Ask HN: Down to $16, had 4 job offers rescinded; in crisis mode, where to turn?
I'm so depressed and lost, friends. This has not been an Incredible Journey.
About two years ago I was raked over the coals and charged with a white collar computer crime. It was highly-publicized and described in a less shimmering light than what actually happened, as most press releases by the justice department are. My current arrangement with the government involves "special projects" on an as-needed basis, which is why I’m not incarcerated.
I was employed throughout the turmoil — being charged (though, never indicted), and ultimately pleading guilty to a single count of computer intrusion. (In this case, computer intrusion was defined by a cURL request, changing a single query param; no other charges were pursued.) My employer knew the details, kept me on as long as they could: they are currently operating in a shell capacity as of late Q2 due to being unable to raise a round.
During my search for work I’ve always disclosed that I have baggage and can’t pass a background check. Even with this, I’ve had offers put on the table, only for them to be terminated or rescinded at some point. It's not because I'm not telling the whole truth: when people ask, I tell; if they just say "oh what'd you do" and I say "well, according to the government, this, but this is the real story" it's found to be fascinating, sad, and annoying at the same time.
All I know is to be transparent with people, so manipulating the story or the details is difficult for me — I have autism, and my entire existence lives to be transparent and logical because that's just how I'm wired.
I really don’t know what to do at this point. I have rent that’s due, and nothing to fall back on: no assets to cash out (legal defense cleaned me out completely), I live off ramen like a founder, I have the bare minimum everything already. I don’t have any family to go to — my mother, and my only, passed away about this time a few years ago. My friends: well, I am usually the person that is supporting them when they are in crisis.
I am not used to being in crisis.
Being autistic makes it particularly difficult because I'm already so awful at advocating for myself. Perhaps the most frustrating part is that I outwardly appear neurotypical.
Freelancing sites like Upwork are probably my next go-to, even if it rattles my pride and my usual rate, at least I won’t be homeless and starving. I thought I’d post here in case anyone has any resources or ideas I haven’t thought of yet.
For the last 15 years I’ve been building MVPs and shaping up Ruby/Rails applications, working at some big-name Rails shops, many smaller YC companies, and everything in between. I'm active and relatively popular in the open-source Ruby/Rails world, and my side projects here have been met with great admiration. But I'm still in this position. With the tech stack I've pigeoned myself into, I’m unfortunately a one-trick in regard, but at this point I’ll take anything I can get. My next stop is retail, if I can even pass a background check.
Redacted resume, if anyone can help: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gZ_-spX5F2sIyJUuL7firQbWK9xNrSYZ69O_xackCjQ (context: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37265203)
My email, for this journey, is lostrubyist@gmail.com
89 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 151 ms ] threadI was a short order cook to fill the gap after graduating with my BSEE...
> Its gonna get better.
My partner got a lot of this as she was dying of cancer. It did not get better, and this kind of "optimism" helped no one, just the opposite.
Perhaps also broaden horizons to typescript and (pains me to say this) react.
Good luck.
Edit: just looked at your resume. It is a bit ... fruity - might be worth sticking to something straight-laced and focusing specifically on skillset until you are out of the danger zone.
Thanks for the feedback. It's a bit strong, indeed; I've just used the format for so long (normally with great success — even tested it at some point prior to this incident happening) that I hadn't considered the pollution until you brought it up. I'll trim it moving forward.
I realize this is harsh, but I'd rather not sugarcoat. Your resume, by area, is like 75% crap and 25% really genuinely good experience. I would take that 25% and stretch it out as much as you can.
>Saved the company more than $600,000 by optimizing infrastructure costs.
Wait, what? Expand on that, my brother! That's a huge win which one should be proud of, I think that could easily be two bullet points. "Optimizing infrastructure costs" is very weak - did you move to a different cloud provider?
I don't doubt you're a strong engineer, I think if you fix the resume you'll get callbacks almost immediately.
Get rid of the emojis.
