Apt. 11D

The Price of Prestige, Exposure, A Line on the Resume

In AlJazeera English, Sarah Kendzior writes about a $22,000 internship at the U.N. No, they aren't paying interns $22,000. The intern pays the U.N. $22,000 to “gain inside knowledge of just how the UN really operates.”

Pacific-Standard reports on a study that examined economists' desire to publish in highly prestigious journals. No academic journal pays its authors for their work, but there is a pecking order among these journals for prestige. They sent a questionnaire to fellow economists and asked them, " If a medicine existed that would give them a day-long surge in brainpower—enough to formulate an article good enough for one of four major journals—would they take it? If so, would they still do so if they knew it would slightly reduce their lifespan?"

Yes, economists would shorten their lifespans, if they would be guaranteed an article in a top-tier journal. They would be willing to shorten their lifespans by nearly a year for that money-less honor. Of course, there are indirect monetary benefits from publishing in a prestigious journal. You can bumped up the academic payscale with a promotion, but the types of people who get published in those journals are already at the top of the pay scale and have tenure. 

I have not necessarily made the best career decisions over my lifetime. I always seem to lean towards jobs that provide prestige and not so much money. With all my career fluctuations, I'm stuck in the "paying dues" job phase and never made it to the "gravy train" phase. So, I understand the need for low paying, prestigious work, but I'm trying very hard to be more rational about my work efforts. 

Some of these unpaid internships and honorific jobs are a result of the crappy economy. Post-college kids need to get something on their resume, other than their summer job at Wendy's. But the economists in the Pacific-Standard story aren't suffering like that. Where's the rational actor in all this? 

The Cost of Raising a Special Needs Kid

Jeff Howe at CNN.com talks frankly about the expenses of raising a kid with severe autism. It's a hard article to read, because the dude is still firmly stuck in the grief phase.

Howe's five-year old son has huge needs. He isn't potty trained. He has major behavior problems. He has major cognitive impairments. That part of his story is straight forward and indisputable. 

He discusses the financial obligations for raising a son with such huge needs. The child needs 24 hour care, so they employ a nanny who costs $24,000  per year. They spend $1,800 on diapers. $5,400 goes towards medical costs for their son. He says that they don't have the energy to do after-school activities and therapy for him. If they did, their expenses would be even higher. They are worried about the cost down the road, when his schooling is done. Full-time care facilities for people with extreme disabilities could be $100,000 per year. 

Those numbers are straight forward and indisputable. The government has some programs to help out with respite care and therapy, but as Howe says, it's a major pain in the ass to find those programs. Sometimes the reimbursement for services is so minimal that it's barely worth the time to fill out all the paperwork. 

What makes Howe's story so messy is that he is still firmly in the grief phase of special needs parenting. He is still very upset that his son is struggling with basic life skills. That's an understandable grief. But he's also grieving the life that his family won't have, because his son is different. This is selfish grief and, really, needs to end fast. 

Howe defines a "normal" life as one where "both partners pursue their dreams, attend social events with our friends, and our daughter receives the sort of two-on-one attention that would be her lot if we hadn't had Finn." It means a hefty college savings for his older daughter, so she can attend the college of her choice. 

This is the "normal" life that all us smart, dues-paying, elite college attending people believe that they are owed. There are two dominant "normal" upper-middle class lifestyles. One is dual working family with pristine daycares, or the single earning family with SAHM who is the pillar of the community. It involves a nice house in a nice community and one vacation per year to a hotel on an island with a swim-up bar and water slides of the kids. People like us feel entitled to this lifestyle, because we're smart, worked hard, and made lots of sacrifices in our 20's. Everybody else has that, so we should, too.

If you have a special needs kid, you might not get that. One person may have to end the perfect career to manage the schooling, health care, and paperwork that goes along with the kid. Your kid may not be able to travel to the fancy hotel on an island. You can't be a pillar of the community, if your child doesn't attend a local school and can't go to church. 

That part of his story has to be very grating to people who live outside the upper-middle class bubble. Nobody is entitled to the college of their choice, a house, a fulfilling career, and a nanny. Honestly, he needs to get over those disappointments pronto.

But let's get back to the part of his story that needs remedy. A family with a severely impaired child does have major needs. They need help from behaviorists who will teach the child to control tantrums, to not self-injure, to not destroy family property, and to stay within the home. There are basic safety issues. I know kids who have to be locked in their bedrooms at night, because they'll run out of the house at 3am and get lost. It's very hard to get the state or the school system to provide this help outside of school hours. 

