Marty Nemko
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- The Case for Being Child-Free [2010-Jun-13]
- A Blueprint for Reinventing Education [2010-Jun-11]
- Replace Your One-Week Vacation with Seven One-Day Staycations [2010-Jun-5]
- America 2.0: What Happens After America’s Decline and Fall? [2010-Jun-4]
- Another NY Times article questioning college’s value [2010-Jun-2]
- Extraordinary Job Search Tactics for Extraordinary Times [2010-Jun-1]
- Charlie Daniels on Illegal Immigration [2010-May-29]
- Will Obama Finally Take On the Teacher’s Unions? [2010-May-26]
- Yet Another Example of African-American Racism [2010-May-26]
- Keys to Productivity [2010-May-26]
- « Previous Articles
The Case for Being Child-Free
Sunday, June 13th, 2010
By Marty Nemko [source]
This is a precis of the MacCleans magazine article, "The Case Against Having Kids." with my thoughts interspersed.Having kids is overrated:
- Having kids is a career killer. Any honest parent will acknowledge that they devote less time and energy to work after becoming parents. Employers know it too, so they're less likely to hire and promote parents, especially moms because they, on average, want to spend more time with the children, self-efficacy inhibiting helicopter mom or not. The term "mommy track" exists for a reason.
- Having kids burdens coworkers. When a parent says she wants to leave work early to see her kid's soccer game or drive her to ballet, let alone take the 12 weeks per year of allowed Family and Marriage Leave, her child-free coworkers must often pick up the slack. So child-free workers subsidize "the breeders," as author of No Kids: 40 Good Reasons to Not Have Children, Corinne Maier calls them.
- Having kids is a relationship killer. It stresses a marriage, dampens a sex life, and impedes friendships both because of unavailability and because parenthood tends to turn one into a one-track-mind bore: it's all about the kids. Many moms admit that being a parent "turned my brain into mush."
- Having kids is anti-environmental. Greenies assert that overpopulation in developed nations is the #1 environmental problem.
- Having kids often means giving up on yourself. Maier writes, “Children are often used as an excuse for giving up on life without really trying. It takes real courage to say ‘Me first.'"
- Kids aren't as reliably a source of joy as is advertised. Maier calls labor, “torture,†and breastfeeding “slavery.†Even the best kids are wildly difficult, especially birth to two. And large percentages of kids get more difficult as they get older: trouble with school, drugs, pregnancy, and the common "I Hate You!" syndrome, which only sometimes ends after adolescence.
Many parents count on their children to take care of them in their old age. In fact, so many kids are estranged from their parents. I know more than a few adult children who'd like to see their parents dead.
Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, reports that childless marriages are happier and that people derive more satisfaction from eating, exercising, shopping, napping, or watching television than taking care of their kids: “Looking after the kids appears to be only slightly more pleasant than doing housework." Ann Landers famously asked readers: “If you had it to do over again, would you have children?†Seventy per cent of respondents said “no.
- Having kids wastes education. For example, women now represent half of medical students yet most women physicians who have children work part-time if at all. With the shortage of doctors, that means that patients are dying or staying sicker longer because of the lack of doctors. If medical schools considered applicant's likelihood of having children, many lives would be saved. But fear of women's groups' ire precludes that.
- Having kids is wildly expensive. It costs an average American $500,000 per child, not counting college. Maier describes kids as "money pits."
Maier advises, "If you really want to be host to a parasite, get a gigolo.â€
The book I think is best on being child-free is Two is Enough: A Couple's Guide to Living Childless by Choice.
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A Blueprint for Reinventing Education
Friday, June 11th, 2010
By Marty Nemko [source]
I've just written an article, A Blueprint for Reinventing Education. It will appear as a cover story in the August issue of Mensa's national magazine. I thought you might enjoy an advance look: Click HERE. There's still time for me to change it, so I welcome your comments.
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Replace Your One-Week Vacation with Seven One-Day Staycations
Saturday, June 5th, 2010
By Marty Nemko [source]
You don't like vacations as much as you think you do.Yeah, I know: You think it stimulates you, recharges you. In fact, might you be suffering from selective memory, perhaps exacerbated by all those ads portraying the orgasmic pleasures of travel?
