Employment Opportunities

Blame the anonymity factor, in SL and RL.

In smaller towns and before speed-of-light commerce, where deals were decided face to face there was always the threat of getting punched in the face, run out of town or lynched if you screwed somebody over. If nothing else your reputation would be ruined, word would get around and a blacklist would form.

Now? Everyone's doing business, we meet and forget more people in a year than ever before. Some people vanish into the anonymous mists and rip people off over and over.
Without costly retaliation what's to stop them?

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Reality may be bleak, but it's ours to make the best of.

RBD- What excellent advice. Might we pursuade you to take it?

Interesting to note that Katrina has resulted in quite a number of employment opportunities. More than it destroyed? Probably not. If SecondLife were to be hit with something on the magnitude of Katrina... (how many sims bursting into flame would that be?) ... there would be no new job opportunities in SecondLife itself as a result, it would be on Linden Labs to recover what they could.

While, personally, I'd rather not be responsible for backing up and recovering the servers that present my land and possessions in SecondLife, there's something curious here.

It doesn't take a village to raise a child in SecondLife. You don't have to round the neighbors up to build your barn. You can do it all yourself if you want. It's a strange world... and it's difficult to employ others gainfully if you can do something yourself as fast as it would take to explain what you want and manage the permissions of a collaborative project. Put me down in favor of an overhaul of the permissions system particularly towards better group permissions controls.




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Leaving New Orleans may benefit some and staying may benefit others.
Wise or not, New Orleans will rebuild anyway... hopefully for the better.

Hey Jopsy... I do not nor have I ever lived in New Orleans. I'm having to deal with the influx of people from southern Louisiana from both the New Orleans area and the Lake Charles area which has created housing issues and employment issues. Even the new jobs that were being created before either hurricane hit have gone to the people from the NO and Lake Charles areas. There just isn't enough to go around. Even now, months later, the canned and dry goods disappear from the shelves almost as fast as they are stocked.

The people who relocated were given the funds to do so or they have family in those areas. I don't have family elsewhere. Nor do I qualify for the assitance since my house was still in a trust fund at the time. Hopefully though now that the house is being put into my name I will be able to get a loan and will be leaving. In 46 years I have survived about 15 hurricanes, including Camille. I've had more than enough of those storms for a lifetime.

Anyway... I could go on and tell you about the real cause of NO sinking and the fact that it was built on ground that was not originally below sealevel, along with lots of other facts that most are not aware of like how it is an important port and vital to defense, but, this isn't the place to do that. I do have one question though. Is there a way to put trolls on ignore on this board? I can't seem to find an iggy button....

Yes, I understand about the boredom. Recently I hardly logged in long enough to check for messages for about a week because I had gotten burned out. Sometimes taking a break helps. Now I'm back and building madly again. lol

Btw.. I am on basic and I am one of the ones that does bust her butt working to create things for Ls. Sometimes if it weren't for that 50L stipend I wouldn't be able to upload a snapshot for the items I've created. For those of us who do bust butt it can be a lifesaver.

I wonder what the total amount of stipends paid out for one week on premiums is compared to basics. Does anyone know? Let me show you what I am thinking. This is just an example of what is going through my mind so don't expect it to be accurate as far as the number of accounts go.

ok.. Say there are 50 premium accounts and 100 (double the number of premium) basic accounts. In one week the premiums receive a total of 25,000Ls in stipend. The 100 basic accounts receive a total of 5,000Ls for one week. That is a difference of 20,000Ls. Even if there were 8 times the number of basic than premium there is still more going to the premiums than basics. 400 x 50 = 20,000. That is still 5,000Ls more per week going to premiums than basics.

In other words, until someone can come up with accurate figures there is the possiblity that premiums receive more in total stipends than basics do, so would it not make more sense to cut premium stipends? Not that I am advocating cutting stipends for anyone. I see nothing wrong with stipends and certainly nothing wrong with basics getting a measly 50Ls. lol I just haven't seen anyone address this aspect so as far as I know no one has even thought of it. I do think it is something to consider.

Anyway... I hope I made sense. I've got building on my mind.

She forgot to metion that Katrina hurt the south badly. RBD has it in his head it helped but it onlly helped if you are a stockholder in Halliburton, who got the no bid contracts for work here.

