Darwin's Finance » Career

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

Darwin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 02:17:52 +0000

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 salary freezes and reductions. That begs the question as to whether it’s even worth entering the job market at this time if other options present themselves. Here are a few considerations:

Why Grad School?

Primarily, you’ve got to ask yourself whether you really want or need a graduate degree. There are such diverse choices from continuing your undergrad with an M.S. or PhD in a similar discipline to your undergrad, to an MBA, law degree or medical school, there are definitely merits to having that graduate degree, but before rushing in due to the current circumstances, you’ve got to think about whether the approach and the timing are right. If you’ve always wanted to be a doctor and were heading down this path anyway, it’s a no-brainer (if you’ve got the funding capabilities). Same with law school. However, MBA programs are often different. It’s often recommended that you have some industry experience FIRST, then pursue an MBA. Otherwise, you’ve basically a school-smart, street novice going through an MBA program with little or no real-world experience to apply in the classroom.

Something that students don’t always consider is that a graduate degree doesn’t necessarily make you any more attractive to employers. Often times, work experience is more important. There are many “MBA preferred” listings that go to non-MBAs that have the 2-3 years work experience instead of an MBA. And same with Master’s degrees. A Chemical Engineer with a couple years experience in the lab or the plant is often viewed as more valuable than a wide-eyed recent Master’s program graduate. This is a trade-off to think about.

Who’s Paying?

This is a huge factor. If the bank of mom and dad stand ready and willing to fund your graduate studies, then perhaps it makes sense for you personally financially, family factors aside. Now may be a better time than when you’re working and trying to raise a family. However, if you’re paying for it out of your own pocket (likely taking on large loans), now may not be the best time. Even though the job offerings out there may not be ideal, if you can land a job with a college tuition reimbursement program, even though it’s not your ideal job now, pragmatically speaking, it is a way to fund your degree. This isn’t cool for the employer if you’re completely using them, but who knows, perhaps the role turns into something you’d want to stick with the the degree opens more doors for you. I interviewed a candidate once who admitted as much in a bit of TMI, so of course, I didn’t recommend him for an offer since I knew he’d jump ship as soon as his PhD was complete. But people do this. Just like companies opportunistically hire and retire employees, graduating students need to think about what the optimal set of benefits are they can realize from their various employment opportunities (if they even present themselves).

Grad School Bubble?

There are probably a lot of people thinking the same thing right now. With no viable offers and the capability to complete a degree now while they’re young, there’s likely to be a larger class of students entering and graduating from these programs in the next few years. There are also tons of for-profit and online outfits popping up. This could lend itself to a bit of a bubble, or perhaps the perception that the current class of students (in aggregate) is in some way flawed – a bunch of kids who couldn’t get jobs out of college so they completed random graduate degrees. Perception is reality when it comes to the hiring process, so it’s important to ensure you’re attending a top school or program that employers will really find useful, not just going back to school for the sake of doing so while riding out a poor job market.

While such a heavy decisions is weighted by so many factors, I think if I had a decent job prospect that offers tuition benefits after some period of time, I’d probably take the job and go to school at night. However, if the job market is still unforgiving after months and the resources are available to obtain a valuable degree (in my estimation), I might just jump right into grad school. And of course, for law school or medical school, the plan probably would have been to skip the corporate world and continue with education right out of the undergrad program anyway.

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

Darwin — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 01:15:31 +0000

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 by employees who were continuously criticizing the business owner or corporation as being “cheap” or not treating them right. It was usually the same cliques that had been around for a while, often older and likely to be doing the same type of work throughout their adult life, but sometimes it was a teenager like myself. Occasionally, I’d play devil’s advocate and ask why it is they feel that way or what their suggestions were for management to be more “equitable”. The answers ranged from higher pay to the notion that employees should all “share the profits”. I questioned why the company would do that if they didn’t have to. The employees after all were usually in and out of the place every 6 months to a year, they never put up a dime of their own money to start the business and they had nothing vested in the business. These suggestions didn’t make sense to me, but they made perfect sense to the high-minded 30-somethings working the register. I get that experience and company loyalty should translate into increased pay over time (that’s what a raise is), but the sense of entitlement in the environment seemed over the top when I put myself in the owner’s shoes.