In fact, the typical seven-day vacation, especially one in a foreign land in which you "are exposed to a new culture," "stand on the ground of history," etc., and especially compared with seven one-day staycations, is usually more hassle than it's worth, often a mammoth pain in the butt, and last thing in the world that will recharge you:
- Before leaving you have to cram in, on top of your already busy life, all that work that needs to be done in your absence: get that report done, visit those clients, see your ailing father.
- You have to make arrangements for the dog, stop newspaper delivery, get someone to water the plants, and oh yeah, the kids: Bringing 'em is a pain; finding someone to stay with 'em is a pain, sometimes an expensive pain.
- You gotta take an hour or three to pack, plus the time to buy the vacation stuff you need, for example, a big hat to ward off the beach sun you're flying thousands of miles to bask in. And despite your best efforts, think back on how often you forgot something important, which was a pain. "Damn, I forgot my hat." "My sunglasses" or worse, "My medication!"
- With ever fewer flights available, the chances are good you'll be flying at God-awful times and for a long time. And don't forget about having to leave extra-early so you don't miss the plane even if there is traffic, to allow time for parking, the shuttle, airport security, sitting in the terminal or the tarmac--which is even longer if yours is one of the 25% of flights that get delayed. Take a two-leg flight and you can count on at least one delay during your round-trip.
- Then you're cooped up in that stale-air, cramped airplane for hours. And let's hope you're not sitting next to that obese person, that person who's coughing, let alone that nonstop-crying baby. And then there's that great food they're no longer serving--so you have to take the time to pack (and schlep) food or buy overpriced crap at the airport.
- Finally you've arrived in paradise, when you must pray your bags didn't get lost, that you don't get ripped off by the cabbie, and the hotel you picked on the internet is as nice as the pictures suggest. Unless you're paying $200+ per night (plus 20% tourist tax,) fat chance.
- It takes most people a couple of days to wind down. So your seven-day vacation gives you just a few days of relaxation, being one with history, experiencing new cultures (and the language barriers, which make your life crazy,) and all the rest before having to pack and repeat the process above, ending with a return to work and massive amounts of email, voicemail, government-runSnailMail, not to mention your actual work. If your vacation didn't exhaust you, your first days back at work will.
- And of course, if you get sick while in one of those "one with history" countries, uh-oh. I recall breaking a tooth in Mexico. I went to the most recommended dentist in Guadalajara, and I swear, when he put his hand in my mouth, it smelled of feces.
- If that's not depressing enough, add up all the costs of your vacation: the dog and/or baby sitter, airport parking (including the usual 20% tourist tax), airfare (including 20% tax) rent-a-car (including 20% tax) the overpriced hotel room (including 20% tax), the tours, buying the crap you don't need and the gifts you simply "must" schlep back, the "required" splurge meals, including $10-a-pop drinks, and the zillion other expenses we make ourselves forget, for example, the 220-volt charger for your phone or computer, the big tip you gave the airport porter to reduce the chances of your bags evanescing, the resort outfit you bought in that foreign land (at a bad exchange rate) that you swore you'd wear again when you got home but, of course, never did.
- And don't forget the opportunity costs: what you could have been doing with the money and the time instead of the $5,000 the average couple spends on a one-week plane vacation.
But if you're more normal and like vacations, consider replacing your seven-day vacation with seven one-day staycations: Every month for the next seven months, take one day in which you, from home, spend it exactly as you'd like --unlike that interminable bus tour of Chicago or the tourist-trap restaurant you like less than your local hole-in-the-wall. Perhaps sleep late, take the time for homemade (okay, from a great mix) scones and coffee in bed (cost $3), take a walk with the dog in your favorite park, catch a matinee, lunch at your favorite local spot, hit that museum or shopping area you've long wanted to visit, have dinner at a special place--sure, splurge a little. Go home to your comfy bed and make love. Now, multiply that by seven: one day-long staycation a month, as needed, with none of the liabilities cited in previous paragraphs. Wouldn't you have derived more pleasure, less pain, at a tiny fraction of the cost? Hey, it's even green: no thousands of miles of gas spent.
