David Dehghan

Where the middle class manufacturing jobs go?

This NY times article is a great example of why it’s so hard to create middle-class jobs in the U.S. now. From personal experience I can confirm all the point made in this article with respect to electronics manufacturing. 

A few years a go we were building a new phone and a special base station for it at Microsoft. We designed most of the electrical and mechanical parts in Taiwan because that was were the support network of vendors and designers existed around you. If you wanted a new PCB board re-designed and manufactured it would be ready for you within hours. That would have taken a week in US. In Xiamen (just across the water from Taiwan on the mainland) we designed and built the special base station for the phone. When we wanted to select cables and connectors we just called the sales rep from the neighboring factory and he was in our meeting room within 30 min. We didn’t like what they had and we called another one he too was there within 30 min. With samples and designs in hand. Whatever we wanted they could manufacture within a day. It was pretty incredible. 

Also the quality of craftsmanship was very high. People took care of producing the PCB boards and plastic phone enclosures we had ordered. The vendor network had all the latest prototyping and design equipment you could think of. There was no reason to get out of Taiwan or south of China for anything. They would beat any one on price, flexibility, and quick turnaround. 

There is zero chance you can bring that echo system back to US or western world. There is never ending supply of cheap, qualified and trained manufacturing workers coming from inland China. 

Now lets continue our debates about same sex marriage, abortion and border guards. Or Tibo, or whatever the hell his name is. 

How it feels to be homeless? (part 2)

This is a 3 part story I wrote in 2005 about a night I spent on the street in Seattle as an experiment to better understand the life of homeless people: 

Part 1: How it feels to be homeless?
Part 2: My notes from the night I slept on the street
Part 3: What I learnt from the experience

Part 2: My notes from the night I spelt on the street

These are the notes that I wrote down on paper while I was sleeping on the park bench. I knew even before I started that the kind of problems that I would run into would be completely different than the ones that I originally thought of. In fact, that was the case; the issues that I was mostly worried about never materialized.

But fist my notes from that night:

[About 2:00AM]
I can’t not find a cardboard box in the recycling bin outside of my house. The bin is  usually full of boxes every single day that I pass by it, but not tonight of course.  Well, I can live without it for now.  I should  just go the park and se what happens.

[About 2:10AM]
I am sitting on a bench in a small park by Seattle Pike Place market. (Here is a picture of it from above).  There is no one around except the occasional taxi cabs that drive by. It was freezing cold a few hours a go but now that a misty fog has covered the air it is not very cold anymore. Still, I can see my breath in the air. I am sleeping under a rain shelter in the park. This is the only covered place in the park.

[About 3:00 AM]
A homeless guy came by circled around and is now sitting on the bench about 20 meters away from me. Maybe I should go talk to him…but I am just getting comfortable and I am too lazy to get out of the sleeping bag. OK, if he comes any closer I will just talk to him without having to get out of my sleeping bag.

[About 4:00AM]
No one else is around. So far it has been pretty uneventful.

I was thinking that I would be socializing with people. I had already made up my story: “I am a student from Canada traveling around in the US. I have just arrived in Seattle a couple of hours a go. I am going to find a job to finance the rest of my trip.”

This should convince anyone that I have no cash on me. But I guess being homeless can be pretty lonely. No one really talks to you.

[About 5:00AM]
The constant sound of cars going by is  very loud. I can’t sleep with this much noise. The tiers make noise as they go over the steel joints of the elevated road, which is Highway 99, on the other side of the park.  I can also hear the cargo trains going by. The rail road tracks are about 1 mile away. But I can still hear the screeching noise as the steel wheels grind over the steel rails. I can even hear this  in my bedroom but because of the double sided window the sound is very much dampened.

[About 5:30AM]
The bench under my sleeping bed is very hard. I keep shifting around but every position is uncomfortable.  I am actually not cold yet. I am wearing too many layers of clouding.

One homeless person just passed by me. He was talking to someone else.  But my head was completely inside the sleeping bag so I could not really see them.

[About 6:00AM]
The vendors at the public market have started to show up. They are making more noise as they unload their boxes and drag them on the ground to their designated stall in the market. More noise. Man I can’t sleep at all with all this noise.

I am actually cold now. It is getting windy and because I don’t put any cardboard boxes around and on top of me the wind is getting into my sleeping bag. It was a rookie mistake to not look harder for card board boxes. It would have made a big difference.

[About 6:15]
Ok. I am just too cold and can’t sleep with all this noise. Experiment is over. I am going home.

