Frank in SF: "If you're not making money, you're nothing in this culture."
The stories continue to appear in print and real life as many friends remain out of work a year, even two, after their last dotcom went bust. A depressing story in the San Francisco Chronicle about the Depression hitting us here:
Last week, Frank (not his real name) took a job for minimum wage. A fortysomething Web engineer who has worked for some of the biggest dot-coms, Frank had come to expect that his nearly 100K-a-year income -- and his whole sense of himself as a professional -- was assured. But now that he's been out of work for a year, he simmers with suppressed energy....
So he took the job with the teenage-level pay, even though he considers it a humiliation. An exploitation. Eighteen months ago, this same job would have paid him $80,000, and now it yields $18,000 with benefits. "I don't view it as a real job," he shrugs, "but it's in my field, so I'll go with it." He picks at the cushions on the sofa and gets to the real reason he's taking the job: "If you're not making money, you're nothing in this culture."