If we can push aside the advertisement-and personally-inflated perceptions of the wonders of traditional vacations and stop suppressing all the negatives that have beset you on your past vacations (all of the above plus getting lost, poured on, sneered at, etc.) many people will decide to replace their seven-day vacation with seven one-day staycations. How about you?
My wife's reaction: All good points, but bah humbug!
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America 2.0: What Happens After America’s Decline and Fall?
Friday, June 4th, 2010
By Marty Nemko [source]
I have a client in Shanghai, a landscape architect. Like many of his colleagues there, he works from 9 AM to midnight most days--virtually all their waking hours. To encourage that, the employer houses the workers on-site in one-room "apartments" (more like a dorm room) and feeds them cafeteria-style.That reminds me of the extraordinary work ethic of the Asian students at my alma mater, U.C. Berkeley. As much as Berkeley students normally resist stereotyping, it's widely acknowledged that most of the Asian students work much harder than the other students.
Meanwhile, America, in its attempt to be a kind nation, is making decision after decision to redistribute resources from those with the greatest potential to create jobs and thereby stimulate the economy, to those with the least. For example, the government continues to take our tax dollars, print money, and borrow from China, endangering our children's and our nation's future, to pay for, for instance:
- Extending unemployment payments, a not insubstantial amount (about $2,000 a month in large states), to a remarkable 99 weeks, which so encourages people to not look for jobs. (Nearly all my clients who are on unemployment say they wait until it's about to run out before they'll look for a job.) In responding to today's jobs report in which the private sector created almost no jobs (the job growth was mainly government temporary census workers) President Obama is calling for even more money to give to the unemployed.
- Prop up companies that make inferior cars.
- Wage wars and build nation-states in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.
- Aid countless poor countries.
- Not only condones but financially supports uncontrolled illegal immigration: largely poor, uneducated people from an agrarian society, unscreened for criminality, diseases, etc. For example, public schools are not allowed to ask parents whether they're here legally. The toll on the schools is tremendous: unprecedentedly large numbers of non-English-speaking students from poor backgrounds descending upon the schools, with their advocates insisting they be taught in the same classes as native speakers, which forces dumbing down of instruction. And the proposed "Dream Act," would enable illegal immigrants to attend our most prestigious public universities at in-state tuition. Because of reverse discrimination admission policies, that would mean that, for example, many legal residents of Arizona with an excellent high-school record and willing to pay the high out-of-state tuition, would likely be rejected from UCLA or Berkeley so an illegal with a worse high-school record could be admitted and allowed to pay only the low in-state tuition, and likely receive all sorts of scholarships and financial aid to boot. And now, when President Obama fulfills his promise of comprehensive immigration reform/amnesty, the illegals will qualify for ObamaCare and because most immigrants and their family members' income are low, they'll have their health care paid for by the taxpayer and will additionally overwhelm our health care system.
Activists tout diversity as a strength. As I've seen it play out in workplaces and schools, it's a net weakness. Companies spend billions of dollars to manage diversity, this supposed strength. And among my career counseling clients, I almost never hear them discuss their workplace's diversity as a strength but often as a weakness: "All the Filipinos hang out by themselves and talk in Tagalog," The Black manager lets the Black employees get away with stuff they'd never let the white employees get away with." "I hate the Asians. They have no work-life balance and make us all look bad." "They don't speak English. I can't understand them and they can't understand me."
Perhaps the most powerful factor that will reduce America to third-world status is the gap between its middle 75% of its population versus that of countries like China and India. Those countries have a deep bench. Compare the Chinese or Indian average person, where hard work, science, technology, and entrepreneurship are core. Compare that with America's 225 million people in our middle 75%. I do not have statistics, but visits to average classes in average high schools and colleges and conversations with average people (for example, while waiting in line at supermarkets, the Department of Motor Vehicles, etc) let's just say, do not inspire optimism.
