I read all my email, but I get a ton of it and can't always answer it -- will look for that one and try to get back to you. Planning to keep them on for paid subscriptions, yes. Now that I'm off Twitter, my personal "hate boner brigade" should be bored. Fingers crossed. More later!
This is where remote work is so helpful. I would get out of New England and work remote. Why stay in a high cost of living area? I live in a little lake community in South Carolina and work remote. Cheap lake living, great community. There’s lots of entrepreneurs here. Politically rather libertarian. A few transplants from New York with BLM flags in their lake houses. Our mortgage is $1200/month for a four bedroom home walking distance from a lake park. Free range kids out riding bikes every day. Seriously, if you are working remote move to an affordable area.
I will definitely consider this in a few years. For now, I have one of the five sane therapists on earth and am making progress, and also have really good doctors that I like here.
I have had PTSD as well and I continued my therapy after my move remote via DoxyMe. The doctors issue would be tough however. I have to admit, Dr's here aren't so great. It's hard to find good medical care in smaller towns (and restaurants, although that obviously is less pressing.)
I would strongly suggest getting up on LinkedIn. I am on no other social media and I only use LI for work purposes. I have never posted there nor do I read that cringe. I have gotten so much work coming to me via this resource. I don't see LI as social media, just part of my online professional presence along with my design portfolio.
I understand that most people use it for this, but the world is small and abusive parents can be very vindictive. It would take about two hours before every connection was contacted by the sociopaths who spawned me to tell them I'm a demon possessed crazy liar.
I’m sorry to hear this. I grew up in an abusive home as well and even I forget how much worse this type of behavior can get. My mother was happy to disown me and my father is dead so I fortunately don’t have to worry about this.
Since you cannot in fact view, much less post, to Linkedin without having created an account against either a verifiable email address or phone number, if "the sociopaths who spawned [you]" were to go to the effort to create accounts for themselves, that somehow looked liked they had some sort of relationship to you (as opposed to being merely one of the "millions of people" who are otherwise on Linkedin), *and* tried spreading dirt to people who were your contacts, etc., they would get outed pretty quickly.
Having said this, I'm *not* trying to disrespect your desire to stay as far away from them as you can. And I can understand that minimizing your online footprint is important.
How long have you been at your current job? I seem to remember it is less than 2 years. If so I would strongly recommend staying till you have completed at least two years. Future employers will give you way more credit if you are not a frog jumping from one job to another
Hi Holly! Don't necessarily dismiss a high deductible plan for the right job--if the firm generously contributes to the associated HSA the numbers on them can actually crunch pretty well. They tend to work best for people who a) have very few health expenses or (and ironically) b) people who have a lot of expenses and consistently hit their annual out-of-pocket amount. You get the benefits of the insurance-negotiated underlying rate (you aren't paying walk-up) and one nice thing is you don't need referrals from a primary care physician for specialists.
Don't sweat the requirements on a job description ("3 years"). Just apply; there is no downside, right? At Google where I work as a software engineer, they analyze gender disparities. Supposedly us girls only apply to jobs when we fulfill all requirements; guys apply when they have like, 60%. If you find a good manager and team they will craft a custom position to employ your talents.
I've been fully remote since 2010 and that also shouldn't be an issue (esp these days). If you are good and people like what you do, they will figure out how to make it work.
While my husband was doing startups he got private insurance. Not sure that is an option for you? It would certainly reduce your dependencies.
It sounds like you would be really good in sales: you can make a lot of $$ on commission.
About things to write about, you should write about whatever interests you! You are a true philosopher and your posts are always so insightful. But if you are looking for a topic maybe explain some complicated math and statistics concepts to the layman like how sampling error is derived? I always thought it was cool how you can use the law of large numbers to get bounds on the sampling error. But no one on the internet explains it as nicely as I think they could.
And, my doom and gloom message about scoring engines aside, this is actually the right answer. They typically don't send teams of ninja assassins to track you down in a snowy forest in Finland for the insolence of applying for a job you don't truly "qualify" for on paper by their numbers. I've only ever had that happen twice, and I think the second time might have been someone *else's* hit squad I took out, instead of a group heading for me. I hope whoever they were servicing didn't really *need* it, y'know?
Anyway, last job I had before this current one said they wanted a full year of OTR trucking experience, I said I had 3 months, and they said "You're hired!" You're looking for *slightly* different work, and I'm not doing that anymore anyway, but still. No ninjas that time!
