Lifestyles of the Rich and the Homeless
Written by Brent Oxley on November 28, 2007 – 1:51 am -Since moving into our new office located in Houston, we have had many experiences with the homeless. I personally had a homeless man charge at me screaming. “It was you, it was you, f*** the man!” I was ready to gator whoop him if necessary, but luckily it did not have to come to that. Just a few weeks ago we were so privileged to have an artistic bum use our restroom facilities. His medium of choice proved to be feces, with the canvas being the walls, mirrors, door, and even our ceiling!
The homeless problem isn’t just around the HostGator building. It seems that anywhere I travel to in Houston, there is a homeless man begging for money nearby.
Anytime I look out my window I can see at least one or two bums working the street. I’ve been watching the same faces work the same corner for over a year now. Being the business man that I am, it was impossible to look at them without wondering how much money they were making. I asked around… I read a bunch of websites… and all I could find was meaningless statistics without any real field testing being done.
So I did the only thing that any self respecting CEO would do. I became homeless myself.
The experiment was setup so that each day of the week a different popular homeless slogan would be advertised.
Here are the results of our study.
Bum deployed: Brent Oxley, CEO of HostGator
Day of week: Monday
Time in the field: 5:00pm-7:00pm
Slogan: “We need our flea shots anything helps”
Earnings for the day: $26.40
Hourly Wage: $13.20
Brent’s Experience: I prepared for being a bum by stealing my mom’s German Shepherd named Hawkmoon, not shaving for a week, and rolling us both around in dirt. I knew being a bum was serious business, and if I was going to compete with guys who were doing it for years, I would need to bring my game face. Upon stepping out onto the corner, I was instantly being evaluated by a homeless man the area knows as “dumpster dan”. He received this nick name after he took up residence in our building’s dumpster and started a fire. (Years before we owned the building)
I decided to ignore Dan and began to make my rounds. When the light turned red I walked along side the cars holding hawk moon, and my sign that read, “We need our flea shots anything helps.” Within minutes people began putting money in my trusty plastic cup. It seemed almost every person that gave me money said something about the money being for the dog and not me! I have never felt so unloved before. I had a lot of people asking me questions. Why don’t you go to this shelter… Why don’t you have a job. Etc. If only they knew I was the owner of a multi-million dollar company! I responded to one guy who asked, with “I do have a job” and he in turn responded with “so you’re out here hussling huh?” before driving off. I had about 15 middle aged women and one man roll down their window to give me money. Most of the people gave a buck and some change, with my highest payment being $3.00. It was pretty obvious that most of the people giving me money made less per hour then I was making bumming! I don’t believe I received money from a single car that would be considered worth more than average.
Being a bum was a very depressing experience for me! The highlight of my day was when a car with a few kids in the backseat were looking at Hawkmoon. I picked up her paw and started waiving at them, and they all started smiling and laughing. That concludes my bumming experience.
Bum deployed: Chris A. Lvl1 Chat tech
Day of week: Tuesday
Time in the field: 5:00pm-7:00pm
Slogan: “My Ex Wife had a better lawyer. Homeless now”
Earnings for the day: $6.60
Hourly Wage: $3.30
Chris’s Exprience: The dog day went pretty well with the women so we decided to try a sign that might appeal more to the men. If you’re a woman reading this please don’t be offended. The sign was a bad joke in an attempt to get the men to open their wallets. We were able to get 6 times more men to donate, but it was at the expense of losing 100% of the female demographic. The majority of the women who read Chris’s sign were PISSED, and instead of giving money all he got was death stares. Dumpster Dan was out in full force this day with one car actually giving both Chris and Dan two dollars to split.
