Recession forces younger generation to pay dues
By Stuart Eskenazi
The Seattle Times
SEATTLE (KRT) — Her fabulous
cellular phone hanging fabulously
off her fabulous messenger bag, Jar
rah Juarez was prone to outbursts of
self-confidence that would echo
through her office.
“I am The Queen! I am The Mas
ter!” she would bellow.
For a time, she was. A flamboy
ant, self-styled punk-rock techie
with bangs dyed bright red and a
flair for Web page design, she was
earning enough money to stockpile
a fleet of Vespa scooters, buy
rounds of Guinness Extra Stout for
her friends and treat her mother to a
night on the town in a limousine.
Life was fabulous. She was paid
handsomely. Her job encouraged
her to be brash. She didn’t have to
conform to anything or anyone.
The computer girl
Juarez’s techie ways started in
the third grade, when her mom
bought her a computer with a 2400
baud modem. She’d stay up all
hours of the night making friends
on the Internet and designing Web
sites for friends who played in
bands. When she was about 16,
while working at the movie theater,
people began to pay her to design
Web sites.
Her mother, a flight attendant,
would tell passengers about her
daughter who made “those Web
site things” and give them her e
mail address. Random offers
poured in.
“At that point, I stopped aspiring
to go to medical school and started
pursuing a degree in media com
munications and technology at
Bellevue Community College,”
Juarez says. “I kept getting job offers
from people who said, ‘You have
hard technical skills; you don’t
need a degree.’ It was trendy and
fashionable at the time to have a kid
without a college degree working
for you.”
She quit the movie theater and
worked for a couple of high-tech
start-ups. In August 2000, she be
came a contractor for Volt, which
placed her at Microsoft.
To be sure, the notion of tech
workers becoming instantly
wealthy was often exaggerated. The
average annual salary in the indus
try was $129,000 in 2000, accord
ing to the American Electronics As
sociation.
But that figure was distorted by
the few workers who earned astro
nomical salaries mostly via stock
options; locally, only about 10 per
cent made that kind of money, says
a recent report by the Washington
Alliance of Technology Workers, a
labor group.
Still, by nearly any measure,
Juarez was in a rarefied sphere.
Barely old enough to drink legal
ly, she was earning $70,000 a year
a't a time when her monthly bills
amounted to $700. She thought
highly of herself for being one of
the first people in Seattle to pur
chase a personal digital assistant.
She would summon taxis, order
groceries, buy movie tickets - all
online.
“It was more than a job; it was a
lifestyle,” she says. “It was more
than what I did; it was who I was.”
She was valued, and she thought
she was cool.
But feeling devalued in the labor
market leads to feeling devalued in
general, which is why a recession
can cause so much psychological
distress, Scarborough says.
“I’m afraid many of these young
people do not have the long-term
perspective that economic trends
are cyclical,” she says. “I’m seeing
people leap to the conclusion that
the world has changed on them in
a terrible way, that the window of
opportunity has closed and they
are going to be doomed to a life of
eternal despair in this awful eco
nomic climate.”
Juarez is dealing with her unem
ployment better than many, allow
ing self-deprecation to conquer self
pity.
She is never far, however, from
her bottle of antacid tablets to
soothe what she is sure is the onset
of a stomach ulcer. The pills are
store-brand generic, which Juarez
purchased because they are cheap
er than brand-name varieties.
To save money, Juarez recently
canceled a $700 session with a tattoo
Knight Ridder Tribune
Jarrah Juarez has recently gone from riches to rags after being laid off at her $70,000 a year job at Microsoft. Juarez is back to square one.
artist who planned to draw swooping
swallows on her lower back.
For Christmas, instead of buying
her mom a portable DVD player,
she knit her an afghan. Money is
nice, but Juarez says she is more
concerned about getting a job that
allows her to have fun and be her
self.
“A lot of members of this genera
tion rushed into the new economy
not for the money, but for the cul
ture it offered,” says Richard Flori
da, a professor of regional econom
ic development at Carnegie Mellon
University in Pittsburgh.
Florida, who also writes a col
umn for Information Week maga
zine, says he hears many young
high-tech workers say that, in retro
spect, the fat salaries and stock op
tions they earned were insane.
“That’s not to say they are happy
to take lower salaries, but they real
ize they can be satisfied as long
they have the freedom to live the
life they are comfortable with,” he
says.
“They might be willing to buy
fewer Porsches, but they are not
willing to go back to a life as their
father.”
