vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
Throwaway account was a good idea.  I work in government sourcing and depending on what government you work for, what you're doing is illegal as shit.  Federal stature and most state statute prevent a government employee from 1) getting paid for another job while being paid by the government for working during the same period (double dipping), and 2) being involved in the selection process of a vendor with whom the employee has a vested interest.  Additionally, if you work in a position that requires you to complete an ethics form and certify it, you will be further breaking the law if you don't disclose ownership by falsifying a government document.   Realistically, you're probably just full of it, but if you're telling the truth what you're doing is unethical and probably illegal.  And before you get too smug, you should know that government auditors aren't nearly as incompetent as you might think. Just overworked. It might take a year or two but I'm guessing they figure it out eventually. Government procurement and auditors generally have to verify things like company registration documents, etc...before awarding contracts and any time a contract is renewed. The auditors go back and look at those documents. It won't be hard to figure out what's going on, especially if you were the PM for the project.
"Far better than doing nothing and just ""job searching"".  Most (good) companies understand how rigorous the CFA program is, so it shows that you are doing what you can to progress on a financial career path.  It isn't the same has having relevant employment, but shows you are serious about the field.  Only downside is the initial cost of membership and registration (around $1000), which many companies will pay for if you work there.  Mine paid for registration, all the exams, study materials, etc..."
Thanks for the info.  I am quite familiar with FAs and I definitely do not want to go that route.  I highly doubt I can get an equity research role considering my lack of real experience.  I was just trying to get an entry-level position and given my resume, I'm having a tough time doing even that :\  It's really unfortunate, I wish I articulate my experience to a hiring manager BEFORE they looked at my resume!
Is the study confirming that warning $7.25 an hour sucks, or is confirming that a higher minimum wage (say 10-15 / hour) would magically result in better conditions and no job losses, and no difficulty finding a first job?  Those are very different questions.
Yes, there are times when co-signing is the right choice. One is when you know more about the person than the loan issuer does. Consider a young person who has just started working in a volatile field, the kind of job where you can be told on Friday that you only get one shift next week but things might pick up the week after, and who makes maybe $12 an hour in that job. You've done the math and with 40 hour weeks they can easily afford the loan. Furthermore, you know this person well and you know that after a few weeks of not enough shifts, they've got the gumption to go out and find a second job or a different job that will give them 40 hours or more a week. And you know that they have some savings they could use to ensure that no payments will be missed even on low-wage weeks. You can cosign for this person, say for a car loan to get them a car they can drive to that job, knowing that they aren't going to walk away and just stop making the payments. The loan issuer doesn't know any of that. Or consider a young person with poor credit but good income who has recently decided to get smart about money, has written out a budget and a plan to rehabilitate their credit, and who you know will work passionately to make every payment and get the credit score up to a place where they can buy a house or whatever their goal is. Again, you can cosign for this person to make that happen, because you know something the lender doesn't. Or consider a middle aged person who's had some very hard knocks: laid off in a plant closing perhaps, marriage failure, lost all their house equity when the market collapsed, that sort of thing. They have a chance to start over again somewhere else and you have a chance to help. Again you know this isn't someone who is going to mismanage their money and walk away from the payments and leave you holding the bag. If you would give the person the money anyway (say, a car for your newly graduated child) then cosigning instead gives them more of a sense of accomplishment, since they paid for it, and gives them a great credit rating too.
working full time for low wages, does force a family to take government assistance. It is a way my business and others who pay a living wage while still paying our taxes subsidized the mega businesses destroying america like walmart.  Sorry but if you have a family  cant get another job with better pay and have to work 40 hours for min wage, you are going to use government assistance.
back when i was trying to save my house before i went completely bankrupt i tried to apply for farm work down in florida. they basically told me to piss off and something about the department of labor. i talked to a friend who had a similar experience. its not that we're too good (especially as the economy gets worse and as we get more desperate) but they dont even want us in it. suffice it to say, i lost my home and now live on the floor of my parents spare bedroom in california. nobody wanted to hire me. ex-boeing employee here and casualty of that corporate disaster.
Nope. Everyone has a price.      You'd probably spend 1-2 years in prison for the right amount of money and a guaranteed multi-year high-paying position waiting for you after you got out. The company's legal team could work to scrub your record.    Politicians practically do the same thing... enter office, take a $175K annual salary for a few years, act as a vote proxy for a major corp, and exit office to a cushy high-paid corporate job.
