Down & Out In Silicon Valley - Like striking it rich, being 'almost homeless' can happen to anyone

sfgate.com/San Francisco Chronicle ^ | Sunday, October 13, 2002 | Stephanie Salter, Insight Staff Writer

[American Preservative]

Many middle-class people joke about being "one paycheck away from the street." This is the story of a couple who've slammed hard into that reality.

Over the past 18 months, they've gone from his six-figure salary and life in a tony townhouse apartment complex in Silicon Valley to collecting aluminum cans and sleeping in a 28-foot-long recreational vehicle in a parking lot behind the husband's old office building. Once distracted by VCRs and mega- cable, they now watch local television on an old black-and-white set, stand in line at a public food bank for groceries and do their laundry with a garden hose.

[CIB-173RDABN]

Let me remind you: pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.

---

I do not understand your comment. I acknowledge that it was possible that I too may find myself in the same condition, but did not think it was likely. The reason being that most of the problem this couple has is self imposed.

This is not pride, but fact.

It is like comparing someone that drives carefully, obeys the speed laws, does not take chances to a teenage drunk driver that was just in their third accident. Yes, the careful driver may someday be in an accident, but it is not likely. Is that prideful or a statement of fact?

Once again, this is a discussion of the article, not of the individuals protrayed.

[CIB-173RDABN]

What kind of work do you do?

---

May I ask why you need to know this?

[XBob]

"You are not overqualified for positions like this, they could care less what you did before, however if you come in with an attitude like some of the work(and your coworkers) is beneath you, they probably won't be interested in the maintenence of your ego, but you flatter yourself that it's because your older and overqualified(oh, gotcha on the older thing, my mother is 52 and has been successful in finding retail positions as well)."

glory - you are right and wrong - clamper is right and wrong.

After the oil crash in the 80's, there was no work for me in Houston, and I couldn't get hired for an expensive/good job (there weren't any), and I couldn't get hired for a cheap job (I was over qulified). For 2 years I couldn't get a job, of any kind. I lost everything.

Finally, I figured out how to get a cheap job, as clamper is right - DON'T SUBMIT A RESUME - DON'T SAY YOU WENT TO COLLEGE - sloppily fill out an application in poor handwriting, stop on filling it out on education at high school and stop on experience with your last job which paid anything.

With this you will get in the door, and can get hired at a cheap job. This cheap job, if you get rid of all your expenses and buy enough gasoline to get out of the area and to a cheaper area and another cheap job, and then cheaper job in a 'related' field, where you can re-start your career.

Believe me, I know when you have not enough money to move. My house lost half it's value in the five years since I bought it, and I couldn't afford to sell it, as I couldn't afford to add 40,000 to get someone to buy it for what I paid and I couldn't afford to pay and leave too.

And what was most frustrating at the time, we had 3500 home forclosures a month going on in Houston, an economic disaster, and nightly news about both the coasts, and how great the economy was doing.

When your particular sector of the economy crashes on you, due to no fault of your own, it is a disaster, and there are no systems set up for you, as you have education, you have training - you are the one supposed to pay, not the one for which the support services are designed.

If you can wangle it, go to a local mental health service (one of the things you have been paying for with all your taxes) and get some therapy for 'depression', as this is a super depressing situation, and with that you can get some help, and also start getting the use of some of the services you have been paying for, for all those years.

Next time, after you work your way out of the hole figure some way to become somewhat independent of your profession. Meaning, 'diversify' your work portfolio, and learn a trade, which can help support you and preserve your capital incase of a crash. For women, nursing and secretarial work are good, for men plumbing and truck driving. But diversify your work professions.

Don't forgo bankruptsy if it will save your ass, as that is what it was designed for, and you won't be cheating the system, like so many do. Swallow your pride and do it, while you have enough money to go bankrupt - lawyers want a lot of money to get you bankrupt, and want paid in advance.

And finally - get your kids to learn a 'trade', which can support them in addition to only going to college and learning a profession.

[Logic_3]

I left Silicon Valley in the mid-70's and never looked back.

I have never even been there and i never looked back ... eh.

[CIB-173RDABN]

And finally - get your kids to learn a 'trade', which can support them in addition to only going to college and learning a profession.

---

Very good advise.

[kcvl]

community food bank has become their supermarket

"I was able to loan a friend $200 to pay his cell phone bill'

[XBob]

239 - "Isn't working for temporary agencies a possibility? Or teaching? "

Temp agencies are good, if you have a trade or a skill they want and there is a job opening. However, usually, in a crash like this there are no temp jobs, or not many, when those with jobs in the field are trying to hold on for dear life. Temp agencies are great in boom times.

Teaching - well that's another story - the teachers unions and all have made so many 'education' requirements, that you must generally prepare years in advance to teach by taking graduate level, useless, 'education' courses, and generally teaching doesn't pay enough to live decently on, unless both spouses are working, then you have to go to school most/many summers to keep certified.

[XBob]

"Get the little ones gone and you have more money to then go after the big ones."

That works well, particularly when you add new credit cards (temporarily only) with those fantastic low interest rates for the first 6 months (move your big credit card bills to these and then move to new ones as soon as the cheap rate is up) as all too often these cheap rate places make their money by super high fines, late payment charges and other crap. I had one once, which would hold the payment in house for a week before sending it out, and then on receiving payment for 2 1/2 weeks for processing, and then charge a late fee, so the only way to get the payment in on time was to pay the bill the day you got it.

[WOSG]

The living costs are pretty close to the same when factoring in areas salaries. In Austin and Boston the livings cost ARE pretty much the same.