So, apply anyway. You almost certainly won't have to fight off ninjas.
I survived during the carter years and yes I am that old. Suggestions as follows
Visit Amish, Mennonite, Mormon stores for basic groceries
Visit dollar stores for cleaning supplies and maybe soda.
Be wary of Google, once they got big they got scary. No offense to the person working for Google who posted here. If you do sign on with them, be sure you don’t sign a non compete clause
Find basic meals that you can stretch, beans and rice, meat sauce, peanut butter. Be aware of salty items.
Good medical and therapy care is priceless. Seriously.
When the area has low rates such as housing, food, electricity, check out why, depressed area, desert of some kind, no grocery stores, people only come back to retire there, lack of health care.
One thing if you can, start a garden,
Visit or go to farmers markets.
Find a craft or something for down times, to help you think a different way.
Libraries, visit often and if they have a coupon area, seed area, book club join them. Friends like to help one another.
If you used Linkin try under a pseudonym, a special name just to see who contacts you. Or who you can use to promote yourself.
Store items (food if you can)
Same for water
Learn to bake bread.
My view of the upcoming two years. It is going to be rough, really rough. I think the economy for middle class workers is going to tank. I don’t see a drop in inflation, gas, rent.I shortages in lots of basic items. I see people who never seen inflation, having a really hard time keeping up. More people are going to slip into poverty and have to rely on state, communities and fed government. I see lots of political upheaval due to lack of accountability and generally how one groups make laws that grind small businesses, down or the average person. World view, have you noticed we no longer know what is happening around the world. You really have to dig around to find there are farm protests, China ,some areas are locked down without notice, tensions are running high in all counties. everyone’s mental health, general health is being pushed to extremes. I think civil unrest a real possibility. Elections are going to be hot points, contested, and on Election Day all I can say is vote, have your favorite dinner and put on your favorite show, music. It will be a long night.
Finding communities, friends, support groups is going to be a necessity. People need people, they need interaction.
Thank you for your insights, I second your notion that support groups are and will be increasingly important. Our social fabric has been broken in so many ways and thr only way to fix it is to rebuild those connections.
For Data Science I would look at some research hospitals like CHOP https://careers.chop.edu/job/Philadelphia-Data-Scientist-I-PA-19146/888413600/ . University research hospitals and children's hospital have massive data analytics needs. So much work is primarily remote, any opening is worth investigating. You can always thank the potential institution for their time and move on! Potential negatives for hospital are requirements for Covid vaccination in health care settings.
Money/recession-proof: if you always save money, you’ll always have money. Buy things you already use on sale and buy extras, so when you run out you’ll have provided for yourself. (Actually you can do this with anything.)
I second the person who said having a company that contributes to high-HSA makes a big difference. Also look at total out of pocket for a year; it could be really low. And big companies base your insurance contribution on your income, so everyone pays the same percentage regardless of salary. That helps keep things affordable.
Should you land somewhere that doesn’t cover hearing aids, vocational rehab is usually available and will cover them if your insurance doesn’t and you need them to work.
The other inflation-and-recession proofing is to diversify your investments and maybe move your higher-risk 401k into lower-risk/lower-yield bonds. (I am not giving you advice.) protecting your wealth from decreasing is the #1 thing you do with investing - #2 is making money.
Anyway. I enjoy your posts, so I’ll read whatever you write about. x
> The third issue is that lots of companies seem to want 3 years of experience; I have about half of that. But I can produce really excellent references from co-workers, a former boss will sing my praises, and I am fully confident in my ability to do well in a statistical theory interview, produce a coding sample, etc.
The problem is that those praises sung will go unheard since a whole lot of places basically parse incoming resumes through a big regex and if you don't match enough points, HR doesn't even bother actually *looking* at it.
It sucks. It really really sucks.
Is your current position in the timestream of your life "roughly 1.5 years graduated from college? If there's more time than that, well, I've known a lot of people who were "IT Consultants at various points to help make one's way through the sieve.
You *really* don't want to work where I'm working, then. Full remote, but health insurance is "what can you qualify for as an individual?" :-/ Alas.