Bum deployed: Chris A. Lvl1 Chat tech
Day of week: Wednesday
Time in the field: 5:10pm-6:50pm
Slogan: “Ninjas killed my family need money for kung fu lessons”
Earnings for the day: $22.75
Hourly Wage: $13.65
Chris’s Exprience: I’m sure most people have seen a picture of this homeless sign on the internet at some point or another. This sign had everyone laughing, and in exchange for the laughs the money rolled in. With $13.65 an hour being made, it turned out to be the second highest pay day of our experiment. It was about 50/50 split of middle aged men and women donating. A few people asked what happened to the family and Chris responded with, “We went on vacation to Thailand, took a private scuba driving trip and got ambushed by ninja pirates.”
Bum deployed: Chris A. Lvl1 Chat tech
Day of week: Thursday
Time in the field: 5:00pm-7:00pm
Slogan: “Why lie need a beer”
Earnings for the day: $20.30 in cash and 5 beers
Hourly Wage: $10.15
Chris’s Exprience: This was the only sign that got any teenagers / college kids to donate. No middle aged women donated, but their were two college girls that did. It was pretty evenly split between the older guys and the younger college crowd donating. The reaction was pretty much a, “hell yeh get drunk” response from everyone. On top of all the money made, five different cars gave a beer for a payment! A real homeless person that was in a wheelchair came up and took one of the donated beers from Chris’s pile
Bum deployed: Chris A. Lvl1 Chat tech
Day of week: Friday
Time in the field: 5:50pm-7:15pm
Prop: Wheelchair
Earnings for the day: $33.42
Hourly Wage: $23.59
Chris’s Exprience: Being in the wheelchair received the most sympathetic reactions. It was about a 50/50 split between men and women donations. There was an incident where a teenage boy caught HostGator Lance wheeling Chris into position. The teenage boy started screaming that it was all a fake setup!
Conclusion:
We made OVER DOUBLE the minimum wage of $5.85 almost every single day of the experiment, and best of all it was TAX FREE!
Summary of how much was made each day:
Dog day: $13.20/hr
Exwife day: $3.30/hr
Ninjas day: $13.65/hr
Beer day: $10.15/hr + 5 beers valued at say 72 cents beer = $11.95/hr
Wheelchair day: $23.59/hr
How much would that be a year working 40 hours a week:
Dog day: $27,456
Exwife day: $6,864
Ninjas day: $28,392
Beer day: $24,856
Wheelchair day: $49,067
Homeless people do not pay taxes. If they did pay taxes, this is what the above salaries would look like on what they’re taking home:
Dog day: $31,574.40
Exwife day: $7,550.40
Ninjas day: $32,650.80
Beer day: $28,584.40
Wheelchair day: $61,333.75
In 2006 the poverty line for a single person under 65 was $10,488 dollars. So we definitely wouldn’t be considered homeless based off of what we earned. In fact, we would be making more money then most college graduates!
According to money.cnn.com
The average college graduate made the below salary for each field:
Information sciences and systems: $47,182
Economics/finance: $44,588
Civil engineering: $46,084
Chemical engineering: $56,269
Accounting: $44,928
Business administration/management: $41,155
History: $33,071
Mechanical engineering: $51,732
Electrical engineering: $53,500
Psychology: $30,369
Computer science: $50,744
Political science and government: $33,094
English: $31,385
Sociology: $31,096
It’s no wonder we have so many homeless people in Houston! All you need to do is sit in a wheelchair and pretend to be homeless to make more than almost any college graduate! If anyone ever tells you you’re going to be homeless, just counter that with, “if I were, I would be making more than a college graduate!”
I’m sure many will argue since we only worked from 5 to 7 that the numbers are going to be inflated. Here’s a few facts to consider:
We picked the closest road to our office. Like most things in life bumming is all about location. This is what we made at our first and only location! I’d imagine with some road testing a bum could easily double the income we made.
The road we used receives most of the traffic in the morning due to people heading downtown to work. Our study took place during the evening which means the road wasn’t that busy due to most people heading home on the other side of the freeway.
About half the time we were bumming there was another bum working the same street corner. One bum on a corner = more money.
