Update 4 May 2007 by Amazing Ben Have you seen this story?
I Call "Bullshit" Something about this really bothers me. It's like apparently staying at home, feeding your kids and watching Maury Povich Paternity Test reruns pays the same as me working 40 hours a week every week for roughly four years. I find this difficulty to swallow. Not that I agree with it, especially given some of the sketchy details regarding their calculations, particularly as it relates to the specific "jobs" a housewife (or house-husband, a demographic conspicuously absent from this article) is responsible for. Some of the ten jobs they listed, like "housekeeper", "cook", "day care center teacher" and "laundry machine operator", are fine. Totally makes sense to me. Some of the other ones like "Van Driver" and "Psychologist" seem like a real stretch (especially given that a real honest-to-crap clinical psychologist has like at least eight years of university-level training in the field and a stay-at-home parent often times has a GED at best), but whatever, I guess I'm willing to accept that, even if it's only with a grain of salt. But some of this shit is really out there:
So now all of a sudden looking at internet porn, playing video solitaire and watching YouTubes of drunk people getting kicked in the balls by donkeys is a job? What, do you need like to go to like some sort of third-world vocational school to learn how to Google random shit or list stuff on eBay? Is there actually a Bachelor's Degree in "Computer Operation"? How do I get this job? Just tell me where to sign because I think I've found my true calling in life!
You see, as far as I can tell, the only real "computer operation" jobs are either eight hour a day data entry/word processing stenographer gigs or the sort of job where you program fucking database encryption software in some random computer language that is so goddamned complicated it would make your head explode just by looking at it. Considering how most of the "aspiring housewives" I went to high school with didn't know the difference between a modem and a hard drive and had as much of a chance of successfully burning a data CD as I have of being the first astronaut to land on the surface of the Sun, I'm willing to stake my left nut on the fact that whatever "Computer Operation" your typical stay-at-home is doing is probably not the sort of computer operation job that's going to net you $20-$40K a year.
According to Salary.com, a Facilities Manger "assures the optimal functioning of building systems including mechanical, fire/life safety, elevators etc. May manage a staff of employees in the maintenance of buildings and grounds. May oversee contractors for facilities renovation project entailing, HVAC, electrical, production floor arrangement, etc. May require a bachelors degree and at least 5 years of experience in the field. Relies on experience and judgment to plan and accomplish goals. Typically reports to a senior manager." So is this supposed to represent like staying at home and waiting for the cable guy to show up or telling the plumber that your garbage disposal isn't working properly? Because I gotta tell you that's even more of a stretch than calling yourself a "Psychologist" because you occasionally listen to your spouse complain about his/her day, and the only reason I left that one alone was because I couldn't come up with an entire paragraph of sarcastic snarky shit to write in that section.
Seriously though, a Facilities Manager is the sort of person who not only researches and hires contractors and supervises their work in a hands-on capacity, but who also gets in there and performs many of the building repairs him- or herself, and I don't mean like nailing a picture to the wall or unclogging the drain with a three dollar plunger, either. I'm talking about shit like crawling into the ventilation ducts and cleaning out the HVAC filters, going down the the breaker room and rerouting the electrical systems, and climbing around in empty elevator shafts Gordon Freeman-style looking for the dead rodent that's lodged in the pulley system. I have to say I don't think your typical stay-at-homes are down with that.
This is more than a little pretentious, arrogant and cocky, isn't it? Listen to this description and tell me if you think this is a case of megalomania on a scale generally reserved for measuring earthquakes: "Plans and directs all aspects of an organization's policies, objectives, and initiatives. Responsible for the short- and long-term profitability and growth of the company. May require a bachelor's degree with at least 15 years of experience in the field. Demonstrates expertise in a variety of the field's concepts, practices, and procedures. Relies on extensive experience and judgment to plan and accomplish goals. Performs a variety of tasks. Leads and directs the work of others. A wide degree of creativity and latitude is expected. May preside over board of directors."
A CEO of a successful company formulates economic strategies, develops advertising and logistical policies, manages dozens (if not hundreds) of employees, and does all sorts of buzzword-type web economy bullshit generator kinds of stuff that wouldn't make sense to anybody this side of an upper management conference or a convention of Wikipedia editors with too much time on their hands. The growth and prosperity of multi-million dollar corporations hinge on the CEO, and his or her decisions directly effect the lives of thousands of people. A stay-at-home parent nags their spouse to mow the lawn and tells their kids to go to bed on time. I fail to see the correlation. Since this by far the highest-paying of all the jobs listed, it's hard not to point to this as being in there solely inflate the final income tally, and If you're going to use a job to pad your yearly salary by six figures it had damn well better be something blatantly obvious. This isn't. A stay-at-home parent is as close to being a CEO for managing the day-to-day operation of their family as I am to being a "professional author" for my work on this non-profit website.
If you're going to list "housekeeper" among your jobs, then tacking "janitor" onto the list is redundant at best. By definition, a housekeeper would be responsible for picking up trash and disposing of it properly, and it's not like you would pay a housekeeper an extra twenty grand a year just for throwing away empty water bottles or bringing your trash cans down to the curb on garbage collection day. And technically, I think "custodian" is the correct term here. They really don't appreciate being called janitors. It's demeaning.
As Long as We're In Fantasy Land, Two Can Play at This Stupid Game Since we've completely suspended reality and traveled to the magical fantasy kingdom where we get paid for every little thing we do, where drinking a cup of coffee makes you a "Senior Food & Beverage Quality Control Coordination Manager" and there's actually a job called "Van Driver", let's go ahead and see what I'm worth here. Just for the sake of fairness I'll use Salary.com, and I'll take the "low-median" score across the board for the Greater Boston Area.
Wow, holy shit! Even without factoring in overtime it turns out that I *SHOULD* be making upwards of $700,000 a year, which in actuality is probably more money than I'm going to make in my entire fucking lifetime! Man, am I getting reamed by the fact that nobody's willing to pay me for performing the basic functions necessary for human survival! Add onto this the fact that my wife Andrea does pretty much every single one of these jobs as well (only "Pest Controller" stands out as being squarely in my domain) in addition to her actual real job, PLUS the fact that she also acts as head chef, seamstress, housekeeper, interior decorator, and god knows what else and before you know it we're living in the goddamned MC Hammer mansion, drinking out of diamond-encrusted Pimp Chalices and lounging around a swimming pool filled with gold doubloons like goddamned Scrooge McDuck on Duck Tales. I just think it's bullshit of the highest order. It's not my intention here to take a way from stay-at-home moms and dads. It really isn't. I totally respect what they do, because I know if I had that job I'd go completely fucking crazy after about twenty-four hours. I'm just saying that we all wear many hats. That's just life.
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