Though, in a strange twist on "learn to code", I'm working in the security group a company in the cryptocurrency industry, and there are quite a few companies paying out significant bounties to people who find significant problems. Upwards of millions of dollars per bounty. Most of them aren't that significant, of course, but it's made me question whether I should be on this side or that side of the game. ;)
My team is looking for someone with your creds! Send me your resume and I'll give it to my peeps.
Most of our crew works remote (I've been doing it for 10 years), we have (mostly) good insurance (you can opt for a low deductable plan) and the pay is not top notch, but not shabby. And, we're a
small but mighty motley crew that have bonded and don't compete with each other. Meaning: we've become friends! That doesn't always hold true in corp america. Something tells me you'd fit right in ;).
I don't think this is quite the answer you were looking for but The Fifth Column podcast talks quite a bit about current events and i would rate then as *very* reliable.
* Hold down a job. Stay on the ladder, even if you don't move much.
* Be *very* cautious about leverage. Prolly don't buy a house, definitely don't take on a car loan needlessly. Bad economy might mean a need for dynamism. Debt makes that hard.
* Be brave when others are fearful. Max out that 401k. You can take a loan out against it for a house down payment later. Bull markets make you money. Bear markets makes you rich.
If possible stick with your job for those three years and save as much as you can. Read about and learn to invest some of your income when you can. I’d love to find a good source of information that doesn’t cater to the far left or right, something that seeks the truth and exposes the hysteria. My first two suggestions come from paying attention to my always conservative dad. He stuck with his UPS job forever and he was always reading some financial magazine and teaching himself. That said the UPS stock options are what has made him financially secure in his retirement. I’m not an expert in anything but do wish I’d paid more attention and appreciated my dad’s ways. I guess they’re not suited as well for today (no one stays at the same job for long anymore) but he’s done well with them.
I read all my email, but I get a ton of it and can't always answer it -- will look for that one and try to get back to you. Planning to keep them on for paid subscriptions, yes. Now that I'm off Twitter, my personal "hate boner brigade" should be bored. Fingers crossed. More later!
This is where remote work is so helpful. I would get out of New England and work remote. Why stay in a high cost of living area? I live in a little lake community in South Carolina and work remote. Cheap lake living, great community. There’s lots of entrepreneurs here. Politically rather libertarian. A few transplants from New York with BLM flags in their lake houses. Our mortgage is $1200/month for a four bedroom home walking distance from a lake park. Free range kids out riding bikes every day. Seriously, if you are working remote move to an affordable area.
I will definitely consider this in a few years. For now, I have one of the five sane therapists on earth and am making progress, and also have really good doctors that I like here.
I have had PTSD as well and I continued my therapy after my move remote via DoxyMe. The doctors issue would be tough however. I have to admit, Dr's here aren't so great. It's hard to find good medical care in smaller towns (and restaurants, although that obviously is less pressing.)
I would strongly suggest getting up on LinkedIn. I am on no other social media and I only use LI for work purposes. I have never posted there nor do I read that cringe. I have gotten so much work coming to me via this resource. I don't see LI as social media, just part of my online professional presence along with my design portfolio.
I understand that most people use it for this, but the world is small and abusive parents can be very vindictive. It would take about two hours before every connection was contacted by the sociopaths who spawned me to tell them I'm a demon possessed crazy liar.
I’m sorry to hear this. I grew up in an abusive home as well and even I forget how much worse this type of behavior can get. My mother was happy to disown me and my father is dead so I fortunately don’t have to worry about this.
With Respect -
Since you cannot in fact view, much less post, to Linkedin without having created an account against either a verifiable email address or phone number, if "the sociopaths who spawned [you]" were to go to the effort to create accounts for themselves, that somehow looked liked they had some sort of relationship to you (as opposed to being merely one of the "millions of people" who are otherwise on Linkedin), *and* tried spreading dirt to people who were your contacts, etc., they would get outed pretty quickly.
Having said this, I'm *not* trying to disrespect your desire to stay as far away from them as you can. And I can understand that minimizing your online footprint is important.
How long have you been at your current job? I seem to remember it is less than 2 years. If so I would strongly recommend staying till you have completed at least two years. Future employers will give you way more credit if you are not a frog jumping from one job to another
Hey! Good to hear from you. Would you email me, please? I have a question for you. Thank you!
I’m having trouble doing that
I replied to your email and it bounced
Huh. That's really weird. Sorry about that. I'll try to figure out what's wrong. hollymathnerd at gmail. Thank you!
