Just a note the proper term is single payer coverage or universal healthcare. Socialst medicine refers to goverments that have banned private healthcare, currently only Canada and Cuba do that. Every country in Europe offers both public and private healthcare.

anyways enough said way off topic :)

Oh how true it is. I commented to Riekje the other day “I thought all these events (curryoake, kids services Easter Christmas etc) all planned themselves I had no idea she did it all. No wonder her and Richard were burning out.

I’ve been reading the Overspent American. Very interesting, bit dry and text bookish but has really helped me with how much we use retail therapy. Particualy helpful as Chris just got a larger than expected end of year bonus. Ummmm spending NOT

It was also interesting to me how things change.

The book was published in the early 90s, everything was doom and gloom. And this is the tone of the book. It was visceral at the time, and I felt it. “Chainsaw” Al Dunlap ruled. Blue collar jobs were being outsourced. Energy prices were going up. I wish I had read the book then.

In the late 90s, things were turning around. The US deficit spending had been reversed and we were making inroads into the bond backlog. We were going to actually save Social Security. (Remember Al Gore’s lockbox for SS money?) Jobs were plentiful, paid well, and flex hours and telecommuting were taking off like crazy. Energy prices were cheap.

Now in 2007, many of us have lived with nominal or real pay decreases for 7 years in a row. White collar jobs are getting outsourced. Health care is skyrocketing. The government is deep in the red. Energy prices prices are up.

At the very least, this book gives you some insight into how to ride these economic waves.

As someone who sometimes likes to restart computer games in order to play more efficiently and see how few turns I can win, sometimes I wish I could live my life over and learn things quicker and advance more efficiently. I even consider manipulating my children to get them to advance quicker sometimes, but haven’t come up with a way that doesn’t seem dictatorial or tyranical. In any case, there is a certain satisfaction in building things, and learning things, and experiencing things, and progressing. Sometimes it’s worth the stress to be efficient and get stuff done.

I also disagree that watching television is an effective way to wind down. Well, for me, anyway. I do love to see a good episode of Mythbusters sometimes, but it takes a freaking hour, unless I can skip the commercials. I can wind down much quicker by taking the dog for a walk, or taking a spin on the ATV, or reading a book to my son. Surfing the net is more effective for me as well, but I get sucked in sometimes and it takes more than an hour. Usually it’s more educational, though.

I really love water skiing and snow skiing. But they’re very expensive and time consuming and take a lot of work to plan and do. Sometimes I enjoy just as much reading a good book, or watching a good video, or playing a good computer game, or playing a game with my children. Especially if I can get the right ambience. A good chess game on the carpet in front of the fire on a cold winter evening, with a nice cup of hazelnut flavored hot chocolate with marshmallows is hard to beat. But if I did that stuff all day every day I’d start to feel like a drain on society. It feels even better after you’ve been out fixing the fence or shoveling the snow. I think you should earn your rewards.

Maybe part of the problem is that we really do get some of our perceptions from fiction. Books and TV and movies seldom (with a few notable exceptions) have heroes that are normal people. Because we’re not as exciting as people who are rich or beautiful or famous or have super powers. Or a combination of the above. And we don’t meet ripped young independently wealthy sailors without shirts to make passionate love to us on our vacation. Also we might have misperceptions about what our job is going to be like. I have a friend who became an architect because he wanted to design cool buildings. He should have talked to an actual architect before he did that. Now he spends all his working time making sure buildings (that other people designed) meet code. Or maybe there’s too much competition for the few jobs that pay money doing what we’d really like. Lots of people major in music or dance or art because they love it, but not so many can make a living doing it. Farming is even worse. Some people do farming because they love it, but don’t even break even. They have to have another job to support their expensive hobby. That just isn’t right. Anything that takes that much hard work oughta be worth a lot in my opinion.

Well, adjusting your expectations of life downward is one solution. Or you could be like Selby and adjust your abilities upward. He got a Ph.D. in Entomology, but there weren’t many jobs around for someone who knows a lot about the life tendencies of ticks. So he went back to school for some computer and management skills and became my manager.

but I don’t have much of a choice right now, since it is very lucrative (I’m in sales) and the schedule lets me take up my masteral classes.