Besides spending all your money, and then not being able to find a new job when you want to and where you want to, the biggest risk is the lack of health insurance.  Research your options regarding your existing insurance under COBRA. It will cover your preexisting conditions at the full price of the insurance, that means without the contribution from your employer. Make sure you have fully investigated the options to understand your out of pocket maximums, and the full price of insurance.  You will also have to understand the maximum amount of time you are covered under COBRA. If your unemployment goes beyond that period of time, you will have to get individual insurance. You need to avoid a gap in coverage or when you do get a new job, the insurance may not cover some preexisting conditions. Before NASA send astronauts to the space station for months, they give the astronauts a full physical, including a visit to the dentist and eye doctor. It would be advisable to do the same before announcing to the employer that you plan on quitting. the insurance will generally transition to the COBRA program at the end of your last work day. Because both of you work you could do the transition is phases. One would quit, then spend their time getting the sabbatical site established. The insurance would come from the employed spouse during this transition.  Some employers do have sabbatical programs where they  will ease your transition if you are going to work on your education full time, or work for a charity. They will need you to return at the end of an agreed time period. Even if they don't have a official sabbatical period they usually have a reemployment plan. If you return before the time period expires, usually one or two years, you aren't considered a new employee. That can be important for years of service calculations for a pension, vacation and sick leave earned, 401K matching.
I agree. Amazon hires more retail employees and factory workers than the others so the Glassdoor comparison isn't as valid.  But if I'm looking for work and I get an offer at Amazon and at Facebook, all other things being equal, all the evidence points to Facebook being a better choice. Amazon will need to pay more to attract employees.
OP, I was in a similar situation in college. Worked at a large fund doing back office stuff. It was a terrible job, place was out of whack and it was not align with my educational or professional goals. It was a six month program located in Boston and at the time I was in Albany. Had to move out there and I stuck in out for the first three months. Then I realized I wasn't making enough to continue living in Boston and I would of had to delay my graduation, miss a ton of my senior year and would not be able to play on my rugby team. I decided it wasn't worth it, I quit and got a reference from someone else at the firm. Got a full time offer with a reputable firm doing work that is more aligned with my goals.   Nobody is looking out for you except you, especially in this industry.
Your logic is correct, you are making a bet that pays 1:10K odds for $2.  The likelihood of the event is certainly much lower, certainly several orders of magnitude lower (Probably around 1:10,000K).  So it is a bad deal and yes it seems like a lottery ticket is a much better deal.  Especially when you consider that you will be alive to enjoy the proceeds of the lottery ticket! If you have the option of purchasing this insurance, don't. If you need life insurance, then purchase it without conditions and clauses.  Your dependents will need the proceeds regardless of how one passes.
"This arrangement is a scam to get around certain tax and benefits laws, both State and Federal. I know they can't get away with this with a person-as-contractor, but this ""he's not a contractor, he's a business owner"" may move it into a gray area. (I used to know this stuff cold, but I've been retired for a while.) The fact that they asked you to do this is at all is, IMNSHO, a Red Flag®. They think that this way they won't be paying 1/2 your FICA, your Workman's Comp, health insurance, overtime, sick leave or vacation time ... you will. A somewhat simplistic rule of thumb for setting contracting rates is to take your targeted annual salary as a full-time, full-benefits employee and double it. So $50,000 becomes $100,000 a year; $25/hour becomes $50/hour. You can tell them that driving to their workplace from your company's location is now a ""site visit"" and charge them your hourly rate for the one-way commute time. You could also tell them that your company charges 150% for hours worked over 40 hours/week, plus 150% on Saturdays and 200% on Sundays. Your company may also have a minimum 30 days notice of termination with a penalty kicker. Get it all in writing and signed by someone who has the authority to sign it. Also, Get A Lawyer. The most expensive contracts I've ever signed were ones I thought I was smart enough to draw up myself."
"It completely depends on what type of work you intend to do. Are you intending to run/setup your own business? Or stay with your current employer, but work from home instead of going to the office? If thats the case, then yes it is a good idea, since you will save on commuting costs amongst other things If you are asking about working from home under one of those ""work from home piecework"" schemes, I would be wary. Many of them require you do an insane amount of piecework, for literally peanuts, so it might not be worth the effort (since you could earn 2, 3x as much in a supermarket shift of the same duration)"
Did you plan on providing evidence or were you just arguing without any support for your claim?  Why does working 70 hours/wk make your chances improve.  I know plenty of people in finance who have no chance of 250k and work 70hr weeks.
