Comment by mapassthebeans
14 hours ago
Had similarly unorthodox path to tech, albeit without the drug addiction or prison.
90s early internet/BBS punk rocker/computer nerd. Hated school angry.
Dropped out to work as a bike messenger for 5 years before packing a bag and moving west randomly. Couldn't sit still. Rode freight trains around the country for a few months.
Washed dishes and landscaped to cover my cheap rent till that fell thru. Discovered shop lifting. Covered food and beer stealing from local progressive grocery store chain. Stole goods to sell on CL to cover my rent. That scam went tits up and narrowly escaped serious charges after the head of loss prevention from a regional retailer caught up to me
Was sleeping in the park--this was pre super meth/fentanyl crisis so street living was a bit more stable and low key. Didn't want to wash dishes or dig holes any more so looked around on CL. Found a small company trying to bootstrap a regional office for an established linux-related open source company. Worked for free / interned using a stolen laptop for a year or so while sleeping outside or couch surfing local punk houses.
Eventually got hired on for s but stayed for a couple years and made many FOSS connections. Eventually left to join a well known FOSS-centered company that was fully remote.
Told myself when I was young that I would never work in an office. ~15 years later and I never have ,but now work in bit tech, get paid too much, own a home and have a great family with kids who play at the same parks I used to crash at. We shop (and pay) at the same stores I used to crib from.
I'm respected and tenured at my gig but Imposter syndrome still holds me back. Nobody I work with knows where I came from and thankfully have nothing incriminating that would block a background check
You are what I've started to call "34yo Patrice".
34yo Patrice has a stable job, a fiancé and broadly speaking has his life in order.
Nobody in his circle knows he dropped out of high school, got in the wrong crowd and, inevitably, did time.
This archetype is a mix of several people I've met and I usually mention it when a younger person says this and that thing (e.g. dropping out of college) is the end of the world for them. In your 20s it commonly isn't and you can start from scratch - after a decade or so nobody will have any idea about this unless you tell them.
i’ve been through all of this, and it turned out fine. seriously people don’t hold a drug bust against you, if you can do the job. i’ve lived on the road, camped in Golden Gate Park, attended several Rainbow Gatherings, etc. after spending years in India as a monk, i couldn’t find a place in american society. i bootstrapped a new identity that let me live as a teacher and developer; but i had to move to Śrī Laṅkā to do it.
True, you can even get a government security clearance. They hold financial debts, gambling history, and dubious associations against you much more.
*Providing the drug use was short lived.
My war story from dot-com times is being asked by a (v well known and then horribly imploded) Bay Area start-up what about its hiring form would need to change for the UK (if I was to run the UK office)... So under the "bad things you've done" section I said to change the exclusion from "minor drug stuff" to "fixed-penalty motoring offences"...
Looking In retrospect, if you were a policy maker today how would you try to prevent the new generation for having to go through this (today your path likely would not be viable due to fentanyl).
Did he have to? Some of that sounds like choices, especially in the start.
Almost everything is a choice. The difference is that sometimes you're making a rational one and sometimes you only think you're making a rational one and to outsiders and in retrospect it obviously wasn't the best choice, or event a good choice.
There are two aspects to the type of question that was asked. How do you prevent people from ha I g to make choices which are rational and good for their options but still really bad overall, and how do you convinve/educate people about available options they weren't aware of so they don't make outright bad choices when better ones are available that they are unaware of.
There are many possible answers to "why did you take off to the west and ride trains and sleep in parks and steak to feed yourself", but most of them aren't "well I just felt like leaving my entirely stable, loving and supportive friends and family." What to an outsider seems like a poor choice to a specific person imight seem like the decision that saved their life, even in retrospect.
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I guess one can only optimise the system for the majority following the beaten path. Some folks just have to find a way both through the world and through their own head.
> Some folks just have to find a way both through the world and through their own head
You need to stop seeing me so hard rn
Maybe also worth asking what he's doing along those lines as a father. Probably some interventions are in reach for the state, and there are some other things that parents are best positioned to do. He might have some insight into both.
(Lost my passwd to my throwaway so i had to create another, sorry) Me? I have nothing to offer. My elementary aged kids will be in middle school soon and I am not looking forward to having to try and keep them on the straight and narrow. At home my parents afforded me a long leash and I rejected most of what my superiors at school/etc fed me. As soon I was able, I GTFO. Took many risks and things worked out okay for me in the end. I could tell my kids to do the opposite but I'd be lying and they'd know it.
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(Lost my passwd to my throwaway so i had to create another, sorry)
I dont know if you intended to reply to the OP/author or my reply. In my case, I dodged hard drugs for $reasons and can safely say that I chose my own adventure. I was had anxiety and apprehension about status quo and what was expected of a HS graduate circa 2000 so I said F it and did my own thing.
Sweet Jesus. What a hell of a post! You need to turn this into a e-book or a series of blog posts. They would be a big hit on HN.