The Feed Store

One of my first jobs was at a feed store which both delivered feed to surrounding farms as well as a retail store in town which catered to all your typical domestic animals as well as farm animals and horses. The owner was a 50-something guy who apparently was an early investor (or co-founder allegedly) in Border’s Books but sold out very early and missed out on a huge windfall. He had parlayed a mild payout from years prior into this feed store. As I recall, I was paid the going rate for unskilled labor which was a bit over minimum wage. I worked probably 20 hours per week and I got a break or two per day. During the summer that I worked, we drove around in a truck, listened to music, ate lunch where and when we wanted and got some exercise to boot – not bad work as I saw it. The owner also threw us a Christmas party at his expense and gave a small Christmas bonus. And he was Jewish.

What I found to be somewhat annoying was the constant jabs employees took behind his back about how rich he was, how cheap he was, how much more they should be paid, etc. It just didn’t sit well with me based on my assessment. I mean, the guy was 50-something driving a crappy car and working around the clock running his store while trying to open another. His son worked at the store too and his wife did book-keeping. I’d been to his house once and it was a typical middle class suburban home. Outwardly, he didn’t appear to be particularly wealthy. And what if he was? Good for him. He had over the years taken substantial business risks with his own money, put his own blood, sweat and tears into his business, and paid his employees the going market rate.

The Grocery Store

Another teenage gig of mine was a ShopRite grocery store. I used to work relatively fast and efficiently. I enjoyed the work, the pace, and of course a paycheck. I recall on certain tasks like inventory, restocking shelves, etc., I’d get a little attitude from some of my co-workers that by working so fast, “management would expect it to get done that quickly all the time”. Reading between the lines, they wanted me to slow down. I was ruining their gig. The cigarette breaks and goofing off would be in jeopardy if they were expected to increase their output. I wasn’t out to be a hero or martyr myself for the local supermarket, but this type of mentality and behavior started to educate me on the thinking of “the worker” vs. “the business”. As a young child I imagined workers and the business existed in some sort of harmony looking to achieve a common goal (textbook naivety), the reality was that many employees viewed productivity as a zero-sum game. The more productive they were, the harder they’d be expected to work – and the more overtime hours would dry up. Thus, slow down and demand more.

Present Day

Aside from my current workplace, I hear from a lot of people in professional roles – both friends and in comments and posts from around the blogosphere. A lot of people are rightly concerned and annoyed by the financial crisis and the indirect impact it’s had on their incomes. It’s tough not to be frustrated when you hear that your company beat earnings expectations by a few cents, yet there’s no raise this year. On the flipside, what’s the competition doing? If your company’s competitors are doing the same thing or your industry is facing increasing pressure from various forces (overseas manufacturing, declining product relevance, whatever), while the current quarter’s profit may be front and center, perhaps company leadership is looking more strategically at just how difficult things are going to be for the company years down the road and they’re making tough choices to stay competitive now and avoid layoffs outright. Some people view what’s going on as the unfortunate by-product of another boom-bust cycle with the inevitable casualties ranging from layoffs to decreased real wages, bonuses and benefits in the present with the expectation that during the next boom, jobs will be growing, competition to retain workers will result in increased compensation and things will improve overall. To the contrary, some people, even in relatively high positions voice surprisingly negative views on how their company treats their employees. In many cases, they’re right. In some cases, it just doesn’t seem to reflect reality.

In these various relationships and interactions, I’ve started to view people as being in one of two camps – pro-worker or pro-business. If you’ve followed me for a bit, you can tell I’m pro-business. I get why corporations do what they do. I sometimes don’t agree, but I see where they’re coming from. I don’t mean to belittle or chastise the opposing view. I mean, if I’m a miner at Massey Energy I probably wouldn’t be feeling very pro-company these days. In some businesses, nepotism runs rampant. And how could an ex-employee of Enron not be cynical about corporate America? I think a lot depends on historical and personal perspective. That leads to my question:

Are You Pro-Business or Pro-Worker? Why

Did Your Raise Suck This Year? Mine Kinda Did.

Darwin — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 10:22:32 +0000

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 than normal. Because I blog anonymously but some friends and co-workers do follow, I’ll refrain from sharing the exact number, but directionally speaking, it was the lowest annual raise I’ve had in 10 years if I recall. I should qualify that with the fact that my prior raises had always been higher than the company average, so I don’t have a particular gripe with this year’s raise, but what I experienced this year is in line with what I’m hearing at other corporations as well. I was thinking about both the implications and the causes.

Why Are Raises Low This Year?