I am aware that America retains strengths, for example, it tends to value creativity, its women and minorities have opportunities, its universities produce top research (along with a lot of junk,) it offers strong consumer and worker protections. (Although the latter makes it very expensive to hire employees in the U.S., which encourages offshoring.) The U.S. still is the hub of the world's financial, biotechnology, and entertainment industries.
I am also aware of China''s and India's weaknesses, for example, an out-of-balance work ethic, an aging population, water supply problems, pollution, religious extremism (India), and a perhaps excessively conformist mindset.
But, net, I am convinced that we are seeing America's sunset and the Indo-China Empire's sunrise. All empires have their rise and fall: The Roman, The Ottoman, the British, and, I believe, now, the American.
So what do I predict for America? That we will join the world of nations as just another country, with a lower standard of living. Like residents of most countries, we will live in small apartments, drive small cars or not drive, eat more basic food, wear more basic clothes. The America of $200 jeans, $4.00 cups of coffee, and widely held mini-mansions will be over. Maybe that's a good thing, and just maybe, that will reduce the enmity that foreign terrorist groups have for the U.S.
What's an American to do? Learn that living simply doesn't mean living badly. Expect that you'll likely have long periods of un- and underemployment. To keep feeling productive, find rewarding productive, non-paying work: tutor a kid, act in a play, clean up the dog poop on your block. Constantly be nice--look for every opportunity to make the lives of those around you, including strangers, better. You may end up more contented and maybe even America 2.0 will, net, be a better place to live.
Oh, and invest in FXI, the China equivalent of the Dow-Jones Industrial Average.
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Another NY Times article questioning college’s value
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010
By Marty Nemko [source]
This is the third NY Times piece in just the last two weeks to cast serious questions about whether college is worth it.
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Extraordinary Job Search Tactics for Extraordinary Times
Tuesday, June 1st, 2010
By Marty Nemko [source]
Today, if you're looking for a decent job, it's rarely enough to just write a good resume and cover letter, and interview well.
Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures. Here are some:
Buy Google AdWords for the names of bosses you want to work for. Like most of us, your target bosses probably like to google themselves frequently. Imagine if they saw a sponsored ad from you saying, "Isn't googling yourself fun? So's hiring me. (insert a link to your LinkedIn profile or website.)
Rewrite the job description in your image. Often, in reading a job description, you can tell that the employer isn't quite sure what s/he's looking for, or that it was a job description written by committee and so it includes so many requirements that Superman would be screened out.
Rewrite the job description so it seems optimal for the employer and well-suited to you. Acknowledge that your version of the job description is borne of limited knowledge of the employer but that it, at minimum, provides a sample of the way you think.
Take charge of part of the interview. This is risky; assess the vibe in the room before trying it. But especially if it seems like the employer is looking for a take-charge person, ask, for example, if you might go to the whiteboard to describe how you'd proceed if hired.
Send more than a thank-you note. For example, you might include an outline of what you'd do if hired. I recall a candidate for a sales job who sent a list of 50 prospects at government agencies he'd pitch if hired. He was hired immediately.
Have someone call on your behalf. Ask your most eloquent advocate to call (leaving voicemail is okay) the hiring manager and say something like, "I hear Joe Jones is applying for the job as VP operations. I want to let you know that I know him well and I think he'd be a magnificent hire." (insert basis for that assertion.)
If someone else got hired, call the hiring manager. Say something like, "Of course, I was disappointed that I didn't get the position. I'm confident I could have done a great job for you. But I'm not calling to ask you to reconsider, only that if for some reason the person you hired doesn't work out or another position comes open for which I might be well suited, I'd like to hear from you. I really enjoyed meeting you and would welcome working for you."
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Charlie Daniels on Illegal Immigration
Saturday, May 29th, 2010
By Marty Nemko [source]
Well, this is a first: The first time I've ever posted a column written by a country-western singer. In fact, it's one of the few times I've ever posted anything written by someone but me. But despite its plain-folk language, I believe his words are worth considering. It certainly takes some guts to say what he said. Perhaps it's because in January, he had a mild stroke. Facing one's mortality makes many people decide to be more honest, even if it offends some people.I don't know how everybody else feels about it, but to me I think Hispanic people in this country, legally or illegally, made a huge public relations mistake with their recent demonstrations.