Parents of severely affected, special needs kids do need sanity breaks. Howe's family paid $24,000 per year for a nanny. That seems like a lot for a kid who is in school from 9 to 3 every day. I didn't quite understand if his wife worked a paying gig or not. Some states provide something called "respite care" for those needed sanity breaks, but I've heard that the paperwork was monumental, the waiting lists are long, and the actual respite is too short. 

Uncovered medical expenses are a large problem with raising special needs kids. Insurance companies are experts at avoiding paying for therapy. There are very strict rules in New Jersey, but they still don't pay. At this point, our outside school therapy needs are pretty minimal, but others aren't so lucky. 

I wish that Howe had written this article without the grief and the entitlement. Those sentiments muddy the story. The real story is that parents do need more financial support from the government to help meet the monumental expenses of raising a special needs kid. 

Related: My guest-blog post at the Atlantic. 

The Mean Elephant, Part 2

I was planning on writing several blog posts about job loss today, but I think I'm going to tie this topic up quickly. One more blog post and then I'm done. 

The first week after we learned about Steve's downsizing was a blur. Steve had no time to process the news, because he had to go into job-finding mode immediately. Resume writing, creating a LinkedIn page, talking with headhunters. He had to buy a new tie. He started interviewing for new positions within the week. He was still in major shock, but he didn't had time to digest events, which was probably a good thing. 

In between all those tasks, I kept Steve busy. We went for long walks and tried out the lunch specials in town for the first time. 

I evaluated my own situation. Should I start looking for a job, also? Freelance writing is great, but it isn't paying the bills so far. Should I run out and get a minimum wage job right away or put in the time to get a proper job? We decided to wait until the situation got more desperate. Steve was speed-dating on the interview circuit and we would have run into major childcare problems, if I was doing the same. With my background, even a proper job might not cover our child care expenses.  

And, of course, I decided almost immediately to keep a record of events with the idea that I could turn the bad news into an article. How could I monitize this disaster? So I started a secret blog, called Downsizing Diaries, to keep notes. And then I googled "Downsizing Diaries." Do you know how many blogs are called "Downsizing Diaries?" A lot. And they all end with home foreclosures. Honestly, I felt like an ass for thinking we were special in some way. 

Still, home foreclosure was very much on our mind. As former graduate students, we're cheap as hell. I don't have a landscaper or housecleaner. We drive crappy cars. We have no credit card debt. But like everybody else here on the East coast, we're house poor. Almost all of our money goes to the mortgage and property tax. 

Our money is divided up in three ways: liquid, stock investments, and 401K money. We decided that we could burn through the liquid and stock money, but we would sell the house before we had to hit the 401K money and way before we were in serious hot water. We figured that we had six months. I like our house, but an apartment would be fine, too. 

And burn through the money we did. When you're unemployed, your expenses actually go up. We had to pay two months of COBRA up front, which was $4,000. Steve needed a car to get to some interviews, and so our rarely used second car had to get serviced. My parents helped out with that $2,000 bill. I started evaluating our grocery bill carefully. We stopped going to out for dinner. I didn't visit the mall. 

In week two of this insanity, Hurricane Sandy happened. New York City and the area was shut down for two weeks. Interviews were cancelled; positions mysteriously dried up. Nothing happened for two weeks. Thanksgiving and the winter holidays happened. Again, days when nobody is calling you for interviews. And Christmas is expensive. We cut waaaaay back, but it's still expensive. How about a panic attack while wrapping Santa's gifts on December 24th? 

The most asked question during this fiasco was "what did you tell the kids?" We didn't tell the kids. In fact, as an experiment, we waited to see how long it would take them to notice that daddy was there in the morning and in the afternoon. It took my Einstein children two days before they noticed. Then we told them that Steve's office was being painted, so he was working from home for a little while. They bought it. Well, I think Jonah figured things out eventually, when he overheard a conversation. We didn't want them to worry about matters. 

Steve started working the week after Christmas. It took a couple of months to recover emotionally and financially. Not that we're back to 100 percent in either way, but things are certainly better. I think we would both like to figure out a way to cut back on our expenses even more and stockpile a year's worth of savings. But we can't do that without selling the house and that can't happen until the kids are done with school. So, we're squirreling away money here and there and keeping things simple. 

The Mean Elephant, Part 1

One day last October, I had an unusual day. It started off with a trip into the city for a radio interview about an article that I wrote. My mom came over to meet the school bus after school. I had to switch from mom mode to professional mode, then back to mom mode with homework and dinner prep. I hadn't juggled responsibilities like that in a couple of years, and I was out of practice. 

After my mom left and I recovered from the adrenaline rush, I put some chicken cutlets in a pan for dinner. I was hovering over the chicken in the pan, when Steve walked in the door. I looked up at the clock. 6:15. Way too early for him.

"Hey, you're home early. What a nice surprise!" 

