From the category archives:

Career

401K Match: Is This Employee Perk Going Away or Coming Back?

The 401(k) match has been something employees like myself just took for granted for decades now. While the benefit varies company to company, the conventional wisdom had always been to make sure you contribute at least enough to max out the company match since it’s free money. In essence, if your company provides a 50% [...]

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With Bleak Job Market, Should College Students Go Right to Grad School?

Frustratingly, the job market environment is so bleak that many graduating college students are starting to question what to do with their degrees. The offers are few and far between, the jobs they were targeting have no openings, and the starting salaries aren’t what they anticipated in an environment where even tenured employees are seeing [...]

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Are You Pro-Business or Pro-Worker? Why is That?

I often think back to my teenage jobs and wonder how those experiences translated into my current outlook on work, business, capitalism and life in general. One theme I used to encounter frequently as a low-wage unskilled worker was the plight of the business owner vs. the plight of the worker. I recall being surrounded [...]

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Did Your Raise Suck This Year? Mine Kinda Did.

In the midst of a very rough economic environment, the same message is being echoed by millions of employees regarding low or nonexistent raises for the year. According to the Conference Board, the average raise in 2010 will be 2.8%, which is the lowest in 25 years. In my case, my annual raise was lower [...]

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The SEC Likes Porn in the Office – Share Your Ridiculous Work Stories

Why doesn’t it surprise me that the SEC ignored Bernie Madoff? They were too busy looking at PORN!?! According to this outrageous report, the practice is pretty pervasive at the Securities and Exchange Commission – and the consequences aren’t always very stern. This reminds me of some stories I’d heard about employees engaged in rather [...]

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Is it Wrong to Hedge Your Own Company’s Shares?

Last year I wrote a somewhat controversial article on how to sell call options against your underlying company stock option grants or restricted stock grants in order to hedge against a potential decline while forfeiting massive upside should the shares take off (see How Options Work if this is Greek to you). The comments ranged [...]

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How Did Childhood Jobs Influence Your Current Financial Situation?

My wife and I were talking about teaching our kids about money the other day and she mentioned how entrepreneurial our 5 year old seems. I haven’t really started to talk to the kids about money too much other than the piggybank 50/50 save/spend thing which will eventually become a bit more structured. However, this [...]

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Your Wife’s a Gold-Digger – Is She Evil or Just a Forward Thinking Strategist?

The term gold-digger immediately elicits a pronounced response: revulsion. A woman who latches onto a guy (usually; other scenarios apply of course) solely due to his existing or perceived future wealth. Regardless of what she thinks of this man as a person, she has one focus – money. Well, what about a “rational/moderate gold-digger”? photo [...]

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10 Highest Paying Degrees 2010 – Best Majors in Demand Now

The top 10 highest paying majors numbers are out from the National Association of Colleges and Employers and it’s a very interesting mix. The top slots are all very similar to the highest paying majors from the 2009 salary survey with some minor annual increases. The bottom of the list changed a bit. What I [...]

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