Would You Want This Job? Hard work, middle of Kansas

I spent 18 years in a rural farming community and this seems phony. Any farmer who is that dialed in and successful has already been doing what all the other farmers in america do: use seasonal &#38; migrant labor. The "free beef" part really pushed it past the point of believability. It reads like the author is practicing his writing skills to land a gig writing polemics for the National Review.<p>Assuming it is legitimate, this job sucks because whomever accepts it is becoming an indentured servant for a land-owning farmer.The skills the person learns are not transferable to any other occupation, and no other farmers are hiring this sort of person. If something goes sour in the relationship, the worker doesn't just lose a job, he loses a house and is stuck in rural Kansas.

This highlights the fact that there are quality, good paying jobs in the US. A good portion of the unemployed are unemployed because they overvalue their skills or aren't willing to make changes necessary to become employed.

I don't get why most everyone on HN assumes all hackers are &#60; 30, have no family, and would give their left nut to live in a big city or The Valley.<p>I know plenty of middle-aged experts in the computer industries with wives and kids who love it out "in the country" and wouldn't trade it for anything else.<p>While there's a lot to be said for the bling and bang of living in somewhere like NYC, Seattle, SF, Chicago (my hometown! :D), or the valley; there's a whole 'nother side to the coin that involves a quite family life away from the city and the people.

According to Craig, he has advertised with the local workforce centers who attend nearly all the job fairs in cities within driving distance. Not to mention the online job boards, farming magazines, etc. I just thought we all might be interested in a middle America, ie farming dilemma right now, in light of all the woe is me talk on the media. The one person is right...there are jobs,maybe not where you want or need them. It could be a great life for someone.

Can't be the wages? I bet there is a price for which many would consider it. For example, if he paid 2000000$ per year, I would consider it (for a while).

If he really is advertising well, interviewing people and not getting results the offer is simply too low. There must be some factor that we can't see from this blog post that is visible to the people he's interviewed that makes this job NOT worth the money he's offering.

I think if I were a lot of people, yes. This is a more appealing option to me than getting paid $9 an hour to be a door greeter at Wal-Mart. With free housing and food and $80k a year salary, it wouldn't take long to become independently financially stable.

Could you outline his attempts at finding applicants? Where has he advertised this open position? I find it hard to believe there's nobody in this small town, or a neighboring county/state that is interested.

Hey, will your mate take an English speaker with no intention of working legally, who doesn't want to pay tax, with no intention of staying longer than a year?

I know plenty of South Africans that would go for this, in fact I know a guy who was "migrant" worker in the states. Drove a harvester. Two of my other friends worked for a traveling Carnival in the USA.<p>They all got to see a large portion of North America, and saved some money in the process.

Maybe pay someone to hand out cards to homeless people on the streets of big cities. A google-like bus shuttle to get people to/from every month or two, since you will likely cycle through people rather than retain them for a year.

Never said <i>how many</i> 18 to 20 hour days. Depending on this answer, this could be an excellent setup for a software startup. Work double shifts during planting and harvesting, single shift and part time the rest of the year. Live for free, write software the rest of the time. Bank everything. All you'd need is broadband and some deposit slips. By the time your software was done, you could be your own angel.

I'll do it for 250k a year

Hmmm, nope.