Archive for August, 2007
Reporter-on-the-rise Kimberly Palmer wrote the ultra-cool cover piece for this week’s U.S. News & World Report. The subhead: More mothers win flextime at work, and hubbies help (really!) at home.
Fun excerpt:
…a new generation of American mothers who are rejecting the “superwoman” image from the 1980s as well as the “soccer mom” stereotype of the 1990s. Mothers today are more likely to negotiate flexible schedules at work and demand fuller participation of fathers in child raising than previous generations did, giving them more time to pursue their own careers and interests. Some so-called mompreneurs start their own businesses. Nearly 26 percent of working women with children under 18 work flexible schedules, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, compared with 14 percent in 1991.
I’m quoted in the article a couple times. (Happy dance!) You can read more here:
August 29th, 2007
As a single person whose house is always a wreck, I was totally excited for the recent New York Times article called “Wedded to Work, and in Dire Need of a Wife.” (No longer free on the Times’ site, but available via many a library database.) I related 100 percent to the opening line:
Now that women have solidly earned their place in the work force, many find themselves still yearning for something men often have: wives.
Ditto for this elaboration:
With two-income families now the norm, and both men and women working a record-breaking number of hours, the question has become how to accomplish what used to be a wife’s job, even as old-fashioned standards of household management and entertaining have been relaxed. Many men are sharing the work of chores and child care with their wives, and some do it all as single parents, but women still generally shoulder a greater burden of household business (or fretting over how to do what is not getting done).
According to 2006 survey data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, one in five men engages in some kind of housework on an average day, while more than half of women do.
But then the article went on to mix in the usual sad stats about how men, especially married men, fare better at work in terms of salary and promotions, and how moms get the colossal shaft in the workplace. Yes, all sick and wrong, but not exactly a news flash. And the bits about well-to-do-ish women whining about how men don’t care about a dirty house and even if a couple can afford a housekeeper, the wife is still the one who has to lift a finger to make the call to Merry Maids…? It just rang hollow for me. I mean, BFD. Cry me a river. I haven’t done a deep cleaning of my humble abode since the Reagan administration, so when my sister and bro-in-law came to visit for a week this summer I bit the bullet and called a housekeeper. Tracking down the referral from a friend and hiring a domestic fairy godmother was a luxury I felt fortunate to indulge in, not a chore.
By the time I got to the end of the Times article, which was whinging about how men with wives can throw better BBQs for their colleagues and co-workers (presumably because they have an indentured servant — aka Wife — at home) I was laughing. How hard is it to throw a freaking BBQ? In my world, the invite says, “Just so you know, I haven’t cleaned in 19 months. I bought some beer and wine and chips at Trader Joe’s. Please bring something to grill.”
Besides, unless the women the Times interviewed have shacked up with total deadbeats, 100 bucks says their partners contribute big fat chunks of non-cleaning chores to the household (as many highly functioning modern men are wont to do), whether it’s fixing broken door hinges or making bake sale cupcakes or picking up the kids from soccer practice or haggling with plumbers and electricians. It would be interesting to do a study that breaks down the various chores each partner in a domestic arrangement actually does on a weekly basis, from bill paying to home repair to kid management to cooking to negotiating property lines with the neighbors (or dealing with landlords or condo boards) and so on. It would also be interesting to include same-sex couples in this study. I bet the findings would be all over the dang map.
August 27th, 2007
I’m writing a series of articles affectionately dubbed “Take This Job and Love It” for the salary site PayScale.com. The first one’s on how to find and negotiate a flexible day job. Here’s an excerpt:
You can’t open the business section these days without seeing a story on companies that let employees work when and where they want. It’s good for morale, great for the bottom line, and with any luck, the wave of the future. All well and good for the country’s millions of flextime and telecommuting workers. But what if you, too, want to be there when your kids get home from school or would love Fridays off to pursue your side business? How do you find the flex-friendly companies, and while we’re at it, how do you convince your current employer to cut you a piece of the flexibility pie?
Targeting flex-friendly employers
It doesn’t matter how open-minded your employer is — your job can’t be done off company premises or outside “normal” business hours, you don’t stand a chance of nabbing a piece of the flexibility pie. But for the sake of argument, let’s assume a little flexibility wouldn’t compromise your getting the job done. So how do you spot a flex-friendly employer?
