire more illegal aliens.
And the huge public sector union pension debt is going to cause more municipalities, and eventually the state itself, to go bankrupt.
Divided Society (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
> The problem is getting that top notch care to every single person
You cannot. Society's ability to provide medical care is finite, and there is a range of medical care (graded by expense) possible.
You have a choice:
1) Pay or die. You have money and live, or don't and die.
2) Eliminate any care you can't afford to provide for all. The poor do OK on average, others die unnecessarily because you're restricting their options.
3) Blend it - have a basic level of tax-funded universal care for all, let the ri
Re: (Score:2)
Now imagine if he was a poor uninsured working guy..
The folks in the article do have health care. They are required by law to purchase it, remember?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Sure glad that is working out as intended.
Employees != Contractors (Score:2)
Employees, or contractors, of a company with a contract for a different company are not employees of the purchasing company. These people are not Facebook employees. They are Facebook contractors. They may not even be employees of their direct company, if they have a 1099 agreement with them. In California, the term "employee" comes with an especially large amount of legal red tape.
This is seriously like the most basic distinction ever, when running a business. If you do not understand this, and you're prov
Facebook (Score:2)
Well, I see the problem, but is it a facebook problem? They are not even working for facebook.
WAIT (Score:5, Interesting)
There is more to this story here. Health insurance can't cost more that 10% of your income: Thanks Obama. So how can they not afford FB's own health plan?
They are staying in a garage adjacent to their parents house. I assume therefore this is in fact their parents garage. Mom and Dad can't give them a little break on the rent long enough for them to get some savings?
I mean seriously if my kid had nowhere else to go with his family, and was apparently this broke. I think I'd say "Shit son, I'll back the cars out and you can stay in the garage, rent free as long as you need; if you'll clean any bird crap off the paint when you come home from work each day."
I suspect there is more going here. Somebody has an insane pile of student loan or credit card debt would be my first two guesses. Spend every dime on some get rich stock scam that fell apart would be my third.
unless they are 1099 subcontractors the ACA health (Score:2)
unless they are 1099 subcontractors the ACA health care rules say there work place must give them an plan.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Their emperor has no clothes (Score:5, Informative)
Zuckerberg is still partying on the collective dimes of investors who don't understand how facebook works - or why it still doesn't make money.
I believe you are completely uninformed sir. Facebook has been making consistent profit since IPO: https://www.theguardian.com/te... [theguardian.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Because there's an infinite number of high-paying jobs just waiting for cafeteria workers.
There are many places you can live & work, but YOU wanted to work for Facebook
Might wanna bother reading TFSummary. They work for the contractor that operates Facebook's cafeteria.
Re: (Score:2)
They don't need to work at facebook in that area
Because if you ask the Moving Fairy very, very nicely, she'll magically teleport you to a new city with all of your stuff. She'll also make the first and last and security deposit so you can actually rent a new place to live.
It's almost like you haven't spent a moment thinking about their situation, and are basing your comments on your own financial situation.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:THEN QUIT! (Score:4, Insightful)
Life is hard. Sometimes you have to do hard things to make it work. They choose not to.
Yeah, they need to just let their children starve for a year so they can save up for moving expenses.
I moved halfway across the country to get a better job for my family. It wasn't easy. I left behind family that I haven't seen since
Yet you were able to afford food, right? And you were able to get together the first, last and deposit for a place to live, right?
Your "hard" is actually quite easy compared to what you demand of the people in TFS.
Because again, you have not spent a moment thinking about their situation, and instead insert your financial situation into their story so that you can pretend there is no larger-scale problem.
Re:THEN QUIT! (Score:4, Interesting)
Sounds more likely to me that they have managed their income poorly.
Re:THEN QUIT! (Score:4, Interesting)
The parents are even letting the kids stay in the main house. Do you really think they are going to give a large TV and bladeless fan to them?
I assume you meant "aren't even letting". And yes, that's exactly what I expect. That's the usual pattern with families like that. The fan doesn't work very well—give it to the kids. Replaced the bedroom TV—give the old one to the kids. Happens all the time.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
- Abolish low and mid-density and non-mixed-use zoning and local approval bureaucracy that allows NIMBYs to prevent the building of new housing stock, so housing can be affordable.
Capitalism says that it is more profitable to build expensive housing then cheap. Where I am, there's more housing development then ever, cheap 3 story apartments getting torn down to build expensive high rises. The local government is considering forcing all new developments to include 25% social housing for those making $80 grand or less. There's a real problem when $80,000 is considered needing social housing in a market with less then $11 minimum wage. The real problem is the wealth gap, made worse by w
Re: (Score:2)
The more progressive policies play out in the Silicon Valley, the more squeezed out the middle class becomes.
And which policies are those?
Re: (Score:2)
... 4. MOVE TO BETTER LOCATION. The problem isn't how much money you make. It's how much you have to spend to just subsist in that area of the country....
There are many locations in the US that have much, much lower cost of living.
The problem is, there aren't any jobs in those places.
The cost of living being low doesn't help if you're living where they have 50% unemployment.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
$20K divided by $17 per hour divided by 30 days equals 39 hours, 12 minutes and 56 seconds. Someone isn't telling the truth here.