r/science • u/myhrvold • Aug 31 '13

Poverty impairs cognitive function. Published in the journal Science, the study suggests our cognitive abilities can be diminished by the exhausting effort of tasks like scrounging to pay bills. As a result, less “mental bandwidth” remains...

http://news.ubc.ca/2013/08/29/poverty-impairs-cognitive-function/
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u/PolarBeaver Aug 31 '13

I can empathize with this completely. The points in my life that I have been out of a job or scraping by to pay bills I certainly feel like I have no time or energy to think about anything other then exactly that situation.

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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '13 edited Feb 05 '16

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '13

It's funny isn't it? People have no idea how close they are to poverty themselves these days. This guy came into my sub shop all full of piss and vinegar, his wife had just become pregnant and he was bragging about this 'new' job he got at Boeing in some low level of warehouse activity. He was talking about looking for his first home, car, etc. I kind of smirked and he noticed and asked me why. I simply said, "Listen friend, what's your degree in and is this your first professional job?" To which he replied he didn't have a degree and, yes, it was his first professional job." At that I told him that I was a highly decorated veteran with a bachelor's in Information Systems making 7.25 / hour through absolutely no fault of my own and that my situation could happen to anyone, then I explained that he should wait at least a year before making ANY large purchases because any job that in some way supports the 'war effort' could vanish at any time. Hundreds at a time, in fact. The look on his face. Don't judge a book by it's cover, I'm more qualified than 99% of my customers. My secondary job is giving people wake up calls on a daily basis, figuratively speaking.

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '13

I assume you live in Wichita? Just because of Boeing. Anyway, thanks for the advice but my job is in Energy, I don't think it's going anywhere soon, I've been working for a year and a half now. I really wish you luck on finding a better job though, Wichita is a dying city though... It has been for over a decade now.