I live in Austin and I have to disagree with you, knowing people in silicon valley. I got an offer from California and turned it down even though it was a 25% pay increase. You need to factor in no income tax, lower gas and other taxes/prices, and the fact that in Austin the exepnsive homes give you a 10 minute commue, but for living in Round Rock or 'cheap areas', you can still have decent but not great commute. my own commute (live south Austin, work north Austin) is annoying but bearable.

Austin housing prices started to climb but consider that there is actually space to keep building here, it caps prices. You can get $140k house that is fine and not 100 miles from work (10 miles more like it).

I also lived in Boston and dont disagree with you wrt Boston, but Silicon Valley got truly loopy in in late 1990s, both in salaries and living costs.

[Sloth]

$2300 monthly rent? Sorry, no sympathy here. Though I will give them credit for not running up credit card bills.

[Sloth]

Of course they could move to Barstow and work at some low paying job and throw away a lifetime career. Is that what you are suggesting ???

Ummm.... sounds good to me.

[pabianice]

Carole grew up in a privileged and artistic home in Los Angeles, but her now-deceased parents didn't make the wisest investments.

Oh, that's right! It's not enough just to put the kids through college and make their first home down payment. You've got to set them up with an annuity and bequeath a tidy sum. Otherwise you "didn't make the wisest investments."

Shoot, I don't plan on dying with more then fifteen cents in the bank. Now that's financial planning.

That was my first impression, too. My folks died when I was a kid and I inherited bupkis. Planning on inheriting a fortune from your parents is not sound financial planning. But on the other hand,this couple seems to have genuinely tried to do the right things and got caught in the economy wringer. If I've learned one thing along the way, it's make sure you are qualified to do at least three different types of jobs. That, beyond anything else, has saved me over the years.

[clamper1797]

I'm sorry, but I am still not getting this

Ok ...

1. Most areas where the high tech jobs are ... are expensive to in. I live in a somewhat cheaper area 70 miles away from my job. If you make a high salary one has to invest it in a house or like investment for the tax write-offs or the taxes will eat you alive. You therefore buy a house which will shelter your income. It DOES NOT MATTER if you live in a trailer or an expensive house because you will spend about the same amount .. either in mortgage or in taxes. I would prefer paying the mortgage.

2. Some one who has invested a lot of time and money earning advanced advanced degrees in an industry and has twenty some years in that industry is NOT going to give it all up at the drop of the hat (or economy) to move his family to Podunk (away from the jobs) and try to get a job that pays 1/4 of his old salary. I'm sorry but to me that would be idiotic.

3. NO ONE is going to hire an obviously well educated, well qualified candidate to take a low paying job, because they know that as soon as the industry recovers that person will be gone. A person can falsify a resume but it is very very hard to hide an education and life experience that shows the potential employer that the candidate is out of place. I know cause I tried ... a whole lot ... while I was unemployed. I would have happily swept floors.

3. Most people invested in the stock market for good return.
There are very many that invested in "safe" mutual funds and a great many in 401K's. Most of these people lost almost if not ALL their investments in the 3 market crashes since 1999. I know cause I lost over 1,000,000 in very well diversified and non-speculative investments. Sure there may be 1-2% who did well BUT for the most part people lost almost everything.

4. The high tech industry is hurting granted ... BUT it is NOT hurting that bad. The problem is that companies have been laying off high tech workers and have been replacing them with low paid (and lower qualified) H1B foreign workers. They do NOT like the foreigners just because they will work cheap cause many an American worker would also work for that lower wage. They like the foreign worker cause they can ceorce them into doing a lot of things that the American worker won't do (some of which is illegal) on threat of revoke of their visa. They know that the foreign worker can't just go down the street to an other employer if they don't like the job or their present employer. That is a form of servitude not employment.

So ... do you "get it" now. Do you wish that America's high tech talent move to Podunk to become dishwashers and leave our high tech industry to foreign workers, or would you rather we hang tough and try to reclaim what is ours.

[null and void]

Regardless of future plans of individuals, schools need to have a year or two of intensive education in Capitalism and Financial Planning or we're gonna keep churning out workers (blue or white collar) who can't plan for themselves and then whine about it and want the rest of us to pick up after them when the chips fall the wrong way...

AMEN! In Silicon Valley one can resonably expect a down turn every 5 years. That's why I have enough savings to weather such a storm.

This one "feels" much worse than normal. I'm worried, even with savings. Those with little or no savings are in real trouble...

[null and void]

Excellent tips and advice!

[clamper1797]

Most of us had saving to weather 6 or 7 months worth of downturn ... I was out 8 months. I have friends who have been out for over a year. Saving only last so long.

[stands2reason]

Unfortunately, if it doesn't have anything to do with computers then they don't have anything to offer to anyone.

They may have other skills, but unless they lie on their resumé they won't be hired. They are untouchable, because the perception is, right or wrong, that they won't stick around. Also, they won't be hired if they're over forty, due to the fact that the cost of employer-provided insurance plans increases as the average age of employees increases. So, if you're older than the average age of employees in a company, chances are you won't be hired.

[null and void]

That is PRECISELY why I am worried...

[clamper1797]

but unless they lie on their resumé they won't be hired

Besides the fact that lying is dishonest and unethical ... that's what Demoncrats do .. you know their excuse ... the cause justifies the means ... if a person is caught lying on a resume, his employer can fire him for it.

[stands2reason]

The wife would rather move than have me gone that much anyway...

There's no way, even when we were scraping by at minimum wage jobs, would I even consider letting my husband work as a T-T driver. The job is the most dangerous of professions-- next to being a crab fisherman, that is.