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RubyManJack

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Posts posted by RubyManJack

  1. Any actuaries here or in your network that do free lance contract and gig work? Looking for an actuary for a small project, hourly based, any level from junior to expert can do it, if any actuaries have any side hustles. Will pay a referral as well. Really just trying to avoid going direct with an Oliver Wyman or Milliman type engagement.

    My old friend @Vic Mackey, if memory serves worked at Milliman, so I'll start with you!

  2. On 9/4/2023 at 5:08 PM, Snake Diggity said:

    I can imagine.  50s seems to be the unemployed person’s no-man’s land.  Too early to retire but too late to be employable at any reasonable pay rate.  That’s one thing kind of freaking me out.  I am thinking wherever I work at 45 needs to be a pretty sure thing to carry me thru my 50s.

    I feel for you man, keep grinding, somebody will realize what you’re bringing to the table and make the smart move to pay you what you’re worth.

    Lurked for a while on everything labor market related and your post piqued my interest. Let me throw a hypothetical at you and see what you think.

    If you had the option to purchase salary insurance while currently employed but as a hedge to an upcoming disruption to the job markets? 

    The way it would work is let's say you currently work in accounting, have a title of XYZ, and make $250k after 20+ years of experience, great results and good work ethic.

    Due to the onslaught of A.I. and automation and other technological shifts, you foresee a world where you are at risk of being laid off or demoted and that your $250k job of doing XYZ will be eroded to the point where maybe you can only command $200k moving forward. The downward pressure on the role is impacted sector-wide.

    You are in no man's land. Too young to retire and similarly too old to re-invent yourself and start the ladder climbing over to make the money you've been making and reasonably expected to make before the entire knowledge worker segment got devalued seemingly overnight by technology. With the increased investment in technological tools that are smarter and faster than they've ever been, companies can get away with paying a younger person a smaller piece of the pie than you were being paid. The corporation doesn't see you as a strategic value and thus your compensation is eroded accordingly.

    That's the doomsday scenario, but you were prescient enough to pay a low monthly premium while you had the $250k job that allows for a $50k one-time benefit to be paid out when/if the above scenario occurs, thus allowing you to maintain your lifestyle, debt obligations and savings without disruption for at least an extra year.

    Would this be something of interest to you? Not Life Insurance, but Living Insurance, and like Life Insurance a low cost hedge against future unknowns and fears that you buy when you are career-healthy and don't yet need it.

    Sorry for the field marketing request dump here but I've been working on something for a while and wanted to get you and the boards feedback as the demographic is largely 30-60 year old men with white collar jobs.

  3. On 6/9/2023 at 12:32 PM, BearSchlong said:

    I'm just checking in during my hiatus from doom-scrolling the rest of the site (it's so addicting) for a specific reason.

    I'm on a plane to Portland because on Wednesday night, my 15-year-old nephew decided to end it all.  Far and away the most shattering event in my family's history.

    Y'all, I am so damned grateful to be sober, safe, and reasonably sane today, to drop everything instantly and jump into service.  Everything irrelevant melts away.

    It was apparent from toddlerhood that he had the "ism's." Maybe that's why I loved him/her/they so much (he was still figuring out his pronouns.)

    Helluva weekend ahead, friends.

    Thinking of you and your family, old timer.

    • Like 1
  4. On 6/13/2023 at 9:32 PM, DougO said:

    A story worth the 12 minutes for the kicker at the end, especially for the olds. 

     

     

    Great story and reminds me of one I read

    Quote

     

    "Almost immediately my organs began the formal investigation of whether or not they should strike and shut down labor until management could promise a safer work environment, or at the very least have the decency to explain. I had somehow been blindsided and as I was being electrocuted, I suddenly shot up from the couch and with an extreme sense of impending doom, bellowed, "Oh my God, I'm having a heart attack."

    I clawed at my chest as I stumbled to my bathroom before falling to my knees and dry-heaving into the stained commode. A brown stream of saliva resembling the watered-down gravy from a frozen Salisbury steak dripped from the latrine to the bathroom floor and puddled next to loose pubic hairs. I don't know how long I sat there, head hanging while the saliva slowly dripped like soured syrup from a rotting tree, but it felt like half an hour before I found myself walking out of the front door before my brain could catch up with my body. In this hysteria I left my apartment, door swung open as if I was expected to return immediately-- or never.

    I walked with a furious pace to the big-box pharmacy across the street, which was like a strip club in that it was always lit up to advertise their open doors and the availability of drugs at any and all hours of the night. Such was downtown living.

    "Good evening, sir", came a courteous greeting from a well-meaning employee as I lumbered into the store like a man nursing a gunshot wound to the gut. I responded as politely as I could manage, with a grunt of some sort, and trudged through the aisles to the back of the store. I reached the aisle full of ibuprofen and and grabbed a small plastic bottle of aspirin. 

    I surprised myself by opening the childproof cap right there in the middle of the aisle. I jabbed at the taut foil with a few dull, rounded finger punches in an attempt to pierce the protective layer to no avail. I then took to ending my knees and trying to find a good angle for my incisors to come down on the foil until I fully devolved to a gnawing in a complete crouch between grunts. I was finally able to puncture the top and chew a handful of the bottle's chalky contents."

     

     

    • Like 1
  5. On 2/27/2023 at 9:40 PM, axiom of foundation said:

    I pressed the hookem reputation button to your post for the listeners at home and for the keeper of records. 

    Hey old friend, I owe you a long email. Glad to see you are alive, still.