Read the headlines. Obviously, if a company you have your eye on makes the Working Mother Top 100 annual list, it’s cause to celebrate. Ditto for companies that prominently feature press releases and media coverage singing the praises of their work/life balance programs. “Employers who have something to brag about usually do,” says Pat Katepoo of WorkOptions.com, who’s been consulting hopeful flex workers for 14 years. But don’t stop at corporate propaganda. Pay attention to the local headlines and see what dirt a Google search turns up, too.
Get references. Use your personal network, professional memberships, and social networking sites such as LinkedIn to track down current employees of your target companies and see what information you can glean. Katepoo also suggests contacting your local chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and asking what companies in your neck of the woods offer flex packages — and how their employees rate them.
Check the company culture. Once you’re on site for a job interview, play detective. Unless you get a job offer, avoid asking the hiring manager about company hours and the possibility of flex work. Instead, see how many cars remain in the company parking lot after 6 p.m. and how many of your potential co-workers have pictures of their kids on their desks. After the interview, ask to talk to some of your potential colleagues. Sniff out who has a flexible arrangement and how it’s going for them.
You can read the entire article here.
August 25th, 2007
…you know, that new anthology I’m in. (My essay’s called “House Without a Spouse,” and yeah, I signed the book that’s up for grabs.) Contest being held at the Modern Woman’s Divorce Guide blog. See the Summer Giveaway box on the right.
August 25th, 2007
If you’re a frequent reader of this blog, you’ve probably noticed a couple of 10-day breaks in posting this spring/summer. For me, when work and personal life heat up, blogging is usually the first thing to go — and not always before sleep and exercise. I’d like to modify my blogging habits to make it easier for me to avoid these long breaks in posting (because, really, what good is a blog without reliably continuous posts?). So here’s what you’ll likely start to see from now on:
- Shorter posts
- Less pointless photos, unless of course there’s some nifty anti 9-to-5er, product, or logo to show
- Evening rather than morning posts (for those of you who pay attention to when posts go live)
All this will make it easier for me to keep up the continuous posts, without sacrificing content — and without sacrificing freelance deadlines and offline creative writing time (which, for me, needs to happen in the morning). When I think about some of my favorite blogs, I don’t feel as though I’m missing out if they lack a plethora of photos or long rambly missives or first-thing-in-the-morning posts, so I’m taking my cues from them. And while blogging is a blast and I wish I could do it all week long, it doesn’t pay the bills and it still doesn’t compare (in my book) to having an editor select your article, essay, or book for publication. As a stick-in-the-mud old-school writer/journalist, I’m pretty sure I’ll never give up my beloved newspaper, magazine, webzine, and book publication lust.
If any seasoned bloggers have other suggestions for more quick, efficient blogging, I’m all ears. I’ve already thought about guest bloggers (hasn’t worked out so far but I haven’t completely shut the door on this one), interns (mulling it over), and expert Q&As (watch for this later in the year). Since I didn’t grow up with a Blackberry affixed to my arm, incorporating blogging into my life hasn’t been as smooth as I suspect it is for my twentysomething counterparts. It’s like I’m still trying to figure out when the best hours for me to go to the gym are — that would be, if I actually liked to work out in a gym.
August 25th, 2007
OK, maybe not financially per se, but perhaps deep down in your most creative heart of hearts, whatever that means. What I’m getting at is, the Q&A I did with tireless blogger Cody McKibben on Ramit Sethi’s personal finance blog, I Will Teach You To Be Rich, is now live. To see what I have to say about today’s brave new work world (and all the freelancing, flextime, and entrepreneurialism that comes with it), and what I think Ramit Sethi can do to increase his female readership, read the Q&A. Here’s an excerpt:
Twenty-something and thirty-something women have far more of an entrepreneurial spirit than their parents ever did, partly because it’s such an at-will employment workforce these days, and partly because we saw Boomer women (often, our moms) working their asses off trying to prove they could have it all and burning out. After witnessing Enron after Enron go down in flames, and friend after friend get laid off, the message is now loud and clear: It doesn’t matter how dedicated an employee you are — companies are only out for themselves. So why work your butt to the bone like your mom did when you know you stand a decent chance of not getting a company healthcare or retirement plan and of winding up on unemployment any given month of the year?