But the past quarter all I can think about is “I want to do someting else…or be anywhere but here.” I know I am extremely blessed with having such a high-paying job, but is being happy every payday all there is to it?

I think I want to teach…but my attention span is very short. Let’s wait and see.

Sometimes I get uncomfortable knowing that I’m being judged as ONLY an administrative assistant when, to me, that is the smallest part of who I am. But overall I’m happy with my choices.

On the other hand, I know that I was incredibly lucky to get to make that choice, because my husband has a very well-paying job. All of our healthcare and benefits are through him. So I definitely don’t think I can criticize anyone who is staying in a higher-paying position, because if I couldn’t rely on my husband’s salary/benefits, who knows if I would still be there and be miserable? I agree with infix that health care is a HUGE roadblock on the journey to job/life balance and satisfaction.

Conversely, the authors DO make an excellent point about not letting our employment positions define us. After a lifetime of being a student or worker, other monikers seem strange. I don’t think that’s a good thing.

The commentary on consumerism struck much closer to home. We’re bombarded by so many ads, it becomes difficult to imagine a world where stuff, growth, and accumulation aren’t cure-alls. I’m hoping their tips on how to avoid the lure of materialism will be applicable and not too out-there.

Finally, I’m digging how Vicki and Joe seem to be framing this discussion in several different contexts: psychological, cultural, etc. The thoroughness and thoughtfulness supports every argument they’re making so far.

On to tomorrow.

I always feel the conflict between my schoolwork — I’m an Engineering student running after my homework and projects on very little sleep — and other hobbies and passions I have that I wish could be more. When I get home after more than 12 hours of school, there just isn’t enough energy to do the hobbies I want to do.

I am happy with the choices I’ve made but I sometimes wonder if this is how the rest of my life is going to be like: squeezing in what I love in between the commitments I also love but seem to take too much time.

Looking forward to the rest of the book!

Lately, the commute has really been wearing on me too. If traffic goes bad, it can take me an hour one way. Typically, I burn about an hour and a half a day commuting and I know my real income per hour is going to turn out to be really low when we get to that section of the book. :)

I would quit today and go freelance if I didn’t have any debt. At least that gives me something else to look forward to the day I am debt free.

I follow certain tv shows in the same way that I like very long books. It’s the unfolding drama. But tv can also be a drug to take away the pain of the day.

I applied for a part-time job which earns about the same amount as I make now but less than I can make if I stay with the company for another 5 months or so. However, it’s somewhere I’d rather be (the freaking Library of Congress!!!) and it’s more sane time. I can probably take part-time work with the library or copyediting at home, both of which I also like.

Here’s hoping. :-)

After having done many kinds of work, it’s my observation that it’s very tough to choose work that demands enough to be interesting and challenging but doesn’t demand so much as to leave one sapped or bitter.

Still, I recognize that I have been blessed to have the ability to change jobs, and I feel very sad for people who do not believe they have the ability to leave a job they hate. Sometimes people are trapped by their own decisions, but sometimes life just doesn’t deal a fair hand.

That said, I’ve also made decisions and taken actions that have put me significantly in debt. So in a sense, I’ll be chained to this new job and career at least long enough to get out of this debt. Still, I’m optimistic that the work will also be personally satisfying and the co-workers will be rewarding to know.

Also: it seems like I read recently that job satisfaction is at an all time low. Perhaps it’s because people don’t feel any sense of empowerment or fulfillment working to better the corporation. Corporations view us all as expendable, so what is it exactly that we’re getting out of the deal besides money and healthcare? I think people now want to get more than just the paycheck – they want interesting work that seems to serve some kind of purpose. As it is, I think a lot of us feel like Sysiphus rolling that rock up the hill every day only to find it at the bottom the next morning. Perhaps the Corporation is that last bastion of authoritarianism. Companies that allow their employees to feel empowered will have happier employees. I recall reading about a GE plant that makes jet engines that gives every employee the power to stop the assemply line for any reason as well as other “empowerments” – they have very high job satisfaction.