In talking to friends at other companies that were disappointed by their annual raise, they said in some cases, management gave out no raise whatsoever across the board. They had cited flat or low inflation year over year as a justifying factor. Other companies are citing shrinking profits or an uncertain financial climate moving forward.
My take?

They’re not giving out substantial raises because they don’t have to.

Why would they? Compensation is all about supply and demand and retaining your top talent. Even high performers with degrees in demand are staying put. Here’s why companies could probably be even more stingy and employees would still stay:

The job market is stagnant. While I still see some decent volume and prospects through The Ladders notifications (which are great by the way – they focus solely on six-figure salaries and hone email updates to relevant location/titles/roles only), you just don’t see people jumping jobs like they used to. The openings aren’t there. Why?
People are risk-averse right now, and rightly so. During the internet boom, anyone that could code was jumping from company to company annually chasing a sweeter deal. They had no qualms about going to a startup that may fail because they could just fall back on another hot job with a stronger company. There was simply more demand for those jobs than there were people to fill them. Now? Unemployment of very employable and qualified people is higher than this generation has ever seen. If you’ve got a job now, you want to keep it. Heck, I Passed on a 90% Pay Increase in this economy.
Putting Off Retirement – People that weren’t laid off already are working longer. After taking a haircut in their retirement accounts, many people now intend on working years later than what they probably envisioned a few years ago. This is going to further suppress new job openings for years to come.
Productivity is up. Companies really got lean during this prior recession and found ways to cut costs and jobs that will likely NEVER come back, no matter what kind of stimulus or intervention the government tries to throw at it.
People can’t afford to relocate! Even high pay roles are now being offered with no relocation assistance or limited benefits. When you were sitting on a six-figure gain on your home value, it was really easy to jump up and move to another state (it was almost like an added signing bonus to tap that piggy bank every few years). Now, people are looking at taking a huge loss to move. This means companies don’t have to backfill jobs from departing employees.

All these factors have basically pushed the equation WAY in favor of corporations and away from the interests of employees seeking further wage increases. That being said, what I’m hearing most is “I don’t really care what raise they gave me this year, it’s not like I’d leave over it!”. So, in essence, I guess anyone that got a raise at all this year should be content.

What Are the Implications of Years of Low Salary Increases?

This is a rather grim self-fulfilling prophecy in that with lower annual raises, something’s gotta give. It seems as though, at least for the time being Americans have smartened up a bit under the New Normal. Savings rates are up and consumption is down. But that’s not good for job growth in industries that rely on consumption – travel, retail, just about every facet of our economy.

The silver lining is that with wage growth suppressed to this degree, even though there’s rampant money printing going on at the moment, it’s unlikely to result in hyperinflation as long as unemployment remains in the high single digits and salaries aren’t growing quickly. Frankly, Americans would rather have some inflation and a job, but we don’t have the luxury of choosing.

With these factors in mind, I could envision a scenario where annual raises continue to proceed at the 1-3% range for a couple years. What will be interesting to see as well is how union contracts are negotiated since they’re generally multi-year contracts and typically demand 3-5% annual raises regardless of economic conditions. Negotiations could become rather tough there as well for both private sector unions as well as public sector unions where states are facing major budget cutbacks as well. So, while I saw a rather low annual raise on the year, I wasn’t surprised nor am I angry over it given the environment. It beats a layoff!

Did Your Raise Suck?

What was your raise this year and did you think it was fair?

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

Darwin — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 12:10:11 +0000

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 outrageous behavior both at my workplace as well as stories I’ve heard from other people. I’ve never had intimate (no pun intended) knowledge of a subordinate or peer looking at this stuff at work, but there were plenty of rumors following mysterious departures. Occasionally, someone would be terminated with no explanation and a few weeks later, it would be rumored that it was due to either sexual harassment or viewing inappropriate content online. Aside from those activities that are sure to (or should) result in a pink slip, I recall some behaviors that went unchecked for some time until the employees left on their own.

There was one guy running a computer hardware business out of the office. He basically had some hardware website and was doing all sorts of sales and inventory stuff all day. He used to try and sell us stuff.
Another guy was taking flying lessons – I swear, he had a steering wheel and flight simulator software going and used to test fly airplanes at his desk.
And another guy was running a towing business on the side (he always had to “take a call” on his cell, like 20 times per day).
Back when MySpace was popular (seems like a long time ago), one supervisor was viewing her subordinate’s personal profile and comparing the times he was posting online which happened to be during business hours. She put an end to that. Personally, that seemed a bit over the top if you ask me to be invading someone else’s personal profile to check on what they’re doing at work rather than just monitor what they’re actually doing on the job, but I guess if they were goofing off a lot instead of working, then there’s some justification. I can just say I’ve never fished around for profiles and checked internet info on anyone that’s ever worked for me. These days with Facebook, just about everyone’s on there at some point during the workday.