Instead, younger women are all about quality of life. A job is a job — it’s not a way of life. I wrote the book for women who are starting to suspect this, or have already come to realize this. I wanted to tell them all I could about all the alternative ways of working I’ve tried over the years, from stringing together a handful of part-time gigs, to temping, to working a flex schedule or telecommuting for a corporation, to working for myself.
The younger you are, and the less encumbered you are by kids, partner, and mortgage, the easier it is to try some of the less conventional ways of working — especially working overseas and starting your own business. You’re not tied down by location quite so much, and you’re able to take more financial risks without worrying if you’ll be able to clothe and feed your kids six months down the line.
You can read the entire Q&A here. And if you’re new to my blog, you may want to check out some of my more popular posts:
August 16th, 2007
My Oprah-style-roundtable piece on the way working women relate to each other across generations appears in the Seattle Times today. Here’s the start of the article:
Now that the country has four generations of women in the workplace, the stereotypes are piling up faster than to-do items in an overworked middle manager’s inbox.
According to the latest lore, today’s youngest workers are a bunch of midriff-baring, self-entitled whiners who demand constant praise. By contrast, their midlife counterparts are workaholic technophobes unlikely to hold open for younger women the doors they had to beat down themselves.
To hear what those in the trenches think, we invited eight Seattle area women ranging from age 26 to 63 to lunch. Excerpts from their conversation follow…
You can read the story in its entirety here. And you can share your two cents — or duke it out — with other Seattle Times readers here. Oh, and in case you’re wondering what generation I hail from, it’s X. I turn 40 this Thursday.
August 5th, 2007
In the media and not to be missed this week:
New research shows that not only are men are better negotiators than women, but women who negotiate higher salaries are viewed negatively by both men and women. Ugh. How this translates: “If a 22-year-old man and a 22-year-old woman are offered $25,000 for their first job, for example, and one of them negotiates the amount up to $30,000, then over the next 28 years, the negotiator would make $361,171 more, assuming they both got 3 percent raises each year.” (Washington Post)
The average employee wastes two hours a day on personal pursuits, aka IM, cell phone, and the web. This study comes out every year, but it never gets old. Plus, this year’s finding have a special new twist: Twentysomethings are the biggest slackers of all. (Inc.com)
And from the recent archives:
NEC Corp. rolled out a pink, crystal-encrusted Hello Kitty laptop for “working women.” Bwahaahaaaaaaaaa! (Associated Press, via MSNBC)
A survey that came out around Mother’s Day found that “20% of women and 25% of men say, ‘I am often left picking up the slack for my co-workers who are moms.’” Many respondents were fathers. Way to go, guys. (USA Today)
Trade school is the new graduate school. If you read the last chapter of my book, you know I’m a champion of this POV. After all, how else is a philosophy grad going to pay the bills? (Minneapolis Star Tribune, via Seattle Times)
Marlys Harris, senior editor of Money Magazine, advises women to marry rich. I shit you not. (MSNBC)
August 3rd, 2007
My article on figuring out how soon you can ditch your day job is live on WORKS. Here’s how it starts:
Admit it. You’ve fantasized about turning in your letter of resignation no less than 100 times — and that’s just this month. You spend each lunch hour staring longingly out the window of your mind-numbingly sterile office at whatever footloose and fancy-free dog walker, landscape designer, or espresso-cart owner happens to be within view. And you often wonder if you’ll ever love your job as much as they seem to.
The good news is that a career you’re passionate about is always within reach. You just have to iron out a few of the logistics first, and one of the biggest is figuring out how you will afford to live while you pursue your dream. Here are a few tips to get you started.
Gather research. First, you need to determine how much you realistically stand to make in the first few years of your fantasy career. The Web is teeming with sites that can help — Salary.com, PayScale.com, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, to name a few. But don’t stop there. Talk to honest-to-goodness people who already have your dream job. Ply them with lattes and ask what salary range a newbie like you can expect. Also contact the industry associations in your neck of the woods. Many of them regularly conduct salary surveys of their members.
Do the math. Your next step is to take a long, hard look at your monthly spending. If you don’t know how much you’re shelling out for groceries, pedicures, and Mai Tais, it’s high time you learned. Save four weeks of receipts or track every cent you spend in a notebook stashed in your purse. Then use a program like Quicken to record the damage…
To read the rest of the article, visit WORKS.
August 3rd, 2007
