Random Thoughts X: Impromptu Interpretations

[Valka D'Ur]

It's not that cheap, I just live in a rather not particularly good apartment.
Maybe if I get to 1000 euro/month I will consider moving (though I'd rather just emigrate, tbh, I am sick of the hot weather anyway, I'd apply for work in Canada if I knew how to do it).

Good thing with the online seminars is that I don't need to be here.

Are you still particular about what climate you'd want? 'Cause as I recall, you don't like snow or anything below double-digits C. Therefore, southwest British Columbia would be the only region that would suit you year-round (bonus: you'd be in the same province as Synsensa and one province west of me ).

Thanks, I will have a look
At least in Canada I won't have to do anything to have my british uni degree be usable (I suppose they are automatically accepted as of the same value of an analogous degree in Canada? In some second world countries they are not, eg in Greece).

It depends on the field. Anything medical related tends to require some kind of test or re-certification red tape. But since your field is writing/teaching, it shouldn't be as much hassle.

That said, I really don't know. Aimee has linked some good information.

 

[MaryKB]

That's like 817 dollars a week USD (1093 CAD). That's a lot of money for one week.

Yeah, I guess it's survivable, but it wouldn't be comfortable.

 

[EgonSpengler]

According to the U.S. Dept. of Labor, the median weekly wage in this country for the 2nd quarter of 2020 was $1,002, before taxes and deductions. I assume the numbers being cited on the previous page are take-home pay? I think $1,000 a week for most Americans works out to ~$750 after taxes and whatnot.

These weekly earnings do include tips & commissions, but don't include unemployment insurance or other assistance. It's also "full-time wage and salary workers", so I suppose it doesn't include part-time workers or earnings on wealth? Or maybe it uses Full Time Equivalents, which would make it even harder to apply these numbers to actual people. I haven't read the whole thing, maybe it clarifies itself in the later pages. It's a datum to throw into your mental spreadsheet, anyway.

As an aside, the table on page 5 shows the alarming drop in the workforce, from 118,556,000 in Q4 2019 to 104,222,000 in Q2 2020. I'm bracing myself for the 3rd & 4th quarter workforce numbers.

 

[MaryKB]

Is that individual or household?

I think a thing to remember too, is that once you get used to something, it's very difficult to scale back.

(All pay numbers are Net/Takehome)

When I was a teller, I subsisted off of $300 a week. I paid my rent, car payment, insurance, phone bill, utilities, and cable. I had a little bit left every week for food, clothes, and fun. I learned how to make my money go far.

10 years ago, our weekly take-home pay was about $600 between the two of us (my boyfriend and I) We made things work, but always felt like we didn't have enough.

2 years later, my pay was up to about $600 a week, while his was still at about $300. We got by pretty decently on $900.

5 years ago, my weekly pay was about $800, and he was still barely hovering over $300 (he was getting the minimum possible raise every year, like about 1%) $1,100 a week was nice, but he was spending a lot of my money.

2 years ago, after I got my promotion, I was bringing home about $1,000 a week. He was gone, so I was paying for everything on my own, but I also didn't have him eating up so much of it either.

I got another nice raise this year, and my take-home is $1,200 a week. My husband adds about another $1,000. And I'm really used to it now. You can't backtrack on lifestyle upgrades.

It's so weird though. It's like I'm making 4x what I was a decade ago, and it's hard to remember how I used to live on that. But back then, I somehow managed, yet now I can't understand how I did. Isn't that so strange?

 

[Phrossack]

I make a fraction of all that, and live in a small apartment in a rougher area with no car. All my job alternatives involve cutting my pay by nearly half...

 

[The_J]

I earn 1/3 of what Mary does (okay, tad bit more), and I have a PhD.
There might be an outlier here .

 

[Kyriakos]

I earn 1/3 of what Mary does (okay, tad bit more), and I have a PhD.
There might be an outlier here .

Hey, it means I can catch up to you, and I live in Greece.
Think about it

(moreover, I just have a BA degree)

 

[The_J]

I just checked the current exchange rate, it's closer to half (1900€ -> 2200$), so you have still a bit to go .

 

[Kyriakos]

I just checked the current exchange rate, it's closer to half (1900€ -> 2200$), so you have still a bit to go .