None of the prior 4 employees were terminated; they all left on their own for various reasons, but the first 3 were likely violating company protocol in some fashion.

I don’t know, call me stupid, but I just assume I’m being watched all the time. It’s the company’s computer and their time, right? Checking out the sports scores over lunch should be no big deal. When it’s even borderline inappropriate visuals or content though, no way! How stupid does one have to be to do this stuff at work?

There’s always the gray area in between too, which is spending too much time online at clean sites or on the phone. Companies seem to not put those rules in black and white since they probably like to retain the ability to be flexible (i.e. ignore it when the top performers do it and go after lackluster performers for borderline behavior). I guess it comes down to whether you’d feel you’re able to defend your actions if challenged.

That being said, what are some of the crazy stories you’ve encountered with employees doing outrageous stuff on the job?

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

Darwin — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:00:23 +0000

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 from cries of conflict of interest to “that’s what our company specializes in – it’s normal”. My personal opinion was, and still is, that for a mid-level employee like myself, this is a rather moderate/conservative method of preserving income/asset values from my hard-earned work rather than seeing annual option grant after grant disappear into thin air as the company stock followed the rest of the economy in what was the “lost decade” where stocks basically went nowhere from 2001-2010.

I basically take in several hundred dollars per year in option premiums which works out optimally for a flat or moderate rise in company stock.

Where it becomes a bit more questionable is when an executive or CEO who is clearly in possession of insider knowledge (future earnings outlook, strategic direction, impending risks/upsides that will inevitably impact share prices) starts embarking on much more elaborate, and financially significant hedges to the tune of several million dollars per year. This week’s BusinessWeek did an article on more elaborate hedges with some disturbing statistics attached to the hedging timing. In essence, in companies where the executives embarked on major hedges of their own company stock (and rightly publicized in company filings), the shares tended to greatly under-perform in the period following versus both their peer group and the market at large.

What this chart is showing is that executives somehow tend to perfectly time the peak when they sell hedges against their underlying shares and then share performance suffers following. Inevitably, this leaves a bad taste in the mouths of investors, who didn’t enjoy the same market timing “luck”.

While the article doesn’t outline a similar strategy to the one I outlined where I sell calls against company stock outright, two variants that executives are keen on are the following from the same BusinessWeek article:

SCENARIO ONE: ZERO-COST COLLARS
This hedge puts a “collar,” i.e., a floor and ceiling, around the price an executive gets paid for stock
1. An executive wants to protect 2 million shares, currently worth $100 each, against a big drop in the stock.
2. He buys a put option on the stock from a broker, which gives him the right to sell his shares at a given price, say $95. If the stock drops below $95, he sells at that price and suffers no further losses.
3. To pay for the put, the executive simultaneously has his broker sell a call option on his stock. The call gives a buyer the right to acquire the shares at a set price if they rise, say to 110.
4. If the stock goes above $110 while the call option is in effect, the executive must sell his shares to the buyer; if the shares remain between $95 and $110 during the life of the two options, he holds on to all his stock. And during the life of the collar, he can borrow fundsÃ¢â‚¬â€generally up to 50% of the value of his shares.
SCENARIO TWO: PREPAID VARIABLE FORWARD CONTRACT (PVF)
This is the more popularÃ¢â‚¬â€and complexÃ¢â‚¬â€hedge strategy.
A PVF sale revolves around a contract established between a senior executive and an investment bank, and it frees up more cash without initially requiring that the executive sell his stock or pay capital-gains tax.
1. Now the executive hedges those 2 million shares worth $100 apiece with a three-year PVF. He agrees on a floor and a ceiling price with the bankÃ¢â‚¬â€again, say $95 and $110.
2. In the meantime, to protect itself from a loss if the shares fall below $95, the investment bank will generally short the company’s shares. It also collects fees on the contract.
3. At the end of three years, if the shares fall below $95, the executive simply turns over his 2 million shares. He keeps the cash he received in advance and has limited his downside.
4. If, on the other hand, the shares have risen, he can settle up with the bank in cash. He hangs onto the shares and profits from any further rise in the stock.
5. Or he can pay the bank back in stock; the exact number of shares will depend on how the stock performs. The better the stock does during the life of the hedge, the fewer shares he’ll owe.
6. The executive receives a cash advance from the bank that generally equals up to 85% of the value of his stock at the time of the hedge, or in this case, $170 million.