Not really...premiums pay for their stipends, see the previous posts on this and other threads to the reasons LL can't remove the premium stipends.

I suggest this....LINDEN should set up a program where Free Account members can join a very large group of ASSISTANTS. When Vendors or shop owners set up there shops....they can request an assistant from Linden. This should be only offered to account holders...that way if you have an account and are paying a monthly fee, you get an assistant...New free account holders can then earn more money, and maybe shop owners will sell more, because I prefer to ask someone about what I am buying....incase it doesnt fit or work or what ever.

Full account members can be charged a small amount weekly for these assistants, and can train the assistants which is also another way for new members to learn.

Jonas... I've been knowing that. I wasn't trying to say do away with something people are paying for. I was making a comparison. I don't want to give up my measely 50Ls a week for all the work I do any more than I would want to give up a premium stipend that I pay for monthly, quarterly, annually or however one chooses to pay.

Here's what I think:

SecondLife is not an MMORPG.

There are numerous ways for people to start their own little "business". It takes some effort, obviously - but thats how businesses gets set up. This is not a push button economy. You need to watch, learn, plan, and then set things in motion.

It can be as simple as selling cute dolls to furniture to automated robots of doom, to selling services such as dating or event hosting, etc'.

No one needs to find a job for you - you can create one on your own. And if you prefer to be a drone for someone else, open Classifides. There's planny enough oppertunities out there.

And if you do not like any of these options - go the Lindex route. There is currently far more supply then demand, and the L$ price is as low as it gets.

And if you do not like even THIS option.. well, here's a little secret: You dont need to buy anything.

There are tons of freebies out there. Building prims and attachments is free. Texture uploads can be sponsored easily for the most part.

Get friends. Get contacts. Work together to reach a common goal. For the first 6 months of my existance in SL, I did not work, owned land or spent money. I created everything on my own or had fun with friends - who created stuff much better then I did at the time.

This is a cooporating enviroment. Grouping up in with other people will give you the creative power and independence to do almost anything you wish without needing to go to a shop.

Creating your own work, Finding work for someone else over Classifides, Buying L$, and living off team work or sole creativity. With these 5 options, I think that SL pretty much supplies all you need to get along in the system.

What we need here is not artificial jobs.

What we need here is education - letting people know that these routes exist in the first place. Otherwise, they stay with their MMORPG misconceptions as imported from other systems, which are more game oriented.

I would pay someone to read the forums for me

Crystal, SL is a game and always will be a game to many. You may see it as something different, but that makes it no elss a game to me. As for misconceptions, those are the fruit beheld in ones eye : you say the misconcetopion is SL is a game. I say the misconception is its not a game. Whether you do or not though, I have a simple opinion:

Second Life is what you make it. I t can be a game, or a platform..a business, or relaxation.

If New Orleans is the economic boom town because of Katrina, then:

a) Why aren't people moving there?
b) Why are you crying about how hard the living is and in the same sentence crowing about the economy opportunities?

Sounds like you are talking out of the side of your neck.


Like I was saying, if you can't make it in your local town, relocate.
Otherwise, suffer. It is your choice.

^ What CrystalShard said.

The thing is, you've just essentially demonstrated the reason behind a big problem in the L$ economy: the fact that buying money on Lindex is seen as the last resort of the lazy and/or incompetent. And then folks wonder why they can't sell! Hmmm

And as well as taking effort, it takes something else too: ideas. I've seen objects made in a few hours make lots of money because they were a good idea; likewise I've seen ones that took weeks to make flop totally because they weren't inspired right. Unfortunately the nature of ideas is that you can't really work to have them, so if you don't have any, that's just bad luck. No-one can tell you how to have ideas, and once someone has one they aren't likely to tell it to everyone else - which hurts the co-operation angle.

*crickets chirping*

Whilst I broadly agree with CrystalShard - more education and upskilling rather than making cruddy jobs is a better approach, I feel obliged to ask where the money for the instruction comes from?

IRL I live in a country where the state pays for education essentially in full to 18 and contributes to it for undergraduates, then essentially pays in full for most post-graduates. That biases my expectations, although I strongly suspect that for most people in SL education to 16 is right even if their parents chose to send them to paid education.