Hi Holly! Don't necessarily dismiss a high deductible plan for the right job--if the firm generously contributes to the associated HSA the numbers on them can actually crunch pretty well. They tend to work best for people who a) have very few health expenses or (and ironically) b) people who have a lot of expenses and consistently hit their annual out-of-pocket amount. You get the benefits of the insurance-negotiated underlying rate (you aren't paying walk-up) and one nice thing is you don't need referrals from a primary care physician for specialists.
Hello my fellow math nerd! :)
Some quick notes:
Don't sweat the requirements on a job description ("3 years"). Just apply; there is no downside, right? At Google where I work as a software engineer, they analyze gender disparities. Supposedly us girls only apply to jobs when we fulfill all requirements; guys apply when they have like, 60%. If you find a good manager and team they will craft a custom position to employ your talents.
I've been fully remote since 2010 and that also shouldn't be an issue (esp these days). If you are good and people like what you do, they will figure out how to make it work.
While my husband was doing startups he got private insurance. Not sure that is an option for you? It would certainly reduce your dependencies.
It sounds like you would be really good in sales: you can make a lot of $$ on commission.
About things to write about, you should write about whatever interests you! You are a true philosopher and your posts are always so insightful. But if you are looking for a topic maybe explain some complicated math and statistics concepts to the layman like how sampling error is derived? I always thought it was cool how you can use the law of large numbers to get bounds on the sampling error. But no one on the internet explains it as nicely as I think they could.
Thanks a lot and have a great day!
And, my doom and gloom message about scoring engines aside, this is actually the right answer. They typically don't send teams of ninja assassins to track you down in a snowy forest in Finland for the insolence of applying for a job you don't truly "qualify" for on paper by their numbers. I've only ever had that happen twice, and I think the second time might have been someone *else's* hit squad I took out, instead of a group heading for me. I hope whoever they were servicing didn't really *need* it, y'know?
Anyway, last job I had before this current one said they wanted a full year of OTR trucking experience, I said I had 3 months, and they said "You're hired!" You're looking for *slightly* different work, and I'm not doing that anymore anyway, but still. No ninjas that time!
So, apply anyway. You almost certainly won't have to fight off ninjas.
Okay, just lost my message. Grrr.
I survived during the carter years and yes I am that old. Suggestions as follows
Visit Amish, Mennonite, Mormon stores for basic groceries
Visit dollar stores for cleaning supplies and maybe soda.
Be wary of Google, once they got big they got scary. No offense to the person working for Google who posted here. If you do sign on with them, be sure you don’t sign a non compete clause
Find basic meals that you can stretch, beans and rice, meat sauce, peanut butter. Be aware of salty items.
Good medical and therapy care is priceless. Seriously.
When the area has low rates such as housing, food, electricity, check out why, depressed area, desert of some kind, no grocery stores, people only come back to retire there, lack of health care.
One thing if you can, start a garden,
Visit or go to farmers markets.
Find a craft or something for down times, to help you think a different way.
Libraries, visit often and if they have a coupon area, seed area, book club join them. Friends like to help one another.
If you used Linkin try under a pseudonym, a special name just to see who contacts you. Or who you can use to promote yourself.
Store items (food if you can)
Same for water
Learn to bake bread.
My view of the upcoming two years. It is going to be rough, really rough. I think the economy for middle class workers is going to tank. I don’t see a drop in inflation, gas, rent.I shortages in lots of basic items. I see people who never seen inflation, having a really hard time keeping up. More people are going to slip into poverty and have to rely on state, communities and fed government. I see lots of political upheaval due to lack of accountability and generally how one groups make laws that grind small businesses, down or the average person. World view, have you noticed we no longer know what is happening around the world. You really have to dig around to find there are farm protests, China ,some areas are locked down without notice, tensions are running high in all counties. everyone’s mental health, general health is being pushed to extremes. I think civil unrest a real possibility. Elections are going to be hot points, contested, and on Election Day all I can say is vote, have your favorite dinner and put on your favorite show, music. It will be a long night.
Finding communities, friends, support groups is going to be a necessity. People need people, they need interaction.
Take care, we are in this together.
From Texas, patty
Should be countries, not counties, but then again.
Shop second hand. Buy long wearing items,
Shop farm stores, one that supply gear for farmers
Buy classic clothes,
Look or read survivalist blogs for great tips.
