May I have some ham, ma'am?

Ich bin had quite a weekend. In chronological order:

--I relished the reunion with my freshman year college roommate, who I hadn't seen in 7 years. Turns out she is as gentle and wise today as she was back then. It was a tremendous pleasure to see her again.

--Mr. A and I savored a frenzied flamenco show in L.A. at El Cid, in the course of an evening he exquisitely organized and executed.

--I had piping hot coffee thrown in my face and eye in the process of an exuberant hug between two exuberant dudes. Worry not: after an hour of stinging and a phone consult with a nurse I'm none the worse for it.

--My fam rang in my sister's 25th birthday, for which she flew down from Seattle. Every time she has a birthday I feel she's catching up to me -- until I remember I'm a year older, too.

--I observed a heated debate between an aspiring vegan and a carnivore, with, er, meaty repartees that included: "Show me one piece of evidence that animals have given their consent to be slaughtered." "You show me one piece of evidence that they have not." And "Who would you rather execute, a chicken or a human?" "I would take the bullet myself."

Which brings me to the subject of the asking I had set out to write about before this detour: meat.

Onward.

Happy is she who need not ask

A play in one act

Characters:

Lawlor, an intrepid plumber with an endearing southern lilt; Marvin and Melynda, a young couple with demanding schedules who are, temporarily, sharing a car; and Stanley, a leaky toilet with a leaky leak.

Time: The present.

Location: Growing coastal metropolis; neighborhood with tree-lined streets; pick a house, any house.

Marvin and Melynda skip in from stage left.

Melynda: Lawlor's coming tomorrow morning, and he said fixing Stanley is going to be a nightmare.

Marvin: Why?

Melynda: He had me describe Stanley's symptoms on the phone, and when I did he said that he's going to have to shut off the main water line and replace a bunch of parts. It's going to take hours. That's why he didn't come tonight. Didn't want to risk leaving us with no water overnight.

Marvin: That was thoughtful of him. That Lawlor sure is something. When is he coming?

Melynda: At 9. Do you want me to drop you off and come back to open the door, or should I just borrow my mom's car?

Marvin: You take the car, I'll stay home with Stanley. You have a busy day tomorrow, dontcha?

Melynda: Really?

Marvin: Yeah.

Melynda: Ok!

Narrator: And with that, Melynda sighed a happy sigh. Her Friday would be a lot easier that way, now that she didn't have to run back and forth across the city to drop off Marvin, open the door for Lawlor, wait for him to finish and then make it to an appointment. And she recalled that even happier than the woman who asks is one who doesn't need to.

FIN

[image via boston.com]

Unfortunate asking on the horizon

Fudge.

I just crossed an intersection with a stoplight camera. I entered on green. The person in front of me slowed down, so I did too. Meanwhile, the light turned yellow and red before I made it out of the intersection.

Does anyone know if entering on green means you're safe no matter what?? I've heard that, but not sure if it's true. Guess I'll find out now.

Here are my options if I do get a ticket:

1) Hope it's from a private company, since those tix are worthless.
2) If it's legit, then appeal on various grounds. I'll think of something, or ideas are always welcomed.
3) Ask for clemency.
4) Light a candle to St. Didacus. I don't think he's the patron saint of anything, but in any case it can't hurt.

The last time I got a traffic ticket was in 2005. That turned out to be a complicated mess. I will spare you the details. Rather, I will spare myself the memory.

What about you, gentle reader? What's the most annoying traffic or parking ticket you've ever gotten? Do tell. It won't make me feel better knowing you also got burned, but at least we can whine together.

UPDATE: Wow -- I just looked up St. Didacus and found out he's the patron saint of San Diego. That was a totally random choice! I had no idea!! Maybe he's looking out for me after all. Now, if only I were a believer, in the ecumenical sense, that is...

Why are well paid women so bad at negotiating their salaries?

You've probably already heard the news, but just in case, lemme spell it out: Women earn less than men working the same jobs.

On Monday the NYT blogged about an interesting study conducted by the compensation website Payscale.

The findings were twofold. First, pay disparities between men and women increase with salary. Thus the difference in compensation between higher earning women (in the study, above $100k) and their male counterparts is greater than that between lower earning women and their male counterparts. Second, when one adjusts for factors besides gender that can influence compensation (these aren't specified, but I'm guessing it's stuff like quantifiable performance results, cost of living, schedule availability, time worked, seniority, periodic performance reviews, etc), then the pay gap shrinks.