  6. 18 hours ago, Dbeasy said:

    It’s actually more ageism than salary expectations. Many older workers are fine working for what the position pays. The ageism is really bad right now. I talked to a cybersecurity engineer who is one of the most incredible talents out there and he can’t get an interview and it’s because he’s older. 

    Check your Dem, joto.

  7. 14 hours ago, Celery Man said:

    I did IOP (intensive outpatient program) at the place (Austin Recovery) across the street from the Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation Center off Ben White, and the iop had a bunch of dudes from the ARC. Wasn’t impressed with the actual IOP, but talking with those guys from the ARC and hearing their stories - Salvation Army is doing the lord’s work there. Nobody gives a shit about dysfunctional adult men with drug and alcohol problems, and there they go giving a shit. I’m sure the success rate is abysmal, but I’m certain that some get their shit together. That’s a miracle. Those guys were getting either help or tough love.

    Amen, I have recommended we support this. Seems like worthy of our time!

  8. Hi, I could use some help from the recovering braintrust and friends here. 

    I'm on a committee and we are trying to come up groups that we could do volunteer hours for that would be in line with alcoholism and addiction (the impact of them).  The ones that jumped to mind for me were local food banks (economic disruption as is part of the disease), Salvation Army, local housing mission.  But I need something with a national footprint were I can point a national organization comprised of folks across America towards.

    Anyone have any good or bad experiences they can share about trying to do such a thing?

  9. On 3/24/2021 at 4:47 PM, RDCanecutter said:

    A'ight, been doing something retro that is bringing in sales.

    Because I am weird, I kept paper copies of all my eBay sales dating back ten years, in little notebooks like the guy in Seven.

    Went to the post office and got handfuls of blank postcards, 40 cents each. (Go when there's an older clerk there. The younger ones have no idea what these are.) Starting with my most recent ebay customers, I've been making personalized post cards telling them how to find me on Etsy. I put a quick little cartoon on each one that resembles whatever they bought from me.

    I do a half-dozen a day. I am back to customers from 2017 now.

    People have loved them, they find my shop, thank me for the card, and they buy things. Like, a few hundred $ extra this month.

    Combined with that, I hit them with an Etsy coupon for x% off that has an expiration date a month or so out. Those are getting used.

    It's a little work, but if I can get even 1/10th of my old customers to start up again on Etsy, I will be very busy.

    I don't post much, but read a lot and have always been especially fond of you RD, so it stands to reason that I bought something once upon a time to support you. I got one of these personalized postcards with a cartoon in the mail after purchasing something once many years ago and it really was something special and neat that felt personalized...and felt good. I made a mental note and ended up buying something off etsy just because. 

    Thought you'd appreciate some semi-anonymous feedback which is nothing more than a validation of the old adage about buying things being an emotional journey and people won't remember what you say or do, but how you make them feel.

    I should add, stumbling upon this post of yours and reading that it was cold-blooded, calculated Marketing is funny. Most of your customers are probably still under the illusion by not having heard you break the 4th wall like I did, but I still think it's great and respect the hustle, sir.

    • Hook 'Em 4
    • Like 3
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  10. On 9/25/2020 at 9:20 PM, THUJONE said:

    I don't remember writing any of that, but I'm glad you like it. 

    Just finished your book. Congratulations on writing and publishing. I hope it finds a good readership and is read often and loved by many, but the story wasn’t for me. I do think you’ve left yourself a good seam to continue and make this a trilogy if it sells well.

  11. Happy Birthday @TwiceHorn.
     

    I went to a meeting where I got sober today (hadn’t been there in years) and was surprised to hear they are struggling and in danger of being no more. Like me, I guess, people have moved or moved on, others have died, and the area isn’t the greatest and has continued to decline. There is a season for all things, as is said, and I’m grateful that this dying group I didn’t recognize today existed for me 5 years ago as a vibrant place full of good, sponsor based sobriety and service work.

    I guess if you stick around the program long enough you’ll see your fair share of death and I had heard that a lot, but it didn’t dawn on me that death couldn’t extend to a group or community.

    • Like 4
  12. hundredtt, i understand. you are seen and heard and known and, heck, i love you. what man here hasn't secretly wished they'd get struck with a terminal diagnosis so that our descent into a living hell before death wasn't a choice we were making, but that we were victims? families couldnt be mad at us for having cancer. we werent cowards and burdens if we we got dealt the bad hereditary genes with the spades and clubs instead of the bad ones with the hearts and diamonds. right?

    at the end of the day it's my belief that we have no power or control of whether we whip this thing or not, despite our best understanding. what i do know though is "there is one who has all power-- that one is God. May you find him now".

    and why not find him through this thread and the words of the last few pages? keep coming back to this thread and reading what these completely insane drunks have to say; you know, your peers.

    • Like 3
  13. You know, until today I'd forgotten how good of a business trip that was, wrestling a drug dealer on the top of a Nissan Sentra for trying to rip me off on my coke purchase before fruitlessly chasing him through the labyrinth of an East Austin apartment complex after the bars have shut down and then the next night listening to a then-ESPN personality croon out back of the Horseshoe lounge until 3am.

    Now, 5 years later, when I come to town I stay in a Marriot and am in bed by 10pm.

    I'm glad everyone got to enjoy Mr. Overton and go visit him and tell their own stories, but here is the OG thread: http://www.shaggytexas.com/board/showthread.php/131079-107-years-old-the-oldest-living-veteran-in-America?s=37a3b8f4ebaf1ff89f832bc4e10e78d5

    • Like 3
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