Thick soled shoes
No offense taken and I agree with your wariness!
Thank you for your insights, I second your notion that support groups are and will be increasingly important. Our social fabric has been broken in so many ways and thr only way to fix it is to rebuild those connections.
For Data Science I would look at some research hospitals like CHOP https://careers.chop.edu/job/Philadelphia-Data-Scientist-I-PA-19146/888413600/ . University research hospitals and children's hospital have massive data analytics needs. So much work is primarily remote, any opening is worth investigating. You can always thank the potential institution for their time and move on! Potential negatives for hospital are requirements for Covid vaccination in health care settings.
Money/recession-proof: if you always save money, you’ll always have money. Buy things you already use on sale and buy extras, so when you run out you’ll have provided for yourself. (Actually you can do this with anything.)
I second the person who said having a company that contributes to high-HSA makes a big difference. Also look at total out of pocket for a year; it could be really low. And big companies base your insurance contribution on your income, so everyone pays the same percentage regardless of salary. That helps keep things affordable.
Should you land somewhere that doesn’t cover hearing aids, vocational rehab is usually available and will cover them if your insurance doesn’t and you need them to work.
The other inflation-and-recession proofing is to diversify your investments and maybe move your higher-risk 401k into lower-risk/lower-yield bonds. (I am not giving you advice.) protecting your wealth from decreasing is the #1 thing you do with investing - #2 is making money.
Anyway. I enjoy your posts, so I’ll read whatever you write about. x
> The third issue is that lots of companies seem to want 3 years of experience; I have about half of that. But I can produce really excellent references from co-workers, a former boss will sing my praises, and I am fully confident in my ability to do well in a statistical theory interview, produce a coding sample, etc.
The problem is that those praises sung will go unheard since a whole lot of places basically parse incoming resumes through a big regex and if you don't match enough points, HR doesn't even bother actually *looking* at it.
It sucks. It really really sucks.
Is your current position in the timestream of your life "roughly 1.5 years graduated from college? If there's more time than that, well, I've known a lot of people who were "IT Consultants at various points to help make one's way through the sieve.
You *really* don't want to work where I'm working, then. Full remote, but health insurance is "what can you qualify for as an individual?" :-/ Alas.
Though, in a strange twist on "learn to code", I'm working in the security group a company in the cryptocurrency industry, and there are quite a few companies paying out significant bounties to people who find significant problems. Upwards of millions of dollars per bounty. Most of them aren't that significant, of course, but it's made me question whether I should be on this side or that side of the game. ;)
As for "reasonable media" I often find https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/ pretty reasonable.
Email me...I think you have my email...I have thoughts about this because I have been in this exact spot.
You're not coming up in a search; mine is hollymathnerd at gmail.
Sent
My team is looking for someone with your creds! Send me your resume and I'll give it to my peeps.
Most of our crew works remote (I've been doing it for 10 years), we have (mostly) good insurance (you can opt for a low deductable plan) and the pay is not top notch, but not shabby. And, we're a
small but mighty motley crew that have bonded and don't compete with each other. Meaning: we've become friends! That doesn't always hold true in corp america. Something tells me you'd fit right in ;).
pamela.mattoon@manpowergroup.com
Thank you!! I will email you shortly.
I don't think this is quite the answer you were looking for but The Fifth Column podcast talks quite a bit about current events and i would rate then as *very* reliable.
Bad economy recommendations:
* Hold down a job. Stay on the ladder, even if you don't move much.
* Be *very* cautious about leverage. Prolly don't buy a house, definitely don't take on a car loan needlessly. Bad economy might mean a need for dynamism. Debt makes that hard.
* Be brave when others are fearful. Max out that 401k. You can take a loan out against it for a house down payment later. Bull markets make you money. Bear markets makes you rich.
If possible stick with your job for those three years and save as much as you can. Read about and learn to invest some of your income when you can. I’d love to find a good source of information that doesn’t cater to the far left or right, something that seeks the truth and exposes the hysteria. My first two suggestions come from paying attention to my always conservative dad. He stuck with his UPS job forever and he was always reading some financial magazine and teaching himself. That said the UPS stock options are what has made him financially secure in his retirement. I’m not an expert in anything but do wish I’d paid more attention and appreciated my dad’s ways. I guess they’re not suited as well for today (no one stays at the same job for long anymore) but he’s done well with them.