BUT Who is going to pay the educators? If there are no stipends then the learners can't, they don't have the jobs and skills to earn nor a stipend. Will LL return to paying people to teach? Will it therefore undertake to certify the teachers as "qualified to teach X in SL?" Do they want to? Do we want them to?

I know there is some support of teaching classes in SL, but it's not a good deal always, for example I teach a longer course scripting skills course that takes people from no scripting skills to making their own working and sellable scripts in a few weeks, and it provably works. But it's 1:1 or very small group, it's a long run and LL currently doesn't pay for that (my day job is a teacher in 1:1 situations and the state pays my salary 100% so it is reasonable to make the link that maybe LL would pay for the same).

I run support (mentoring style) where I don't charge, I happily volunteer my services. I quite explicitly DON'T equate that with a return for my stipend. But with stipend and sales and other income I just about cover my tier each month, if I didn't have that stipend I'd have to look at spending more time working to make money to cover my tier and it would chew into my volunteering time for sure. That might be just me of course, but if I rephrase that as "I'm happy to work enough that SL is essentially free for me IRL, and I'm happy to help others because it's free for me, but SL (for me) is fun rather than a full time job" (although it it became a full time really paying job I'd probably not complain) I suspect I'm saying something that a fair number of people would agree with - something that you can see in this thread from more than one person for sure!

Vasudha, was this the kind of discussion you were hoping for? It seems that you hit a hot button.....

Eloise: Personaly, I used to mentor people for no money. And I would be continueing to do so if only I had a way to avoid getting "help I cant do that" IMs during hours when I prefer not to run around and mentor.

You give a lesson or two, and then for the next week the people who participated in your class bombard you with IMs - all thinking that they have you all for themselves.

So yea, i'd do it and without asking for money. Not everyone come here to make a profit. But I'd rather be able to hide away from these people later without getting myself an alt.

I had a "Personal Shopper/Valet" idea a while back, except funded by newbies paying $L directly to more seasoned members instead of something officially sponsered by Linden. Official support would be better though, to avoid a bunch of over zealous "choose me" members in the welcome areas. Hopefully though the assistants would not be employed by shop owners and have an interest in guiding newbies to specific vendors. You can already see employees of clubs fishing for newbies in the welcome area.

I would have gladly paid for more personalized attention than the current greeter/mentor system when I was new. The frustration behind finding menswear, opening boxes and editing placement of items on my body was nearly enough for me to think SL wasn't ready for primetime. Also finding fun places to visit that actually had people in them to chat with was extremely hit or miss and boring, unless of course the adult themed clubs in the Popular Places tab were what you wanted anyway. A helper would know how to use the Event system and have a folder of good landmarks to share. And some advance warning from an assistant on prim limits before a newbie spends thousands on cool stuff he'll never be able to use at home because he didnt know about limits could be enough savings to pay for the assistant in the first place.

bring on Personal Shopper/Valets !

There is a Sucker born every minute...

Second life is the only MMORPG that actually makes "role playing" in the original (pre-Wizardry/Ultima) sense possible. It may be that "businessman" is the only worthwhile role for you, but not everyone's like that (and that's a good thing, otherwise you wouldn't have nearly so many customers).
No, we need the tools to make real jobs more possible. Right now the only one available to most people who want a job (they want to play the employee role) is "helping game the popularity charts".

So that's another thing LL needs to add to make real jobs easier to create, a way to log on without showing up as online.

YES PLEASE.

I love being helpful with particle questions (but prefer to do so over IM<->Email) ...
But am so tired of having to hide as an alt if I want a few minutes of peace to chat/tinker alone.

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ReserveBank... you of all people should know that other forms of compensation need not be monetary in nature.

If someone feels good about doing something charitable and gets no L$ or US$ for it, it's not really any different than trying to put people down and feeling smug about it for no L$ or US$.

The compensation is a desired state of mind.

*SMART* employers know this well and provide work environments that their employees can be proud of, challenged by, appreciated in, etc... because with those other compensation factors they can get better work and 'PAY' less for it. (Heck sure, even pay no $ for some of it, in some cases)

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(Anyway, if you reply, I'm curious to see what half sentence you latch on to ignoring the rest. )

An in-world posting of help wanted, job wanted, would certainly be helpful. I know people have tried to start employment agencies before, but some tools to help with that sort of thing would be, well, helpful.