Regarding the first finding:

If it seems odd that successful (in this case, highly compensated) women are worse at narrowing the gender gap than those who earn less, Payscale offers this theory: for high paying jobs, performance is a more subjective matter. An engineer banking $67k per year has some tasks to fulfill, and success in meeting those tasks results in higher or lower compensation. But the criteria for judging a CEO or law firm partner or marketing veep are fuzzier. So, Payscale proposes, there's more room for latent value judgments/discrimination.

In other words [...] jobs in which quality is easier to measure are more likely to be compensated based on merit, so equally qualified men and women are likely to receive equal pay. On the other hand, in jobs where quality measures are more subjective, meritocracy may not rule, and men may be better compensated for reasons other than their qualifications. For example, perhaps men are subconsciously viewed as more competent than women, or are more adept at negotiating for raises.

Frankly, I don't buy it. Maybe I'm just a grad student who knows little about the business world, but isn't success in many high paying jobs just as quantifiable as in low paying ones? I mean, yes there are the gurus who get paid to sit around and lend their name to a brand, but aside from those exceptions, isn't performance very measurable? How many clients did you bring in? How much did the stock grow when you were in charge? How well did your revenue withstand the recession? etc. Please correct me if I'm wrong, business-savvy readers.

But if that's true, then my very off-the-cuff speculations are as follows:

1) People tend to be rich and successful at the end of their careers. So those top earners are older. And perhaps those older women are inured to the cult of acquiescence. Women starting their careers today, hence earning less, are doing a lot more asking, I hope. That would explain the smaller gaps in the lower earning bracket. With time, I hope to see the gap close at all levels of the compensation slope.

2) But what if the disparities are not due to where these survey responders were in their careers, but rather about the positions themselves, or the people in them? Indeed, what if there's something about engineering or other 67k jobs that helps foster equal pay, and something about the jobs at the top earning bracket that leads to discrimination?

Here's the most interesting point the writer, Catherine Rampell, makes:

The implication is that in most jobs where a wage gap exists, it is probably not due to overt discrimination, with bosses deciding, Mad-Men-style, that women should receive unequal pay for equal work. Rather, in most jobs, the different career choices that men and women make — or perhaps the different career opportunities men and women have available to them — account for big differences in pay, says Al Lee, PayScale’s director of quantitative analysis.

I image that higher paying, higher powered jobs have more room for such choices. Who do you befriend. Who's your mentor. Is your title worded the right way. How do you present yourself, verbally and nonverbally, in the job application process. Did you play golf with the right person. Are you perceived as competitive or a softie. Is your spouse staying at home and caring for the kids or must you cut back on overtime to do that. Is your office strategically located.

Etc.


When you're at a low or mid-level job, maybe those difference don't count for much. But in high powered, high stakes positions, all those nuances and unspoken attributes converge to create something called "value."

And somehow, women are missing that point.

I'm sure there's more to it than this. The thoughts are still fresh on my mind. Help me out. What do you think? What am I missing? What explanations do you see?

A delicate professional situation

I asked for something delicate at work today.

I don't know the results yet, and I'm not quite comfortable discussing the issue yet, since I know some people from work read this blog, or might in the future.

(Yes, as a semi-anonymous blogger I've done a fine job of revealing my identity to the people who probably shouldn't know it, and keeping my identity an airtight secret from those who probably should. No wonder I failed the foreign service exam. I'd make an disastrous spy.)

Before I write about that, I want to say something else.

I've wondered recently, ever since spending some time in an office setting again, if this blog could backfire. Once my name gets out there, as undoubtedly it will one day, could potential employers feel solidarity with the bosses I've written about and decide not to hire me for that reason? Could they worry that I've started another blabbermouthed venture I'm not telling them about? Of course, I don't think I'm writing anything too touchy or objectionable, but how can I know what a potential employer would think?

So what do you think, readers? Am I screwing myself?

No matter what I'll keep writing this, because I think the topics of women's compensation, negotiation/asking skills and workplace opportunities (which guides this blog's mission above and beyond the fun adventures in asking) are too crucial to fall silent about.