Indeed, I am not catching up to 1900 any time soon. 1000 is realistic for the near future.

 

[The_J]

According to http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/greece/ this would put you closer to the median income (apparently 17700$ or 15100€), so that wouldn't be too bad.

 

[MaryKB]

I earn 1/3 of what Mary does (okay, tad bit more), and I have a PhD.
There might be an outlier here .

Just my income, or mine and my husband's combined? I don't know that a PhD would guarantee income, it'd really depend on what kind of job you're doing, right?

I am underpaid for my job, which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. The average for employees at my company at my position is $114k. I make about 80% of that, and that's including my bonus.

 

[H4run]

"We should save the money, just cut off the salary, you don't need to pay mine, just save it for other expense I already have too much" I said.
"Who say I gonna pay your salary? I will not pay you, because I simply don't have the money" my CEO told me.
"That's good, there's no need pay me, just get the balance right first, set your priority right, I already have enough saving from the money that you gave me".

That's a conversation that happened not that long time ago. And just today, me and my wife were looking at our mutation, we surprised to see the amount of our money, not as small as we thought it would be, and we realized that he paid nearly half of my salary under such hardship.

Man, for the first time I cannot distinguish the different between kindness and madness.

 

[The_J]

It might be both.

Just my income, or mine and my husband's combined? I don't know that a PhD would guarantee income, it'd really depend on what kind of job you're doing, right?

I am underpaid for my job, which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. The average for employees at my company at my position is $114k. I make about 80% of that, and that's including my bonus.

Only yours, and it was mostly (besides a bit of bragging) to point out that I probably don't earn minimal wage.

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States#Income_distribution , your current income puts you nearly in the top 20% of income, and the 114k would put you into the top 10%. Just FYI.

 

[Takhisis]

for the first time I cannot distinguish the different between kindness and madness.

‘Yes, dear’.

 

[Kyriakos]

If it's too good to be true, it probably isn't.

 

[H4run]

If it's too good to be true, it probably isn't.

He is kind, very kind, but at the very time he is so stubborn and tyrannical. Our cash-flow is crashed because he failed to save money by not following my suggestion on cutting salary consistently since March, he also refused to trim our fat organization structure and want to keep most of employee together. He just cut a small portion of the employee, and cut salary for 1 or 2 month and the rest he keeping the company over-head as in normal day with very little income.

If I were him, I cannot sleep at night right now, because I worried if our company crashed and everything falling apart, all the company owner (whose name written in the legal document) will be in jail. Tf man. Kindness itself is not enough when you are not able to think logically.

Still I poor him a lot, but I cannot stand his stubbornness. My father want me to go out from the company asap, but I cannot because of everything that he already did to me, I cannot just run away and disappear in the time like this.

 

[amadeus]

A nuclear power plant is just a uranium-powered steam engine.

Photo: a Twentieth Century steamship

 

[Ajidica]

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States#Income_distribution , your current income puts you nearly in the top 20% of income, and the 114k would put you into the top 10%. Just FYI.

It was a massive shock to me when I learned my dad's income put my family in the top 10% of income, despite living a "middle class" life in a 'normal' suburban neighborhood and few "luxuries".
Really drives home how unequal American society is.

 

[H4run]

They paid it today. It's clear. And our head-finance coordinating directly with their head-finance and able to reach a better consensus, which the total payment is included with the due payment for the event in 4 october because the invoice just came today. But I still need to face another payment trouble for other venue here.

Actually, it's better for this company to change me with a lawyer or a legal, this is not a kind of dispute that I really prepared for. In the meantime I contact my long lost best friend, now he is supplying pcr test in Jakarta to some hospital, and gave me lots of pamphlets for me to learn and make offer to some health institution in Bandung. I try to read the pamphlets several time it's thick with medical jargon, it's quite hard to understand how the tools work and the advantage of the product, however I really see a huge potential in this business, so I need to master the product knowledge asap.

 

[The_J]

It was a massive shock to me when I learned my dad's income put my family in the top 10% of income, despite living a "middle class" life in a 'normal' suburban neighborhood and few "luxuries".
Really drives home how unequal American society is.

This is not unique to you.
It seems we in general think that what we are/think/do is pre-dominant, and that everything else is unusual.
This wiki article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naïve_realism_(psychology) is very useful, and to some extend also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consensus_effect .