The "Bugs and Features" section should not exist.
"Hi mom (very dead; very sad)" is completely inappropriate.
You say you are "Very detail oriented," which is incoherent, since someone who actually was detail-oriented would not have omitted the hyphen.
You say you are a "Voracious writer," which is incoherent, since someone who wrote a lot would know that that the word "voracious" relates to consumption, not production.
The story about sticking a fork in a light socket is inappropriate and weird.
This résumé is fundamentally inconsiderate. It appears to be intended to make people feel ill at ease. I strongly recommend you reconsider it.
ALSO: I don't know you, but I can't shake the suspicion that the résumé and the cURL incident are related, i.e., that there's a fundamental TPJ issue preventing you from understanding how your actions will come across to others.
found only 1 emoji.
> "Hi mom (very dead; very sad)" is completely inappropriate.
that's pretty bad ... actually, i would assume mental problems just from reading this. [1]
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clanging
Really well put. While reading this, there were a few points at which I felt my gut tense up in disgust. I can't remember the last time I felt so revolted by something I've read, and I have a very hard time figuring out how a resume, which is supposed to make people want to hire you, could end up doing that.
OP, please consider dropping this completely and switching to a regular resume format.
Tech recruiters receive hundreds of normal resumes that don't require that extra effort/risk.
That means the quick fix here is to skip all the "fun" side-tracking and focus on the raw skills you can offer.
The sustainable fix is to figure out why you ever could think this was a good idea in the first place. As my parent poster said the answer to this question might easily also answer to the root cause of a ton of other problems in your life.
Now times of economic distress are not the best time for introspection, but you might wanna address this sooner than later.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
- Inigo Montoya
Resume: get rid of the intro, get rid of quirky terms like "buzzwords"/"week-ish", get rid of "keep scrolling [etc]", get rid of "bugs and features" list. You have good well-written experience that is being tarnished by these things.
You have a lot of personality red flags front and center for some reason (e.g. "Hi mom (very dead; very sad)"). I'm not at all surprised you can't find a job with this resume.
Be aware that your first name and last initial is visible when you're editing the doc.
In a nutshell, unprofessional.
Overall it's loaded with personality, and OP sounds like a fun person to know.
That said, when hiring for a serious role (which most are) it would make a me a little bit nervous. I'd interview them though, which is arguably the whole point of the resume. It would definitely stand out and get my attention.
> Question: What’s your favorite question? > Answer: Why? (No, literally, “why?”)
It's incredibly inappropriate in a resume.
It certainly is unusual, and probably inappropriate in a resume, but I've always felt the strict conventional rules for resumes stifle a lot of creativity and strip people of their personality and uniqueness. It probably would get them rejected from most companies, but I think it would also help them get noticed by other companies. They only need to get through to one!
The reality is everyone is quirky and the only difference is most of this is hidden and covered up with lies and omissions.
Definitely this resume shows he's a bit less self aware and less aware about how other people think. But for a programming job, it's not a red flag.
People who call this stuff red flags don't realize the amount of shit people actually hide. The majority of people have 10x more shit worse than this completely hidden from the resume. This stuff is actually tame. People call it out because it's deviant.
The more serious shit like stole money from my employer or slacked off at work, all of that flies through the filters because nobody puts that shit on their resume and hiring managers are red flagging superficial shit like quirkiness and awkwardness. It shows how biased people actually are. They don't even know how to judge character themselves, they just rely on stereotypes of "professionalism" Just remember the truth about "professionalism"... it's just a way someone appears... It's not an intrinsic part of a human being.
In actuality the quirkiness of his resume shows he's a little bit more honest. He won't stab your ass in the back as he's open about other things people hide.
Actually... the other way to think about it is that hiring managers and coworkers only want to work with people who put up a façade. Nobody wants to deal with the true reality of how people actually are and if someone can't present a good facade he's not a good hire. But either way I would say the chances that this guy stabs you in the back in a really serious way are much lower than someone with a "professional" resume.
