Tag: employment
-
31 December 2012
In college, I was once recruited to write a feature article for a magazine. I fled more-or-less screaming from the prospect. Writing was not the problem. Fiction, non-fiction, whatever — I was confident I could figure it out. Research has always been one of my better skills, even back in the day when you had […]
-
Salary negotiation: we’ve been doing it wrong
27 August 2012For as long as I can remember, the standard advice to job applicants has been ‘never be the first one to name a number’ when it comes to negotiating compensation. Penelope Trunk, founder of Brazen Careerist, says so in no uncertain terms: … when it comes to discussing your potential salary, never give the number […]
-
16 September 2008
A job-matching site which has my resumé on file just emailed me an alert about a new position for which I was supposedly a near-perfect match. I dutifully clicked through and started reading. Job description sounded good, and then I got to the ‘About the Company’ section: Seattle — home to gourmet coffee, grunge, and […]
-
24 July 2008
Millions of Americans got a raise today. I am grateful to not be one of them. I’ve worked for minimum wage. During and just after college, I waited tables in Texas where ‘tipped employees’ were paid just $2.13 an hour. That number hasn’t changed at all in the last twenty years, and guess what? Today’s […]
-
Double exposure: risks of working in the financial industry
14 July 2008If you have any money in the stock market right now, you’ve probably noticed a distressing trend over the past few months. I only check my retirement account balances once a month, and I can’t help being pained when the decline in net worth measures thousands of dollars. Compounding this is the fact that, because […]
-
Cutting benefits to lure employees?
9 July 2008Hope you had a fun Fourth! Jak and I spent the holiday weekend visiting his sister and her husband in Eugene, Oregon. We watched fireworks from a boat and played laser tag. My in-laws (I sometimes call them ‘out-laws’, since Jak and I aren’t married) own an auto shop in Eugene. Business is booming, but […]