While these strategies are slightly more complex than the one I initially outlined and have followed myself, and all 3 of these are legal, don’t violate securities laws or company policies, apparently, the concept of hedging against your own company stock (some would call this “betting” on your company’s shares to decline) rubs many people the wrong way. Personally, I am a bit alarmed by what the data shows about the executive moves who clearly are aware of impending stock moves, but I still stand behind offloading some risk of underlying options for lower level employees that have no insider information, are making peanuts-type trades once per year and have a routine/recurring strategy for doing this annually, so there’s no “market timing” going on.

What Are Your Thoughts?
Is It Wrong For Executives to Hedge Shares?
Is It Wrong for Worker Bee Employees to Hedge Shares?

How Did Childhood Jobs Influence Your Current Financial Situation?

Darwin — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 12:50:40 +0000

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 topic of our 5 year old being so interested in starting a lemonade stand and making money at his age had me reminiscing about some of the early jobs I had. In retrospect, I think many of these experiences in my formative years had an influence on my current financial habits and interests.

Under 10 Years Old

Welcome to My Childhood - My father was definitely from the old school (which I value much more now than I did at the time) and didn’t believe in this “video game crap”, kids with soft hands and goofing off all the time. He always kept us busy either with sports, work or study. We had playtime with our friends too of course, but if it was a nice summer day and I was in the basement watching the latest Transformers or G.I. Joe (isn’t funny how these are new movies again?), it would burn him up to no end. Sleeping in was forbidden as well. He’d scream up the stairs, “Get off your back, put on your pack soldier!” followed by some sort of bad bugle impression and I’d be blasted out of bed unceremoniously. This taught me to wake up early so I didn’t have to meet that untimely wakeup call.

Splitting Wood, Gardening - Anyway, in my early years, I learned how to do everything from plant seeds and pick vegetables to mow the lawn and split wood. On the side, my father delivered firewood for years. He’d go to developments where they were clearing lots and load up huge logs on his truck or cut them up with the chainsaw there and put the rolls in the truck. He’d bring them home and we’d split them. We had a wood burning stove so this exercise certainly spared us considerable heating costs each year, but he also sold cords of wood at night and on weekends. I don’t recall all the specifics, but I think in his peak years, he was selling probably 100 cords a year at something like $100 each, so he’d pull in an extra $10,000 a year. I had no clue about income and expenses and what it would cost to send me to college someday, but in retrospect, I can see why he did it. He also liked to stay in shape and it was definitely a workout!

Vegetable Stand – We had enough land to have a decent sized vegetable garden growing everything from corn and peas to pumpkins and zucchini. I recall we’d pick a bunch of vegetables and there would be way more than we could possibly eat without spoiling, so he’d set me up with a stand by the road. I’d sell stuff for a quarter for this, 50 cents for that. Before you know it, by the end of the day, I’d have taken in like 7 or 8 bucks. I learned about making change, upselling (yes, I used to try and get people to buy even more stuff than what they asked for, I just didn’t know it was an actual marketing ploy at the time), dealing with people and I saw the entire cycle from start to finish – from planting seeds through harvest through sale. I was really learning about how the world works. Money didn’t just grow on trees, but indirectly, over time and with hard work, it kind of did!

10-15 Years Old

A Job For Every Season – While some of the garden stuff continued, I outgrew the vegetable stand thing and I started to translate chores I had at home into money elsewhere in the neighborhood. In the winter, we had to shovel snow. In the summer, we had to mow the lawn. In the fall, we had to rake and blow leaves. We had a fair number of elderly neighbors who willingly took up the opportunity to have leaves taken care of twenty bucks or a lawn mowed for twenty bucks or sidewalks shoveled for 5 bucks. Eventually, in the summers, I had some standing lawn-mowing jobs for about twenty bucks per week if I recall. In one case, my dad had to load the lawnmower on the back of the truck and drive across town. I recall dodging the vicious German Shepard endearingly named “socks” that would lay down and pretend to be asleep near his dog house and then lunge at me as I mowed near his doghouse. Anyway, it was surely a hassle for my dad to drive me all the way over to my brother’s baseball coach’s house to mow his lawn each Saturday, but he did it so I could have a scheduled job. Sure, there were some Saturdays that I wanted to just lay around or go hang with my friends, but I learned to work around it. It was a commitment, an obligation I had, to get that lawn mowed each weekend and make it up Sundays if it rained.

