Money should be transparent, not invisible

... and other nice ideas.

How do you know that your employer is paying you fairly? Please, take a minute to ponder this question. Go on, think about it.

Maybe you're in a trade union, and your union negotiates set payscales and annual raises for you during meetings that are held publicly. Or maybe you work for a very large public corporation that determines comporatios using a fancy algorhthym (making sure to adjust down by ~20 percent for females, people of color, and people with disabilities, naturally). But if you're anything like the vast majority of workers in the United States, the amount you are paid for the work that you do is determined through a process that is both opaque and sinister.

Look! It's a plane! It's a bird!
It's a bell curve!

This process is so opaque, in fact, that you may need to use a web site like salary.com to find out if you are even in the ballpark of what others in your field are paid. You don't know what your colleagues are paid, and what's more, you can be punished if you ask - professionally and socially. What's worse, your colleague can be fired if he or she has the audacity to answer you truthfully.

I'll let you in on a little secret: Your employers have a vested interested in keeping you as in-the-dark as possible as to what's a fair rate for the work you do. A well-informed employee is difficult to manipulate, and certainly difficult to underpay. Fortune, in this case, favors those with the power to keep secrets. If Susan learns that Bob is paid $15,000 more per year than she is to do the same work, it suddenly becomes very difficult to motivate Susan to work hard without shelling out some cash. And so in most HR handbooks in the US, you'll find a clause that prohibits discussing compensation packages with coworkers.

Are you being paid in salted legumes?

Meanwhile, corporations are blithely exercising their right to investigate employees' (and even potential employees') salary history. Many will ask for your compensation history as part of the job application process. Those that don't can demand to see last year's W-2s. But ask how much the last person in the position you're applying for made, and suddenly you're on thin ice. Ask your supervisor his or her salary, and you're in hot water. Try it with a colleague, and you're a pariah.

When it comes to salaries, corporations and society in general are ignoring a golden rule: Open and honest discourse, along with the free flow of information, is good. Sure, the purging process can get ugly (WikiLeaks. Watergate. Whatever.), but secrecy solves nothing.

It's time for us to admit that it's not always hard work or talent or creativity that lands employees raises and promotions. Often, it can be completely random, or informed by nepotism, or malice. On the whole, employers simply pay people as little as they think they can get away with - rewarding cocky employees or savvy negotiators while punishing more quietly effective ones. 

I'm not advocating the violent overthrow of the government here, but I am advocating something that will probably shock people around you. Just try following these simple steps next time you're at a cocktail party:

"OMG, ferserious you guys,
that crazy chick so totally just asked
 me how much I make a year."

1. Ask someone point-blank how much money they make.
2. Watch them sputter in shock.
3. Observe as other guests within earshot shoot you nasty looks.
4. Ask again.
5. Wait for someone to try to take your keys away, because clearly you are too drunk to drive home.

It's funny, kind of. But mostly it's just sick and twisted. We can easily find ourselves in deep conversation about the things that surround money - the type of cars people drive, the neighborhoods our houses are in, the schools we send our bratlings to. But the minute you ask someone to put a concrete figure on exactly what it is that enables their lifestyle, bit it Bimmer or Wheelbarrow, you're an antisocial little freak.

So join me in my awkwardly-talking-about-money-revolution. Follow the five steps above, and please, let me know how it goes.

Poop with purchase

Yesterday, while scrabbling over a small mountain of displaced concrete, hands stuffed into ski gloves, stuffed into pockets, walking toward the mini mart on a mission for gummi worms, a gruff man whose gaze I was trying to avoid stepped into my path.

"Hey, want a toilet?" he asked, pointing toward a cracked porcelain heap lying crumpled in a muddy, grassless yard.

The desire for gummi worms,
like The Force, is strong in this one.

"No thanks," I replied, attempting to navigate around him.

"What about this kitchen sink?" he tried. "It's high-quality." He made a sweeping, Vanna White gesture in the direction of another pile of porcelain, complete with a rainbow of mineral stains: brown iron puddles, streaks of bright green copper, and what's that poking up from the drain? A tuft of someone's ... hair?

"It's free!" he beamed.

This overall-wearing salesman was clearly not to be dissuaded with a simple no.

"Maybe I'll pick it up on my way back," I lied, and maneuvered successfully around him.

I secured the gummy worms, stuffed half of them in my face, and carefully plotted a new route home that would take me far from Free Toilet Guy. On my way back, much to my dismay, what did I see but this:

What, if any, lesson is to be learned from this? The only thing I can think of is:

All ye who need toilets, kitchen sinks, and possibly on a good day, bathtubs, get thee to my neighborhood posthaste, as there is no dearth of crappers free for the taking.

Having puppy = having baby

A little Monday levity for all y'all with twisted senses of humor out there:


Baby HD from summer of tears on Vimeo.

Can't watch this 'cuz you're at work or you're visually impaired or you just hate web video? It's cool, here's a synopsis for you:

White middle class couple sits on couch smugly discussing how their lives changed post-baby. They gloat about how they were more prepared than your average couple to have a baby, since they already had a dog. "Raising a baby is just like raising a dog!"

Cue scenes of baby eating food out of a dog bowl, mom yelling at baby not to poop on the floor and rubbing its nose in it, mom swatting baby off the furniture with a rolled-up newspaper, baby being packed off in a kennel carrier, dad making jokes about baby humping a guest's leg: "He must smell your baby!"

OK, so the ending is kinda weird, and they totally could've moved their lighting setup out of the last shot, but the whole thing is worth it for the shot of the baby in a kennel. For some reason that probably signals deep psychological issues, I laughed like a crazy hyena.