If you enjoy driving 5 minutes out of the way to get gas (or mowing the lawn or whatever), then it is perfectly rational to do it.  If not, the value of your time is how much you would value (not necessarily how much you would get paid) doing something else. MrChrister is right, the concept behind the comic is opportunity cost.  In a nutshell, if driving an extra 5 minutes for gas is complete drudgery to you and you would only do it to save money, may as well get a part-time job at minimum wage instead.  If you would rather, say, go watch TV instead of getting that part-time job, then you value TV-watching at greater than the minimum wage, and it is still irrational to drive 5 minutes for the gas. Basically, the answer to your question is to figure out what else you could be doing that offers similar overall pleasure/pain to the task at hand and see how much you would get paid to do that instead.  It doesn't matter that you are on a fixed salary.
I know a software engineer that hated his Dilbertesque job (with no personal interaction he said), quit to go work at G.I. Joes and worked his way up to manager.  He was the head manager of a G.I. Joes store.  I worked at sports authority one Summer and there was a guy with a law degree working there.  If you apply to 50 retail jobs, there is a good chance that one will hire you and you will no longer be unemployed.  I'm not quite sure whether that is a hinderence or a help though in finding work in your specialty in the future..
I disagree that this is a bad thing. I just found a new job after a lengthy search. I was, thankfully, employed the whole time, but decided to tell my boss a while back that I was interested in finding something else. I did this for a few reasons.  1. I didn't want to screw them. I like the people at my job, just not the work. Why spring a surprise on them with a two weeks notice when you could make sure everything was ok before you leave?  2. I wanted to help in any transition. I ended up training my replacement and have full confidence that there won't be any downturn in productivity once I leave.  3. It's not a good idea to leave anywhere, even if you hate it, on bad terms. It gives everyone there a bad sense of you and can come back to bite you in the future.
Even though you are relocating and this is more open than a typical job move, the school's request is absurd. In most situations you expose yourself to a huge risk of being fired once you reveal you are looking to go elsewhere, since you are basically saying you are no longer committed to the job. They are asking you to take that risk with no guarantee they will hire you. This is the kind of thing that would make me question whether it is a good place to work.
The same thing happened to me when I worked retail during my college years. I agree that it is unfair however, it is what it is. With that being said, there may be several factors that you should consider: the new employees might have more experience or qualifications then you, your work performance based on your manager's perspective, and like in my situation when I worked retail, I started out as a cashier which get paid less than sales associates but when I moved to a sales associate position I still got paid less and when I got my raise I got the same pay a new sales associate would get. I suggest you suck it up and ride it through until you get a real job because in retail, in my opinion, you are expendable, if you don't like their pay they will find someone else.
I am actually partial to the idea of negative taxation systems, here in Australia we have the 'work for the dole' program which is essentially what the author describes, but it is inefficient and demeaning. It would be far more efficient to dramatically reduce the minimum wage and introduce a negative tax rate, or rather bracket the tax rate such that it enters negative territory at some point. This way employers can afford to employ more staff and people would still be compensated through the tax system and end up reasonably well off. So long as the compensation is fair I don't see how this is not preferable to a tax-and-transfer system where the government taxes with one hand and gives with the other?
I agree. The CFA is nice for students who have the time to take the exam, because it could be a year or two before the start working, so it is a reasonable resume padder (especially if your major is engineer, science, or math and you want to do finance).  If you are trying to do a career change, it is important to know the material, because if you don't, then you can't do the job even if someone gives it to you. But passing the test isn't as important as actually applying to the jobs and networking.  I switched from engineering to finance (buyside equity analyst). Originally I planned to take the CFA exams to help me with my transition. But their new rule required a valid passport, and it takes a while to get one, so I missed the deadline for last December's exam. That turned out to be a good thing because I just started networking, cold calling/emailing, applying to jobs, etc and I got my current job. If I had actually decided to take the CFA, I would have wasted all my time preparing for the exam instead of trying to get the job. Potential employers know if you are good or not after talking to you for 15 minutes. It has nothing to do with being able to memorize a set of formulas, some the last name of some economists and their theories, some oscure accounting differences between GAAP and IFRS, etc. For me it was the fact that I invest my own money and that I am able to explain my own investments very intelligently (aka it needs to be a lot better than what you see on /r/investing).  If you know nothing about finance, studying the CFA material and then taking the exam is a good thing. You are going to be studying the material anyways if you are serious about a career change, so might as well take the exam afterwards and get a resume padder. I did end up taking the level 1 this month because my new employer paid for it. I don't think it adds any value once your foot is already in the door, especially since it takes 5 years of experience to get the charter (after that amount of time, it's all about job experience).
"Oh, how about something like ""I'd rather not. It exposes me to more   financial liability than I want. If   you were in the hospital, or some   emergency like that, it might be   different, but..."""
