The Shrinking Part of Time: Part Time Lifers

I was reading an article in the New York Times the other day titled "A Part-Time Life, As Hours Shrink and Shift", and for some reason, it really stuck with me. In the article, it details the life of a part time worker. Usually thinking that they'll get something like 30 hours a week, they sign up for a job at a retail or grocery store and begin working with 20-30 hours a week. Then, all of a sudden, their hours will get reduced to 5 or maybe 10. With an average wage of ~$10 (which they calculate, by the way, by accounting for $8 of salary and $2 of part time benefits) an hour, it's no surprise that single moms can't raise their children-- they're essentially only making $16,000 a year!

The logic around why stores do this is because, simply, it's cheaper for them. Having a bunch of part timers instead of full timers gives them additional flexibility, cost savings in not having to provide full-time benefits, and workers that, incrementally, don't really impact their schedules too much if they decide to leave (finding a replacement for a full-time employee can be much more difficult).

I think the reason why it struck me is that I came from an industry (consulting) where you're paid pretty well, and I think that sometimes people take that for granted. I once was talking to a few of my friends (also consultants) and we were chatting about what our "after" life could be (after we leave consulting, as we always did, because it's like talking about what you'll do when you get out of prison-- you glorify it to be this amazing thing. Whether it actually is glorious or not is a blog for another day...). One of my friends, who was a superior role to mine (manager) was saying that she could never work somewhere that would pay her less than $110K a year. I was aghast. $110K is almost three times the average household income. That's crazy! She was basically claiming that, because she had grown accustomed to the life that she led, she couldn't fathom a way that she would be happy living her life on less money than that. She estimated that $110K was how much she needed to keep her life "stable". Not even "nice" or "enjoyable" but "stable". Granted, consultants have a skewed version of the world (not living in one place for longer than a week at a time and spending a lot of time in airports will do that to ya), but this was crazy.

I left the consulting biz and now I'm going back at school. I won't lie. I do miss making an income and generally not stressing about money all the time (I am very fiscally responsible, I hate having debt). However, I don't know if I need that much to live a comfortable life. Now I'm stuck in this self-analysis game of "Who's the weird one?" (a game I play often). Am I crazy for thinking that I could live comfortably on half of that? Is she the crazy one for thinking she needs that much to be happy? I don't know, and I probably will never know, but it was definitely a wake up call for me to hear that and then read this. Moral of the story? Just be happy for what you've got. You might not think it's enough, but it's probably more than what other people have. Feeling pretty grateful today.

Mary-Gonna-Make-Me-That-Money

Why are we still talking about this Marijuana Business? The Mary Jane roaches, the sweet purple smoke? C'mon, I can be a little gangsta. I listened to a Vanilla Ice album once.

I was watching a segment on MSNBC earlier today and the two talking bobble-heads (not to be mean, but they actually do bobble their heads a lot), and they were appalled at the very idea of legalizing marijuana. Even the Washington Post picked up the story soon after Colorado and Washington legalized marijuana in their state, with the ability to manufacture, process and distribute for medicinal purposes.

I know that everyone has heard the arguments against legalizing marijuana. It's a slippery slope, it's a gateway drug, it breeds an unsavory culture, it could increase the many opportunities for public danger. But what about the upsides? Tax revenue alone could help us in the gigantic financial hole that we're in, means more jobs if you're going to open it up completely like Washington and Colorado did, by regulating it, you're actually taking power away from the large black market that supplies it now, and you're also limiting the... negative international relationships that we're making in for the drug suppliers south of the border. Why not?

I feel like we have bigger problems to deal with as a nation. A fiscal cliff, a eurozone- now-global problem, an unemployment problem and other national drug problems that have a much larger consequence. Maybe it's time we focused on the important things.

A Myth in a Myth in a Myth...

In "The Myth of Male Decline", there is a discussion about how males are feeling a little.. well, down-trodden. Maybe a little like second class citizens. Women have been making gains in wages, education, leadership positions. However, it's really a relative game, isn't it?