Juarez remembers psychoanalyz
ing her father, who had a degree in
sociology and psychology but la
bored five days a week as a pharma
ceuticals rep.
“He was miserable in that job,
and I knew I didn’t want that for
myself,” she says.
Scarborough’s counseling prac
tice also allows her to hear from
seasoned executives who hire man
agers for their companies.
“What I hear from them a lot is
that they are surprised and an
noyed by the sense of entitlement
they perceive on the part of the
younger generation,” she says.
“Whereas the executives grew up
thinking that success takes time
and includes the necessity to pay
one’s dues — they believe that re
cent college graduates expect to cir
cumvent any lengthy progress be
cause during the tech boom, you
really could land a $70K job
straight out of school with limited
experience.”
Executives also complain that re
cent college graduates have no re
spect for everyday business eti
quette, Scarborough says.
“When they go on job interviews,
they start by talking about what
they require in a job rather than in
troducing themselves by convinc
ing the potential employer that they
know how to make a contribution,”
she says.
A different look
Juarez says she is willing to com
promise some things to land a job.
Her red bangs are back to black. She
has pulled out the two rings that
once adorned her eyebrow.
She ditched plans for a new
piercing above her gum line. She
kept the silver stud below her lower
lip but takes it out and covers the
hole with makeup before job inter
views.
But she vows to never settle in
the long term for “a lame job that
I’m not happy with and makes me
be something I’m not.”
In one wardrobe, she keeps her
punk rock T-shirts. In another, her
Lane Bryant black business attire.
Juarez said she believes the two can
co-exist.
“I’m always going to be the loud,
sassy girl who doesn’t take any
crap,” she says.
© 2002, The Seattle Times.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune
Information Services.
Customs Service raids
worldwide piracy ring
By Robert Salonga
Daily Bruin (U. California-Los Angeles)
(U-WIRE) LOS ANGELES — U.S.
Customs officials raided University
of California-Los Angeles and other
major universities last month, seiz
ing computers used by suspected
members of a worldwide software
piracy ring known as “DrinkOrDie.”
According to the Customs Service,
the raids were part of “Operation
Buccaneer,” an investigation into a
global network of cyberspace groups
who use the Internet to pirate bil
lions of dollars worth of software.
The groups are also suspected of
pirating movies and music. For in
stance, the films “Behind Enemy
Lines” and “Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer’s Stone” were available be
fore their respective premieres, said
Kevin Bell, a spokesman for the
U.S. Customs Service.
“We believe that students and
(computer network) administrators
were involved in using computer
resources at these universities to il
legally copy software,” Bell said.
Federal agents have executed 44
search warrants in more than 27
cities across the United States and
seized more than 129 computers.
They conducted searches in busi
nesses, residences and other major
schools nationwide, including
Duke University.
U.S. officials have charged con
spirators in foreign countries, Bell
said, and indictments should be
handed down in the next several
months.
University officials issued a
statement last month that UCLA is
fully cooperating with the Customs
Service and “welcomes the oppor
tunity to work with federal agen
cies in this investigation.”
The roughly 40-member DrinkO
rDie is part of the “WAREZ” com
munity, which Customs Service de
scribes as “a loosely affiliated
network of software piracy gangs
that engage in the duplication and
reproduction of copyrighted soft
ware over the Internet.” It accounts
for nearly 90 percent of Internet
software piracy.
Software piracy violates the Crim
inal Copyright Infringement Act and
the No Electronic Theft Act, accord
ing to the Department of Justice.
DrinkOrDie formed in the early
1990s in Russia and expanded to
nations including Australia, Eng
land, Finland and Norway.
With insider help at software
firms, the pirates can acquire soft
ware before it is publicly released,
Bell said.
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FITNESSWRKOuf
• A maximum
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participants
may enter a
workout
• In order to
enter a
workout, the
participant
must
Cjnt both
punch
card and
photo ID.
• Classes last
50 minutes.
REGISTRATION begins Mon, Jan. 7,102 Esslinger, & a.m.-5 p.m
CLASSES RUN FROM January 14-March 15, 2002 (9 weeks)
Rec Sports
Workout Program
has a format to
provide better
service. We have
developed a
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planning your
fitness workouts. It
also allows greater
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COST:
10 punch card $20
20 punch card $30
30 punch card $40
Unlimited card $45
All classes meet in Room 41 of the 5tudent Rec Center
For more information call 346-4113 or drop by 102 Esslinger.