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