16 Years Old

Retail – By sixteen, I was getting to be the age where I could work in retail stores with other kids my age but I wasn’t quite driving yet. I worked at a Bradlees, which was kind of like a K-Mart of the time. That was kind of a boring retail cash register-type job, but I had learned some skills in regards to working efficiently, making change, doing quick calculations in my head, diffusing angry customer confrontations and other skills that probably indirectly transferred to later roles.

Animals Need Food Too – For an entire summer and part of the school year, I worked at a “Feed Farm” delivering horse feed and other large animal feed to farmers. I used to have to carry 2 fifty pound bags at a time off the truck, up ladders, down stairs, all kinds of places where the farmers wanted the feed. When we weren’t on a run, I had to work in the feed store, which I didn’t like quite as much. I found inventory and the register there to be quite boring. I was kind of drawn to the camaraderie of driving around the state with the driver, delivering feed and seeing all kinds of different farms and animals. The pay wasn’t great though and the owner was notoriously cheap. My parents drove me to these jobs since I didn’t drive yet.

17 Years Old

The “Big Time” at the Grocery – Once I had my car, I started working at a ShopRite (typical large grocery store). I had started on typical inventory/cashier type positions. I recall working much more quickly and efficiently than most. I had employed this double-handed scanning technique where I would whip the stuff by on the scanner and someone with a $300 order would be done in no time. I’d spin around and bag stuff if they weren’t (I never understood people who stood there and watched me bag 400 items instead of helping move things along themselves) and then jump back on the scanner and whip stuff through. I was quickly promoted to what they called “Front-End”. It was kind of like a supervisory position, I guess, where I was in charge of keeping things moving and it had financial responsibilities as well. I had to count the cashier’s drawers at the end of the night and report discrepancies, address customer complaints, run around for a price check now and then, over-ride cash registers for mistakes, schedule the cashier breaks and such. It was a definite morale boost being promoted into somewhat of a leadership role at that age, being given charge over people with more tenure and age then myself, presumably due to some efficiencies and leadership skills I had demonstrated early on. When I was getting ready to go off to college, I remember the store manager expressing disappointment that I’d be leaving and he offered me an assistant manager role there, but I had my heart set on college.

College – School in Session

Snotty Clothing Store – While in college, I had worked a few odd jobs ranging from a stint at Abercrombie & Fitch which had those “big shirts” that all the cool people (so we thought) were wearing at the time. We were able to get decent discounts of like 30 or 40% off by working there, but I didn’t like the job at all. Snobs, snobs, snobs.

Tutoring Paid Dividends! - I also tutored chemistry since I had taken to it in highschool and college. As luck would have it, that’s how I landed my wife! She wasn’t doing well in her chem class and a mutual friend introduced us so I could tutor her and that was that! Since then, I’ve learned much more from her than she has from me, but it’s funny how a thing like a college side job can have such a fateful influence on the rest of your life.

The Future is Metals (maybe) – My senior year, I had a decent gig tied to my major where I worked in a development lab for metal injection molding at Allied Signal. It was supposed to be the technology of the future for making everything from golf clubs to watches. I’m sure if it ever took off or not, but it was a good learning experience that I was able to cite during my subsequent job interview process.

College – Summers

Dodging Dogs and Dirty Looks – I mixed it up during summers. For two summers, I had a summer intern job for my Dad’s insurance company measuring the houses of the insured for “reassessment”, basically making sure if they added square footage, deck, etc., they were properly insured. I had to deal with angry people that didn’t read their mail to know I was coming, didn’t answer their door, and then when I started measuring, threatened me since I was on their property. In two cases, they literally “sic’d” their dog on me. It was like something out of a movie. Also, my colleague was mugged for his Polaroid camera on an inner-city jaunt. Decent job, decent pay, not relevant to my major.

Tree Work is No Walk in the Park – Another summer, I worked for my brother who owned a tree service. He jobs both large and small from clearing entire lots with heavy equipment to just removing fallen trees off people’s houses, etc. It was backbreaking work, but it was a fun bunch of guys and I got to spend a lot of time with my older brother that summer, which was shortly before he stopped talking to our entire family after marrying a truly evil woman (sad but true, long story).