He opened the hall closet to hang up his coat. The closet door hid his body. There was a pause. A long pause. I heard in my head, "I lost my job today." And then he said it. Those exact words. "I lost my job today." I had to do a reality check. Did he really say that? Yes, he did.

He closed the door and I hugged him. And we talked about it. 

Job Loss, Finally Explaining the Elephant in the Room

Last fall, I made a few references to the fact that our family was dealing with some bad news. The bad news was that my husband was downsized from his company, along with a lot of other people. I think I'll write a couple of blog posts about it today, in between preparing for a kiddie birthday party. I'll have a house full of waif-ish, random, adorable autistic kids at five today. 

First of all, let me just say that our story isn't that bad. My husband was only unemployed for six weeks. In this economy, our situation wasn't that horrible. Other people have it a lot, lot worse. It did give me a glimpse of the struggles that others are facing. 

Secondly, I can't talk specifics for obvious reasons. I'll only write about the impact on our family and how we dealt with money issues. 

It's a Temp, Temp, Temp World!

We've had some tense discussions about adjuncts this week. Personally, I was devastated to learn that my PhD and years of experience were only worth about $3 an hour on the local market. I want to broaden the discussion. The move towards hiring temp workers is bigger than just academia. 

Steve was downsized from his permanent position at a Wall Street firm last fall, along with thousands of other workers. At some point, I'll talk about that stressful period of time, but not yet. 

Now, he works for a very, pleasant firm in Connecticut. The commute is about the same, but now he drives for an hour, instead of taking the bus. (One car accident, so far. Ugh.) It's a much less intense workplace, so he's not walking around with bucket-loads of tension all the time. He's also a consultant, rather than a permanent employee.

For the most part, that's fine. The weekly paycheck is about the same as he made before. Even though it's not a permanent position, it's about as permanent as any job is these days. The only downside with this arrangement is the benefits. We're researching health insurance right now. Apparently, if you incorporate yourself, you can get access to cheaper health care programs. There aren't paid vacation days. We have to figure out our own 401K program. 

So, from our perspective, there are pros and cons. From the business perspective, there are only pros with the move towards hiring consultants over permanent employees. In the banking industry, there are so many unemployed workers, they can easily find people to take benefit-less jobs. I'm also hearing anecdotal stories about this movement from friends in law and publishing. 

Are consultants and freelancers and adjuncts the wave of the future? 

How To Scale Up a Vintage Business

I have about a hundred different weekend hobbies. One of my pet projects is selling vintage children's books online. Right now, my inventory is low, so I'm uploading a bunch of new stuff and hitting some estate sales tomorrow.

I really want to be this woman, who figured out how to make a real business out of selling vintage dresses. I also want a tattoo. 

The Millennials and the Economy

I have a draft of an article on my desk that is almost identical to Annie Lowrey's article. Which is really pissing me off at the moment. Why didn't I clean it up and send it out? Why am I such an idiot? 

Lowrey talks about her grandmother's attitude towards money and wonders what permanent marks this economic downturn will have on this generation of kids. (I started off my article talking about my grandmother, too. Ugh!)

Lowrey writes, 

The millennials’ relationship with money seems quite simple. They do not have a lot of it, and what they do have, they seem reluctant to spend. Millennials are buying fewer cars and houses, and despite their immersion in consumer culture, particularly electronics, they are not really spending beyond their limited means. Their credit-card debt has declined, most likely because many millennials cannot get a credit card, and in part because they know they cannot afford to spend now and pay back later. “They have this risk aversion that we’ve seen with millennials since they were teenagers,” Howe said. “It’s declining alcohol use, declining drug use. I mean, declining sex.”

The Jobs Report

The new jobs report is out. No opinions yet. Just reading it. 

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 236,000 in February, and the unemployment rate edged down to 7.7 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment increased in professional and business services, construction, and health care.

Writing For Free

There was a big kerfuffle in the Internet yesterday about a writer who was asked to repurpose an article for the Atlantic for free. 

I've been writing freelance articles for the Atlantic for the past year and would like to continue to do so. Therefore, I have to be very measured in this post. Actually, I probably shouldn't say anything and just link to others. 

Check out New York Magazine, Felix Salmon, Timothy Burke, Matt Yglesias,  ...

Freelance writing does not lead to great riches. Freelance anything doesn't lead to great riches right now. My best friend is a freelance book editor, and she's had to scramble quite a bit in the past couple of years.

My advice? It's worth writing for little money, if you get something else out of the deal. For me, I've learned a ton about writing for a mainstream audience and gotten some street cred, so it's been worthwhile. If you already have street cred and really need cash, then you have to get a staff position at one of the many online news sources. They are hiring and expanding.