“The most I could make as a software engineer is 200k, and you know you cannot raise a family in bay area on that” says my passenger, giving me the “surely you get it” look. I let the sentence slide into a pregnant pause.
The thing is, I was liking him up till now. He was everything I like in a passenger. Chatty with a philosophical bend, nerdy, and rode shotgun. We have just bonded on the subject of transhumanism and sci-fi, my go-to subjects with the left brained. Then he started explaining why he was changing his career, from software engineering to business, which is when he dropped that little 200K a year bomb.
I gave him a look assessing of how much of my outrage he could absorb without me ending up with low rating.
“Sooo,” I said ”Do you ever consider the audience, before saying something like that?” Blank look. “Obviously, your millennial techno-yappie buddies are going to have a different take than your uber driver who might be raising the family in Bay Area on somewhat less than 200K. When was the last time you had an actual conversation, not counting ordering a take out, with a blue collar worker?
The guys is stricken: “ OMG, you are so right, I am an idiot. I know what that sounds like, 200K is, I suppose, a lot of money. I am totally spoiled. I didn’t even have to have a job in college, like lots of my friends. But after my graduation I had few months before starting my job at google, so I worked in a homeless shelter full time. It was a lifechanging experience.”
Well, they do surprise you.
The thing is, I was liking him up till now. He was everything I like in a passenger. Chatty with a philosophical bend, nerdy, and rode shotgun. We have just bonded on the subject of transhumanism and sci-fi, my go-to subjects with the left brained. Then he started explaining why he was changing his career, from software engineering to business, which is when he dropped that little 200K a year bomb.
I gave him a look assessing of how much of my outrage he could absorb without me ending up with low rating.
“Sooo,” I said ”Do you ever consider the audience, before saying something like that?” Blank look. “Obviously, your millennial techno-yappie buddies are going to have a different take than your uber driver who might be raising the family in Bay Area on somewhat less than 200K. When was the last time you had an actual conversation, not counting ordering a take out, with a blue collar worker?
The guys is stricken: “ OMG, you are so right, I am an idiot. I know what that sounds like, 200K is, I suppose, a lot of money. I am totally spoiled. I didn’t even have to have a job in college, like lots of my friends. But after my graduation I had few months before starting my job at google, so I worked in a homeless shelter full time. It was a lifechanging experience.”
Well, they do surprise you.