So Much Promise…My final summer job was supposed to be related to my Chemical Engineering role to help me land a job post-graduation. It was a classmate’s dad’s company that applied coatings and paints to siding. Sounds boring, but it was sold as a way to optimize manufacturing processes, develop new coatings, work in the plant, etc. using my degree. It was a total lie. I ended up climbing on rolls of aluminum each day in a hot warehouse for inventory “cycle counts”, and I worked on some new computer system install they were doing. It was pretty annoying that I was duped into a useless internship for my final summer.

Finally, My First Real Job!

After all that, I landed a job in biopharma manufacturing. After working very long hours for years, I transitioned into a technical role and some business roles including the present project management role with an MBA along the way. While Chemical Engineering is a perennial top paying job at graduation (see the top majors for 2010 by salary), I didn’t stay within that discipline for long at all.

Early Learnings

I can’t say that any one of the jobs I had in my youth had a huge impact on my professionally, but I think the cumulative experience of the various jobs and my upbringing had a great deal to do with the current success and satisfaction I have now in everything from my career to my marriage to how I raise my children now. I learned how people treat “workers” when I was all dirty hauling logs in the summer or carrying bags of horse and pig food through smelly barns. I always make sure to treat people doing work for us with kindness and respect. I learned about leadership and building trust and friendships on the job. I learned that life isn’t always fair. I also learned that money isn’t everything. These are things that kids that don’t work often don’t learn until it’s too late – in their first real job.

What Were Your Most Influential Jobs Earlier in Life?

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

Darwin — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 12:54:00 +0000

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 credit: appears in too many places to figure out.

Some will view this post as perhaps tasteless, stereotypical and unrelated to typical content here. Well, keep an open mind and consider the topic objectively – from an economic incentive/human behavior angle as opposed to your own personal relationship. The intent is to make you think, not insult you.

The Conversation

I was having a conversation with my wife the other day – you know, the insipid yet entertaining conversation where you say “what if this, what if that, what’s the real reason we got together, if I died would you re-marry, etc.?”. We got to talking about the usual ridiculous scenarios like what she’d do to me (actually, what she’d pay someone else to do to me) if I ever got caught cheating, etc…you know, you’ve all been there. Anyway, in jest, I said, “If we divorced or I died, you’d totally go for a rich guy. You’d never marry someone who didn’t have money”. While I expected her reply to be “That’s not true, money’s no object; that’s insulting…”, she said, “So? At least I admit it!”. I was initially surprised by this blunt admission and yelled half-jokingly, “See! You’re a Gold-Digger. Why the Hell’d you marry me?”. However, she qualified it with,

“I’m wasn’t gonna marry a slacker. I expect my husband to work hard and have similar goals and aspirations. I’m a hard worker and I’m ambitious; I’m not going to marry someone who doesn’t take their career and money seriously. I want my kids to be able to go to college; I want them to travel. I don’t want to have to work into my seventies. I want a certain lifestyle for my family and I don’t think I’d be happy in a marriage where we couldn’t do those things”.

I said, “So, if you fell in love with a starving artist or musician, you wouldn’t marry him?”. She replied that she’d never fall in love with someone like that to begin with. It’s a chicken or the egg scenario I guess, but her argument has merit. When I think about it, most of the couples we know have very specific traits in common. While there’s something to be said for opposites attracting (for instance, extrovert vs. introvert in our marriage, distaste in each others’ music, my disdain and her love of romantic comedies, etc.), now that I think about many of our friends, family and co-workers,

There’s often a strong correlation in couples related to:

College Degreed vs. Non-Degreed – very few mixed combinations
Hard Workers vs. Slackers – both tend to be one or the other
Ambitious vs. Ambivalent – both are usually very passionate/interested in success, money, health, the kids, whatever or they’re not

For instance, in about 95% of our acquaintance couples, both partners have either a college degree or they don’t. My wife and I each have a B.S. and a Masters. We have a mix of friends/family that are either non-degreed or both degreed. There are a couple exceptions. Even though my wife’s home with the kids now and now that it’s been several years across 3 kids and I joke that she’ll never go back to teaching, I’m still acutely aware of her intelligence, ambition and her dedication to her role. I never had an appreciation for how many hours a teacher actually works per week until we moved in together. Similarly, the 60-90 hours per week I worked earlier in my career weren’t lost on her either. Now that I moved out of an Operations role, I’ve replaced about 30 hours per week with kid stuff from 6-9PM and blog work from 9-11PM many nights. We still don’t often sit around watching TV or sleep 8 hours now that our career demands have changed. There’s stuff to do!