If you work for crap wages at Walmart or mcdonalds and are still there making crap wages 14 years later then you have done nothing to better yourself. If you're not willing to invest in yourself and demand a better paying job then why do you expect to get hand outs. The system is complicated it can be won but you have to be willing to work hard for it. Too many people sit on their hands and wait for hand outs.
Let's say you own a store, and you are looking to hire a front-counter person.  You'll be leaving this person alone with the cash register on a regular basis, so you want someone trustworthy.  You have two candidates: Bob has never stolen from a cash register in his life.  He has spent the last three years working a job where his employer regularly leaves him alone with the cash register. Ann has never stolen from a cash register in her life.  She has never had a job where she was left alone with a cash register. All else being equal, Bob is the slightly safer choice because he's had more opportunities to fail and hasn't, while Ann is a more unknown quantity. By the same token, a person who regularly borrows money and pays it back is somewhat safer to loan money to than someone who's never borrowed money before, simply because the latter is a more unknown quantity.
There really cannot be a straightforward answer to this question. It all depends on what lengths you take to make the situation advantageous.  If you manage to have a constant flow of people living at the place during all of the times you are not living there, and manage to find a cleaning service for a reasonable price. Then yes, there is a chance that this could be advantageous for you.  If you are simply looking for a way to offset some of the costs of the place you aren't living at full time, then you need to draw a comparison between upkeep and how often you will actually have customers.  It is likely you will have down time, in which there will be no one staying at the house. Hiring a cleaning service will cut some of your profit, and depending on how much that profit is, it could be a pretty big cut. Now, not being an expert on taxes, I cannot say how this will impact those, but it is likely that you will have to pay taxes on money earned.  All this in mind, its a decision you will need to make taking all of the factors into consideration. Maybe give it a trial run, see if after one tenant you make any kind of reasonable profit in the end, and decide from there.
My boss inherited a relatively well oiled accounting department and turned it into an audit nightmare. He doesn't know half of what goes on, on a daily basis but feels the need to change processes arbitrarily without understanding WHY we do what we do and how it relates to our industry and external compliance, let alone GAAP. It's quite apparent this ship is sinking. I'm trying my best to get off it now as of today. Trying to promote someone with less work experience and education over me was the last straw. The only good decision he made was realizing this girl's resume is a bunch of titles with no substance and realizing she wasn't a serious candidate, an hour after pissing me off calling me into a meeting to announce the joyous news.
"When considering such a major life decision, with such high potential costs and high potential rewards, I encourage you to consider multiple different potential options. Even if loans were available, they might not be the best option. Less debt and an engineering degree is better than more debt and an engineering degree, both of which are likely better than your current debt and no engineering degree. I encourage you to consider: revisit your aid (which is not just loans), cut expenses, consider alternative aid sources, use your engineering student status to get a better paying job (including more profitable summer employment), check for methods to cut down the cost of your degree, and double-check your plans to make sure you have a long-term plan that makes sense. The first issue, raised in the comments, is whether or not you are getting appropriate financial aid. This does not just mean loans, it includes grants and other forms of assistance. You should be getting in-state tuition, and by searching the tuition of UNC I believe you are. But for future readers, you should make sure you are getting in-state rates, and it not there are options to return to a state where you would get in-state tuition rates, or look into the possibility of pausing your study for one year until you meet in-state funding requirements. You should also ensure your FAFSA information is correct, including your income, family situation (whether or not you are an independent study, as it sounds like you probably are), etc. This effects how many grants you get, and if you are independent this changes maximum federal loan amounts (see website for details). While you don't say what your pay is, the fact that you are working two jobs and having trouble making ends-meet suggests either that you have a spending issue, or that your jobs pay sucks, and possibly both. I've been in both situations, and there are methods for dealing with both. If your spending is not very carefully controlled, that's a big issue. I won't try to rehash all the personal finance advice about this, but I will just warn that when you are desperate and you know there isn't enough money even if you spend perfectly, there is a strong tendency to just give up and not even try because what's the point?
Yes it is better than 0. I should be able to decide whether 3/hr is a waste of 8 hours of my day or not.  Under a $15 min wage, a low skilled worker's actually minimum wage is $0.  Someone can always choose to be unemployed regardless of what the minimum wage is, in this case the minimum wage has chosen it for them.
Same could go for flying private. At the end of the day there is a cost benefit and what an employee's time is worth.  My employer doesn't give a shit, so I pay for my own business class out of pocket. People I deal with externally all fly business, which sucks when you are on the same flights.