Women may have been making gains in wages, but its because we have a lot more to make up for-- a lot more opportunity to "make up ground". But why does this matter? I mean, in this brave new world of voice-activated phones and vacuum cleaners that clean by themselves, do we really still need to be harping on and on about the rights of women and how we're really "fighting for our rights"? Are the blogs and articles covering the "progress" of women still needed-- this new-age form of bra-burning?

The short answer is yes.

When Marissa Mayer of Yahoo gets public uproar and an internet-wide controversy for deciding to  continue working throughout her pregnancy, there is still a worthwhile reason to keep the conversation going.

As a person who's currently going to a business school with an overwhelming majority of men, after being a consultant (another male-dominated society), sometimes its a little disheartening. If you're too aggressive, trying to compete in an atmosphere that's mostly men being ultra-competitive and aggressive, then sometimes you're just seen as "mean", "unproductive", "uncooperative", "not a team player". If you're more friendly, trying to make sure that you still retain a bit of yourself in the hurricane of what you're "supposed to be", you're seen as "weak", people take advantage of you, question your ability to lead. In the middle of all of this, everyone keeps telling you to "be yourself", "stay true to what you believe". Well, it's hard!

Especially during this recruiting season, when you're doing so much questioning about who you are, and what you potentially want to do for the next large chunk of your life this strange balance of character traits can begin to weigh on you. Despite what they say, I have to admit that I'm a little disappointed in the lies of the companies that are most interested in us-- potentially, the incoming ranks of their company. All companies say that they want you to be yourself. But some industries, some firms are definitely looking for a specific type of person-- they call it "cultural fit". I understand that, coming from consulting, where the fit is the difference between a successful project or a failure. But where is this line drawn?

Be yourself, but have the following characteristics. Everyone goes through it, but for women the added layer of "how to be a successful business woman", it gets a little more complicated. It's usually easier to make decisions when you can look at how it's been done in the past. With women, we don't have a lot of options to do that. Until we have more examples, more representations, it's worthwhile for us to keep the conversation going.

Don't Hate Me Because I'm Google-ful

Just when the Best Buys of the world thought that the travesty was over--- when they took the break to take a breath and wipe their brows, thinking that the showrooming phase was over....

They were wrong. Dun dun DUN!

Apple was recently rewarded for their EasyPay solution (allowing consumers to scan things in stores and buy them through their phones through an internet connection). This, in my opinion, seems not just like another one of those cases where Apple just like suing people for the fun of it (just kidding--though let's be honest, it makes sense for them to protect their turf that way, and who's to say that it isn't ALSO fun? Could definitely be part of it). I know, all the Appleheads out there right now are wetting themselves, celebrating the ways that Apple does all things in a miraculous way. But Apple isn't doing anything particularly new here, in fact, it's really taking a page from eBay's book when they acquired Red Laser or maybe even Google's book since they host a plethora of barcode scanning apps such as ShopSavvy and ScanLife and may be even *gasp* have been ahead of the game in incorporating it through Google Goggles (PS- Google Goggles might be one of the sexiest apps concepts I've ever heard of. Google basically said "Anyone can build a barcode scanner, we're going to build something that can recognize bar codes, print ads and OBJECTS. Take that!")

It's okay. Everyone wants to be like Google. Apple just announced a "Blue Sky" initiative allowing their employees to take on pet engineering projects... which sounds an awful lot like Google's "20% Free Time", one of their most productive, innovative management ideas to date.

Everyone likes to bring up the Google Wallet product, since it hasn't been an instant winner. At the IGNITION conference, Chris Haylen (Vice President and General Manager of Payments for Intuit) claimed that Google Wallet wasn't successful because their whole strategy was geared under their advertising agenda.  Another popular hypothesis is that they simply don't have the infrastructure to support their solution. Sure, some other companies, like eBay, are celebrating their recent successes in mobile transaction volume, but Google's got something special.


I mean, at least they're not RIM. It's a sad day when you get p0wned by Yahoo.


Finally, even with Google's not so awesome products, we still own it. As seen by this awesome ad.