Weekend Open Thread

Hey you! Yeah, you! No, don't leave, come back! I promise I won't bite, I'm just curious about you. I want to know things. Like, where are you from? Why do you read this silly blog? What's your favorite color of glitter, and how many fingers and toes do you have?

So lurkers, remove those masks and introduce yourselves in the comments! Commenters, tell me a little bit about you. You know weird things about me, so turnabout's fair play, right? Anything you want to say is fine, but in case you want a prompt, here are some ideas to get you started:

- If you were stuck on an island alone, and you could have only one song with you to listen to for all eternity, what one would you have, and why?
- What do you think about right before you fall asleep at night?
- Cat person? Dog person? Snake person? Why?
- What is the most awesome thing you've ever done, that very few other people have done?
- Do you have a rad hobby, like archery? And if so, can you teach me?

You get the idea. Say something, anything at all. Promote your own blog, or tell me how you really feel about cheese doodles.* Post a link to a picture of your Great Aunt Sally, or write a single word, or have a conversation with another reader, or ask me something you think I might know the answer to. Go!

*I, for one, think they're delicious.

One word can make a difference

A recent NYTimes piece by Karen Zraick brought iHollaback, a nifty web site that now has its very own smartphone apps for the low low price of whatever it is those things cost these days, to my attention. According to the story, iHollaback “is a Web site that encourages women to post their accounts of harassment and abuse as part of a campaign to end practices that are seldom discussed but that many women say are pervasive.”

What’s interesting about this article, other than iHollaback itself, which satisfies an obvious need and looks kind of fun (if anything related to street harassment can be fun), is the way Zraick chose to phrase the above sentence. But before we get into that, a little background:

Journalists understand the power of words. Particularly words like “say,” “claim” and “allege.” At first blush these words look like nothing more than synonyms for “speak.” But seasoned professionals have the ability to wield them in ways that can slant a story without making it seem slanted at all – many may even do it completely unconsciously.

Any of the aforementioned words, when used as modifiers for a statement that, alone, would be taken at face value, have immense power. With that in mind, take a look at the article excerpt again:

“[iHollaback] is a Web site that encourages women to post their accounts of harassment and abuse as part of a campaign to end practices that are seldom discussed but that many women say are pervasive.” (emphasis mine)

Use these infinitive-prefacing verbs sparingly.

Note the difference in the way the two assertions in the sentence are presented. The practice of harassment lacks a “says/alleges/claims” modifier: "practices are seldom discussed." This leads the reader to take it as an empirically verifiable fact. In contrast, harassment’s pervasiveness requires a modifier: “many women say the practice is pervasive.” Here’s a clue that the author doesn’t think this fact is supported by any evidence other than the claims of a party, in this case “many women.”

There are two main flaws with this syntax and its implications. Firstly, these “practices are seldom discussed.” Says who? Was there a study? I don’t know about you, but I discuss these practices all the time. I’m not refuting the statement – in mainstream Amerikuh, I don’t doubt that street harassment, and women’s rights in general, come up in conversation with disturbing infrequency, but it's in no way more well-supported than the second statement.

Secondly, the subject matter of the article itself would suggest that the second statement does not require a “says” modifier. iHollaback is a Web site that sprung up to address a practice that is so pervasive that the site has regional and global variations, viral participation, at least one bajillion press mentions, an iPhone app and an Android app in development. This should be enough to, if not present pervasive street harassment as an irrefutable fact, at least qualify the statement for a modifier bye.

Modifiers are equally powerful when included or omitted, serving the opposite purposes of discrediting when included, and supporting when omitted. Thus, they can be used strategically to make a point. By modifying “these practices are pervasive” with “says” but not doing so with the previous statement, the author skewed the “truthiness” playing field – leaving readers to assume that while harassment is certainly rarely discussed, it may not actually be as common as "some women" would lead you to believe.

While this may be considered nitpicking, it’s important to realize that these people are professionals – they understand the impact a single word can have, and so choose (or should choose) them carefully. Journalists are the gatekeepers of information, and the filter through which millions of people see the world. One word can make a difference.

Girls can be cheerleaders

In only 30 seconds, this local Portland commercial for Mattress World manages to rewind gender stereotypes by approximately 50 years, scar children's psyches, and not say anything helpful about its products' features. They run more than one version of this exact message here during Trail Blazer games - other versions start with the little girl proclaiming her only dream in life is to be a cheerleader and then move on to the little boy with his many basketball-related dreams:



Not only are the gender roles here patently unnecessary and painful to watch, I fail to see how this campaign could sell mattresses. I imagine the crack marketing team at Mattress World sat down and said, "We need to come up with something that the locals will like. Locals like sports, right? Hmm, well there is only one professional sports team in the entire state. So the Trail Blazers are a pretty safe bet! Now, how to relate basketball to mattresses? Umm, well, they have cheerleaders, and players, right? Boys are the stars, and girls are the sideline decorations. But, we don't want to be too sexy, we are a family mattress company. Let's use kids, everyone likes kids. Go!"

They probably learned this form of marketing from reading kids' books from the '50s: "Girls can be nurses, boys can be doctors! Girls can be secretaries, boys can be businessmen! Girls can be mommies, boys can be rock stars!" Then they watched a few rip-and-replace local car commercials, where car companies come up with a bunch of generic characteristics they ascribe to a region, then voice them over pictures of their vehicles pasted over static images of local landmarks, and call that a regional targeted ad. It's insulting. What's worse is that they, and the vast majority of viewers, probably don't see anything wrong with this approach.

No post this week

due to tropicality:

In lieu of actual content, I give you a picture of me at a luau, making a funny face. I hope this amuses until I return to a mood more snarkily suitable for Serious Blogging:

Now I'm going to go eat some cookies.