Neither Chris or I accepted any money from people we know.
I apologize if this blog post has offended you. It was meant to be educational and give you a better insight on the true financials of homeless people. There are a lot of sick people out there that will rip off your generosity as much as they can. If you truly want to help the homeless don’t give them cash or beer. Do you think they are making a daily deposit at their local bank? Unless they are a fake homeless person, I highly doubt they do this! If you feel they truly need help, get them food, water, or clothes. Heck get them a tent if you’re feeling like Santa Claus.
The only two legitimate reasons I can think of to be homeless are:
If you’re truly crazy the chance of finding a job is slim. Most of the homeless crazies have gone insane from drug abuse. If you give them money they’re most likely going to use it on more drugs.
You’re too sick to move in which case you wouldn’t be able to move to collect the money.
There are 10’s of thousands of hardworking Americans that work from wheelchairs every day. If you’re strong enough to push yourself around taking money all day you’re strong enough to work a desk job!
Bumming may sound like a pretty sweat deal but with the high income salary comes a few cons:
You can be seriously injured in a bum turf war.
You can be beat up by one of those psychos out there that prey on the homeless.
You could be hit by a car at any time.
A friend or family member could drive by and see you. This actually happened to Chris one day. A friend of his family said, “Chris are you homeless?”
You have to deal with yourself being a leech on society.
Not everybody is cut out to be a bum. Our first bum was our Chat Tech Sean. We had to fire him shortly after his first session. (Don’t worry, he’s still a chat tech) I gave Sean many tips on how to be a bum, but for whatever reason he could not follow my directions. I told him half a dozen times that he had to hold the signs towards the cars, unfortunately this proved to be too complicated for him. That, or he couldn’t handle the heat, because almost everytime I went to check on him he was sitting down in the shade somewhere. Our numbers could not be accurate if he wasn’t working the street, so we had no choice but to replace Sean. When I asked him about his experience, he said that dumpster Dan kept “mumbling gibberish at him”, which made him very nervous.
We were offered many jobs during the experiment. Sean received a strange one. A woman wanted to pay him to live in her shed, and be her gardener. Sean politely declined the position, but the woman would not take no for an answer. She circled around three different times, harrassing him to live in her shed.
I’m sure that many of you are going to be upset about us tricking people into giving us money. But before you get upset please be aware that all of the money we made, $109.47, is being donated to the local soup kitchen. On top of that we’re going to continue this experiment with a test. We are going to drive around town offering bums the choice between a one dollar bill and two beers. The first bum that chooses the dollar bill is going to be given an additional $109 dollars and 47 cents courtesy of HostGator. I’m curious to see how many stops we will make before the money is chosen. We’ll be sure to update this post with the results of the next test!
Posted in Brent Oxley | 52 Comments »
Dedicated Server Sale
Written by Chad Bean on November 13, 2007 – 10:52 pm -Our data center gave us a great deal on a batch of servers and we have some leftovers. While supplies last, I’m offering these servers to our blog readers only. Below are the spec’s:
Processor: Intel Pentium D 3.40GHz
RAM: 2 GB
Hard Disk: 250 GB
Bandwidth: 1,500 GB (10mbps)
OS: CentOS 4.5 (linux)
Control Panel: cPanel/WHM with Fantastico
We’ll be selling these for just $174/mth with basic management. If you have a look at our dedicated server page, you’ll see that our normal $174/mth server is the Basic Dedicated server. For the same price you’ll get all the same features, plus better hardware. Basically this means 2x the RAM, and 3x the Hard Disk space with a much faster processor.
This is a blog only special. The stock is available on a first come, first serve basis. Offer valid for new and existing clients that do not already have a dedicated server with HostGator. After these are sold, we won’t be able to get this server again at this price.
If you’ve been interested in upgrading to a dedicated server, please email me chad (@) hostgator.com.
Posted in Promotions | 4 Comments »