But I can't help but wonder.

Shopping strategies from a Soho pro

i like

I just had to post this comment in reaction to yesterday's post about Soho. Fortunately, there's more where it came from -- Cents in the City, a blog that could easily become my next obsession! The comment:

You think it's bad just wandering around Soho with the intention to shop, try working in Soho! Last week I was on my lunch break and heading over to my shoe guy in order to give some old heels an extended life. (How frugal, right?) I was walking down Lafayette and somewhere between Prince and Houston I noticed a sample sale.

Beautiful Cole Haan coats called me in for just a peek. (Just a peek since I should be buying Christmas presents and not spending on myself.) On a rack of $50 Oscar dresses I found one random Marchesa dress. Despite the warning signs that I had no idea how much it cost and it was a size smaller than I normally wear I figured, heck, I might as well try it on, As I was maneuvering the dress over my head, I was simultaneously Googling the original price on my cell. If it fit I would have two options; I could keep the dress to myself or attempt to sell on eBay and if it didn't sell I'm sure I'd find a use for it. If it didn’t fit, I would just continue on to my shoe guy.

Needless to say the dress fit. It is a little tight around my hips, not in unflattering way but more of a makes it hard to move way. It turns out the sample sale prices was $50. My Google search revealed it originally retailed for $600! Of course I had to buy. After modeling for various friends, the verdict was it's too pretty and I looked too amazing in it to sell.

Lunch hour shopping in Soho has helped my wardrobe, but it can be an unnecessary hit to the wallet.

So, if I may extract a few takeaway tips, for other frugal shoppers/askers out there:

1) Comparison shop like crazy, using Google or whatever other means at your disposal, to make sure you're getting the best price possible. (And hey, if you're not getting it, leverage that info, ask for a discount or price match.)

2) If you spot a good deal, even if it's not a good fit for you, turn around and make a buck off of it.

3) When you do find a good product, invest in repairs rather than tossing. New heels can make one $100 pair of boots outlast three pairs of crappy cheaper ones.

4) Look for opportunities everywhere, including on lunch breaks, errands, and when you least expect them. That's especially true for asking. The best experiences have cropped up when I wasn't looking for them.

5) Shopper's remorse works both ways. Yes you can buy some ridiculous plaid orange flannel pants thinking they're hipster cool and then kick yourself later. (That was, ahem, me at 15.) But the reverse is true. If you find a dress that's too hot to handle, $50 is a small price to pay compared to the years of therapy you'll need as you go over the missed opportunity with a coterie of experts.

Congrats on your stupendous purchase!

If all decisions were this easy, I'd be very poor and very well dressed

You're on Prince Street, in the consumer-friendly neighborhood of Manhattan known as Soho, and you've just walked into "Nolan," a small shop with huge windows and a sample sale.

You spot two dresses you like.

One is black, cut right above the knee, in a warm and cozy fabric, with regular folds at the waist that give it that little something extra.

The other is navy blue, with a peephole v-neckline and a button-up back, in a flouncy silk-cotton blend.

One is winter.

The other is summer.

One announces "responsible." It can go from job interview to lunch with the in-laws to matinee at the symphony.

The other whispers trouble.

Each is splurgeably priced, but together, they are too expensive.

WHICH DO YOU GO FOR????

Solution: You get the price down on both!

Dress one was $100 (from $230), dress two was $90 (from $220). I took them both up to the counter, looking undecided, and made a tentative case: "I like them both, but I'm not sure which to get."

The guy looked at me like, "And what am I supposta do."

I continued: "So I was wondering, do you think you could do some kind of discount? Perhaps 10 percent off, or both for $175?"

"That's too low. I'm sorry."

"I see. It's just that $190 is over my budget."

"I can do $10 off. That's it. Is that ok?"

I thought about it. $180 for two very different dresses. Haven't gone shopping in ages. I've been working and saving -- and every time I wear them, I'd remember this trip.

"Sure. That's fine. Thank you."

He rang me up and handed me the receipt to sign.

"Your total comes to $169."

"Sorry?"

"$10 off of each dress."

"Oh, really?! Great! Thanks!"

The shop's handwritten business card states the address is 2 Prince Street. I just googled the phone number on the card, just because, and it traces back to an electrician in Jersey. Only in New York!