I'll be honest, I won't hire this guy based off of the same biases. But I admit my biases and I'm self aware. We don't actually have any real data on whether a person with this type of resume is more likely of ending up being a problem. Everyone just helplessly follows their gut and biases.
Can you form a company and do contracting work instead? It's more work to get work, but maybe they don't need the background check. The companies I've worked with seem to hire contractors more freely than employees.
You think this is funny, but you sound like a nut. If you're convinced you're actually actually funny, go try stand up. Good luck.
If you are actually autistic like you say, that would explain why you don't get it.
Just cut that out. You can't really afford to turn people off when oh yeah I'm also a felon.
2. What is funny also depends on the context. The same joke will land differently if you tell it on the internet, in a chat, on a date, in a pub, to a stranger to a friend etc. If you have a hard time understanding what the context does to a joke, don't make them.
3. The purpose of jokes (typically) is to lighten the mood and to ease potential tensions in social situations. If you dice a 0 on joking however the outcome will be that people will see red flags and connect you with that weird guy that totally overdid it for them. If you are constantly rolling zeros, maybe stop rolling because it is hurting yourself.
> 1. The effectiveness of clever on other people is highly contingent on outside factors, over which you have no control and of which you may not have any knowledge; i.e., just because you intended to be clever doesn’t mean you will be perceived as clever, for all sorts of reasons.
> 2. The failure mode of clever is “asshole.”
Are you sure it said that he DID do those things when you read it?
Either way, they certainly pay better than retail.
Best of luck, friend; I hope you're able to turn this challenge into an opportunity
2) Your resume feels a bit unprofessional; while I like authenticity, you can show that in person during the interview, I wouldn't recommend doing it in your resume. Your resume should be way more boring than it currently is.
Are your friends even aware of your situation? Have you given them the chance to offer help?
Last time I found myself in a similar situation I told everyone about it. A friend of mine who is bootstrapping a startup offered me some work for enough money to cover my month's expenses. I'm sure his team could have done the work themselves, but he had the work and had the budget and wanted to help.
Given your legal circumstances, you might want to look into moving over to contracting/freelance/consulting anyway. You're less likely to deal with the taboo of your legal situation when engaging as a representative of a company on equal footing. Start with leveraging your network, then LI, then finally hit up Upwork and the like if you're still not finding anything.
Remember that the point of a resume is not to get hired, it's to get to an interview.
I would remove anything that "show's your personality" that's not an achievement.
They originally got fame because they were grad students trying to live off of tiny wages, so they calculated the most efficient foods in terms of calories per dollar. They have expanded since then, but the basic concept is still there.
A recruiter could be an excellent ally for you.
I’m not too bad at concealing this stuff and promoting the good parts after a bit of practice. Let me know if you’d like a review and some advice.
The reality is that us neurodivergents are lucky if we find work where people accept us, and sometimes we have to suck it up and conform effectively in order to make a living. If most teams I’ve been on knew the real me, well, they’d find a way to disappear me pretty quickly. Sometimes you don’t want people to know the real you. That’s not an insult at all so much as an observation of how things go.
If you are really down to $16, you are in a dire situation.
I don't know where your family is, but you basically need to move in with them if your legal situation allows. Having $16 while living with family is basically a non issue. They'll feed you and make you get up in the morning.
Being down to $16 on your own is life threatening.
Get back home to family of some sort.
Getting work on up work isn't as easy as it sounds IMO.
When this happened to me at 24, I got a job in car sales even though I had a mechanical engineering degree. I made $8k the first month. $12k the second. 6 months in I had a pipeline and it figured out and averaged $18k a month for a few years. It saved me.
Personally I think the advice for going independent and doing contract work is your best bet, but I think you may be out of funds and time to do that even. You either need family or friends to lend you money, or move back in with family. Moving in with a friend won't cut it, because they aren't as happy to feed you.