In looking at other factors, in cases where someone’s a really hard worker, a hustler, someone who makes things happen, their spouse is too. The opposite is often true as well.

*Disclosure: Admittedly, I am somewhat lazy around the house compared to both my wife and other husbands in comparision – I admit it. I don’t whittle new bookshelves for the kids or put in new French Doors at the snap of a finger. My wife does all the laundry at night while I blog – (which is much more enjoyable) and when a kid’s crying, it’s usually my wife getting out of bed to comfort them. I’m not claiming to be the hardest working guy you’ll ever meet. I’d just put my wife and I at least in the same ballpark though.

This exercise also isn’t meant to convey that if you don’t have a college degree, you’re not a hard worker and won’t realize financial success. In fact, many non-degreed friends and family we know are business owners, hustlers (in a positive sense), and possess better technical and leadership skills than many white collar professionals we know and work with. Be it running a landscaping company, a restaurant, a computer tech, a CAD expert or whatever career it is, many people realize success in life in these fields with no degree. Note that a very prominent topic today is whether college costs are even worth it, bucking the conventional wisdom that a college degree was the only way to ensure success in America.

Regardless, I don’t know if this is an initial attraction thing, if people change once they get married and a dominant factor takes over both personalities consistently or if it’s something else, but there seems to be a strong correlation in these factors at least amongst the couple dozen people in mind.

Wall Street Divorces: The Gold-Diggers that Married Multi-Millionaires

Here’s an interesting study in gold-digging (this is great). I have a buddy who’s intimately involved in the legal/financial proceedings of high net worth divorces – many of which are in the Wall Street crowd given his clientele and locale. In 2008, as the economic collapse unfolded, the news pundits quipped authoritatively that we’re going to see a spike in divorces amongst the Wall Street crowd. The logic was that so many of these trophy wives married rich Wall Street employees with money on their mind and now that they were getting laid off, seeing bonuses chopped, etc., these gold-diggers were going to walk – the value proposition change. It sounded plausible given the stereotypes of gold-diggers targeting rich guys.

A year later, at least according to my friend, that’s not how it played out. Get this – what actually started to happen, was, instead of wives saying to themselves, “OK, I want out. I married this guy for a 7 figure salary and now he’s unemployed”, what actually happened was these rich Wall street guys were initiating divorces. What?

These guys are now having conversations with their accountants and divorce lawyers saying, “It’s going to cost me a hell of a lot less to get divorced now than it would have 2 years ago. It may never be this cheap again”. Basically, since the divorce settlement would be comprised substantially of stock-based assets and compensation, and since stocks took a 50% haircut and compensation was down, you have many of these rich guys who are unhappy in their marriages looking to get out while it’s cheap. Putting off a divorce for 2 more years may cost millions! It’s the exact opposite of what the media had portrayed, and what I had assumed, but perhaps these are the traits of some “reverse gold-diggers”, right? Before a certain threshold, these guys hang on to the wives because it’s too damn expensive to divorce them. But when that threshold is crossed and it becomes economically convenient, it’s out to the curb. Crazy, right?

Anyway, that piece wasn’t totally related to the core question, but it further illustrates the difference between real and perceived motivations relating marriage and money.

A few questions in closing:

If you’re a really rich guy and you’re questioning whether your wife married you for the right reasons, well, maybe she did or maybe she didn’t. But maybe she’s a smart, forward thinker who has similar ambitions to yours. Perhaps you should give her some credit.

Conversely, if you’re a guy reading this and your economic prospects are MUCH WORSE than your wife’s personal or potential economic prospects, maybe she really did marry you purely out of love. Or maybe she just didn’t think ahead and she’ll be unhappy when she realizes she didn’t?

*And to anyone relaying this post to my wife (since she doesn’t read this blog but tends to hear about it from friends and family)- I’m not labeling her a gold-digger :>. I didn’t come from money and we were married young just out of college. While I had a top degree in demand coming out of school, I’m not pulling in huge money – we do OK. But she was honest enough to admit that similar ambitions, work ethic and probability of financial security were factors in what attracted her to me.

Thoughts?