The sun has not come up yet. On the way back home I didn’t see anyone on the street

[About 6:30]
It is nice to be home. I never appriciate my warm bed this much.

How it feels to be homeless? (part 3)

How it feels to be homeless? an interesting experiment

This is a 3 part story I wrote in 2005 about a night I spent on the street in Seattle as an experiment to better understand the life of homeless people: 

Part 1: How it feels to be homeless?
Part 2: My notes from the night I slept on the street
Part 3: What I learnt from the experience

Part 1: How it feels to be homeless?  an interesting experiment

As I walking to our Microsoft Christmas party I passed by a homeless shelter that is in between my house and the Seattle Center where the Christmas party was being held at. I thought to myself I should come at stay at this shelter for one night to experience what it would mean to be homeless. Then I read the notices on the door saying that in order to stay there at night you have to register in them morning before 7:00AM. So sleeping on the street was my only option if I wanted to do this tonight.

It is a pretty cold night tonight, there is a light frost on the street which makes it a bit slippery but I am still determined to do this.

The contrast between a posh Christmas party and sleeping on the street will be memorable. I have seen absolute poverty in India and China before and I have been somewhat hardened by it. When I look at homeless people in Seattle I feel much less sympathetic because I compare them to homeless people in India and China who beside a rag around them have nothing. No shoes, no pants, no backpack, no sleeping bag, no jacket. They simply have nothing. They are very malnourished and skinny to the bones. It is very hard for me to see that level of poverty.

Poverty and suffering from it is very relative. I don’t doubt that homeless people in Seattle in Toronto are suffering. When they compare themselves to people that see everyday driving by in their car or going into their apartments they see the contrast with their life and it makes them feel poor. But what if you could take the same person to India where they would see that they are very rich indeed compared to the other homeless people around them. They would see that they are relatively well off. They would appreciate their shoes, pants, and not suffering from chronic hunger and malnutrition. Now, would that person feel less pain for being homeless after coming back to Seattle or Toronto? Would they feel blessed to have as much as they do?

Every winter in Toronto a few dozen homeless people freeze to death. I tend to believe that there are shelter beds that left empty every night meanwhile some homeless people refuse to use those beds because they can’t put up with the rules and regulations that they have to abide by. They rather be sleeping on the street and being free but cold instead of sleeping the shelter and being warm but having to put up with curfew time, light out time, no drinking and not doing drugs. So they end up sleeping on the street in winter nights when it gets to -30 degrees Celsius and they freeze to death by the sunrise.

At least homeless people in Seattle don’t have to worry about freezing to death at night. I wonder if they think about that problem.

I don’t think sleeping one night on the street with sweat pants and sleeping bags will give me the same experience as being homeless. But it is one step in the direction of me to putting myself in someone else’s shoes and viewing the world from their point of view.

As I was walking back from Christmas party to my house at around 1:30 AM I consciously thought about what I was wearing.

• My suite and tie, which I wear probably only once a year, = $200
• Shoes = 80$
• Camera that I took with me to Christmas party = $2000
• Money in my wallet (I almost never carry cash with me) = $0
• Multiple credit cards = priceless (well, that is a luxury that only a couple of percent of people in the world can afford)

As I am mentally preparing myself for the long night on the street this is what I am thinking of wearing and taking with me.

• Jeans and long johns and sweater = $100
• Cash = $20
• Driver License, in case I get hassled by the police
• Pen and paper, to write down blogs
• Sleeping bag
• Cardboard boxes out of the recycling bin, to put me sleeping bag over

As I was walking to my house I kept looking and thinking about where I could sleep. I can’t sleep in someone’s door step. I would probably get kicked out immediately or in the morning. I also don’t want to risk getting arrested for trespassing. There is a small park by my house where some homeless people and Mexican immigrants hang out. I probably can stay there without being bothered by police or homeowners.

My next problem is getting robbed. I discussed with Jana on where I should put my shoes as we were walking home. I don’t want to take them off and put them beside me because it might get stolen. But I also don’t want to put them in my sleeping bag and get it dirty. So I am going to take them off and put my feet and the sleeping bag over them.  Cool, the first problem of being homeless, solved!

I really hope that I don’t robbed or arrested. Beside that I can’t think of any other problem that I would run into.

It is already 2:00AM and I am sure all the homeless people are already sleeping so all I need to do is to find an empty park bench and camp out. I am pretty determined to stay out until sunrise. I will write more after I come back.