Was there any bullying at school that kept you away from it? Or boredom? Or just culture ? Grade schools seem all right in the US. Ridiculous amounts of activities/sports right there, teachers are well paid (compared to the rest of the world), the program difficulty seem pretty chill for any kid that learned to read early enough.
(Lost my passwd to my throwaway so i had to create another, sorry)
No, mostly just American 90s suburban boredom and at-home dysfunction.
At around 12/13 my old siblings drug addiction began tearing my house/family apart. The only escape available to me at the time in my town was a nascent, opioid-fueled high school party scene. Other kids might have followed their brothers footsteps but computers and music really interested me. I retreated to my bedroom and dialup modem for the next 5 or so years. I discovered the local BBS scene and (via that) the internet. Likewise, discovered a lively punk music scene in my region. Both connected me to other like minded ppl in my region and beyond. Very thankful for that.
> Grade schools seem all right in the US.
My experience (and impression of others) is that sure, it's incredibly good by certain very basic metrics but that doesn't mean all participants find it desirable or even tolerable. I slogged through it for no reason other than that's just what was expected and I didn't see any realistic alternative but in retrospect I think I would have been better off dropping out and attending a community college (of course I could be wildly wrong about that).
> I slogged through it for no reason other than that's just what was expected and I didn't see any realistic alternative but in retrospect I think I would have been better off dropping out and attending a community college (of course I could be wildly wrong about that)
This is exactly where I zagged. To this day, I still think avoiding college was the best decision I've made in life. Both from the POV of finances and personal growth. I learned so much about the world and life between the ages of ~18-26. I did not own a computer or have internet access during any of it, and neither did most the ppl I knew. Feel very lucky I spent those years YOLO'ing it and not in front of a screen.
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Did you ever bounce around the crackmonkey list? nick and friends seemed to know people with similar backgrounds.
I did not but would not be surprised. Scattered among the survivalist, bomb makers, pedos and neo nazis of the early internet there were some amazing communities. I like to think that I found my ppl back then but maybe those ppl found me and set me on my way. Either way, I'm thankful
Your story also reminded me of the early LUG scene, distributed all over the world. We believed and all we had access to were the dirtiest ratshit computers but hey they could boot Slackware or Debian and maybe if you said the right incantation you could get that 10Mb card you got for free but was still the most valuable part to work with cat5 Ethernet so you could download stuff from a local sunsite mirror so you could join in the future.
That is an absolutely crazy story, I hope you have it written down somewhere besides HN comments lol
(Lost my passwd to my throwaway so i had to create another, sorry)
Nah, just throwaway here. A few tech/work friends know of it, most of my non-tech friends know of my background but most them have crazier stories. And those folks dont really understand what I do for work or how much money I'm making. I'm too much of a dirt bag for the tech world and too much of a yuppie for my old punk friends. Its double-sided imposter syndrome.
I appreciate the stories. To some extent they are inspiring to read.
Impressive story. Here's a slightly off topic question. Are you hiring right now ? :) Foss work sounds fun.
So... going by the story, I guess you never did go to the doctor to get diagnosed for adhd?
(Yeah, armchair doctor and all that. But doesn't make it wrong or at least worth a look.)
Nah, definitely not ADHD. Wrote that quickly from my phone, which is why it's so scatter brained.
Good if you're sure of it.
Fwiw, I didn't mention it because of your writing style at all, I wrote it because you literally said
> Couldn't sit still.
Also, for anyone curious, drug use and being in prison is much more common amongst adhd folk than the general population. A staggering 25% (approximately) of prison population is ADHD [1], far higher than the general population.
1 - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4301200/
And to whoever downvoted me, I've successfully "diagnosed" (read - identified) multiple friends already. NDs often have decent ND-radars.
Same here, I too feel the same. I don't look as if I am neuro divergent but I am slightly and have radar for others and have begun to tell people, "that person is not late or slow in the mind but that person is simply a neuro divergent and needs to be given chance or looked at differently" lot of neuro divergents have been discriminated against in the past. My one professor used to ask me, "Are you on drugs". No I never have. It's just lack of sleep in college days can otherwise make my lucid brain super foggy
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I've had a few people tell me that I definitely have ADHD, even an internal medicine doctor and a neuro radiology friend. But I always change the subject.
Let's say they are correct. What would the solution look like from there?
As an example, and this is only 1% of it, but I have had my utilities turned off several times for not paying bills, while having $400k in the bank.
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Theres a pretty heavy "woo" presence on HN with lots of people who think you can just adopt a bunch of unproven metaphysical nonsense practices and magically delete your adhd (and anyone it doesnt work on just isnt trying hard enough). pay them no mind.
I'm a Tradesman Baker (4 year apprenticeship and a 12 month pre-apprenticeship), that about 2 years after being a fully qualified tradesman switched to IT and have been in the industry for about 28 years. I suspect it will be my last porfession
> albeit without the drug addiction or prison.
No disrespect, but this is not at all comparable to the situation described in the article. A few nights sleeping on the streets is much (!) easier when not addicted to substances.