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Everyone knows that America's big cities and especially San Francisco live in their own financial bubbles.
Average rent in the City by the Bay is nearly four times greater than the US average, coming in at $3,750 a month for a one-bedroom apartment. The cost of living is 80 per cent higher than the rest of America. A typical cup of coffee costs a demented $6 – and some will charge a mind-boggling $20. The internet surge of the past few years has only deepened the problem: tech bros earning six-figure salaries have edged out working families, and homelessness, despite a slight retreat recently, remains high.
But among all the issues that have been rudely visited upon San Francisco, the one that has rich people most riled up is also the most human: shit. As in other people's shit. Dog shit, too, but mostly human shit.
Thanks to the impossible cost of living in the city and a repeated refusal by residents to cough up enough money to deal with the jump in homeless folk, more people that[sic] ever before are living on the streets with no where to go at night and – thanks to no one wanting to dirty up wonderfully clean and luxurious shopping centers and office buildings – no where to go (as in go) during the day. The result: shit. Tons of it.
"I will say there is more feces on the sidewalks than I've ever seen growing up here," said the city's new mayor London Breed recently. "That is a huge problem and we are not just talking about from dogs – we’re talking about from humans."
And so San Francisco has decided to deal with it in the only way it knows how: pay others to erase the problem from its sight. But before you wonder who on earth would accept a job cleaning up other people's excrement in one of the most expensive cities in the world, consider this: it pays well. Really well.
[...] All of which means that if you are lucky enough to grab a coveted spot on the Poop Patrol – it's a ten-person crew with its own minivan – you will earn a base salary of $71,760 a year. Add in benefits including health insurance, pension and so on and it brings the package to a rather enticing $184,678 a year.
Source: www.theregister.co.uk/2018/08/25/san_francisco_clean_up/
(Score: 2, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday August 27 2018, @10:08AM (1 child)
Portland's Fred Meyer grocery store is conveniently located near the Pearl District which is a hotbed of Mobile and Web Application development. There are also some $$$ hirise apartment buildings there.
That Fred Meyer stocks more different kinds of craft beer than G-d Almighty's Own Walk-In Beer Room. It has salami from wild boar meat - that means some poor bastard has to go boar hunting. How humans ever domesticated pigs from the tusk-bearing and ferocious boar is completely beyond my comprehension.
That particular section of Fred Meyer also has a Sushi bar and a Starbucks. Its freezer section holds $$$ chocolate goat's milk ice cream. There are stinky cheeses.
I shop at the polar opposite end of the store, where I stock up on raisins from the bulk foods because raisins are quite cheap and very high in iron. I need lots of iron because I've been donating blood [warplife.com] ever since I read that Harvey destroyed all of Houston's blood banks, blood mobiles and blood donation labs.
(I also need lots of Vitamin B12 and now stand corrected that it comes from soil bacteria.)
I buy cans of pinto beans for sixty-nine cents. Right next to them on that same shelf are four-packs of pintos for $3.49. I use my iPhone's calculator so as to ensure I get the very lowest prices.
I buy store brand milk rather than supporting local farmers.
A schoolmate from Caltech is going to buy me a twenty pound sack each of rice and beans.
But I Have A Vision: Crowdfunding Soggy Jobs [soggy.jobs]. Commencing Wednesday, January 16, 2019 I intend to raise five hundred thousand dollars so I can hire a Senior Front End Developer, a Back End Developer and an Entry-Level QA Engineer.
That same page also announced that I'm now accepting snail-mail applications. You could really help a brother out were you to mail the above link in my sig to anyone you genuinely feel would be interested in or would benefit from it.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @10:45AM
I push my Maserati to work to save on gasoline.