I don't blame anybody in the world for wanting to come to the
But when the first thing you do when you set foot on American soil is illegal, it is flat out wrong, and I don't care how many lala land left heads come out of the woodwork and start trying to give me sensitivity lessons.
I don't need sensitivity lessons, in fact I don't have any-thing against Mexicans! I just have something against criminals and anybody who comes into this country illegally is a criminal, and if you don't believe it try coming into America from a foreign country without a passport and see how far you get. What disturbs me about the demonstrations is that it's tantamount to saying, "I am going to come into your country even if it means breaking your laws and there's nothing you can do about it."
It's an "in your face" action and speaking just for me, I don't like it one little bit and if there were a half dozen pairs of gonads in
Where are you, you bunch of lily-livered, pantywaist, forked-tongued, sorry excuses for defenders of The Constitution? Have you been drinking the water out of the
And even if you pass a bill on immigration, it will probably be so pork laden and watered down that it won't mean anything anyway! Besides, what good is another law going to do when you won't enforce the ones on the books now?
And what ever happened to the polls, guys? I thought you folks were the quintessential finger-wetters. Well, you sure ain't paying any attention to the polls this time because somewhere around eighty percent of Americans want something done about this mess, and mess it is, and getting bigger everyday.
This is no longer a problem, it is a dilemma and headed for being a tragedy. Do you honestly think that what happened in
If you, Mr. President, Congressmen and Senators, knuckle under on this and refuse to do something meaningful, it means that you care nothing for the kind of country your children and grandchildren will inherit. But I guess that doesn't matter as long as you get re-elected.
Shame on you.
One of the big problems in America today is that if you have the nerve to say anything derogatory about any group of people (except Christians), you are going to be screamed at by the media and called a racist, a bigot and anything else they can think of to call you.
Well, I've been pounded by the media before, and I'm still rockin' and rollin', and when it comes to speaking the truth, I fear not.
And the truth is that the gutless, gonadless, milksop politicians are just about to sell out the United States of America because they don't have the intestinal fortitude to stand up to face reality.
And reality is that we would never allow any other group of people to have 12 million illegals in this country and turn around and say, "Oh it's ok, ya'll can stay here if you'll just allow us to slap your wrist."
And I know that some of you who read this column are saying "Well what's wrong with that?" I'll tell you what's wrong with it. These people could be from Mars as far as we know. We don't know who they are, where they are, or what they're up to, and the way the Congress is going, we're not going to.
Does this make sense? Labor force you say? We already subsidize corporate agriculture as it is, must we subsidize their labor as well?
If these people were from
I think not.
All the media shows us are pictures of hard-working Hispanics who have crossed the border just to try to better their life. They don't show you pictures of the Feds rounding up members of MS-13, the violent gang who came across the same way the decent folks did. They don't tell you about the living conditions of the Mexican illegal some fat cat hired to pick his crop.
I want to make two predictions.
No. 1: This situation is going to grow and fester until it erupts in violence on our streets while the wimps in
No 2: Somebody is going to cross that border with some kind of weapon of mass destruction and set it off in a major American city, after which there will be a backlash such as this country has never experienced, and the Capitol building in Washington will probably tilt as Congressmen and Senators rush to the other side of the issue.
I don't know about you, but I would love to see just one major politician stand up and say, "I don't care who I make mad, and I don't care how many votes I lose, this is a desperate situation and I'm going to lead the fight to get it straightened out."
I don't blame anybody for wanting to come to
And by the way, this is
Charlie Daniels
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Will Obama Finally Take On the Teacher’s Unions?
Wednesday, May 26th, 2010
By Marty Nemko [source]
This article in the New York Times reports that the U.S. spends more money per student than any country in the world yet its achievement is in the bottom 1/3 of developed nations.
Not all of the blame can be laid at the teacher's feet. Some of it, for example, is the result of America's insistence on putting students of all abilities in the same class and forcing ever more of them to read Shakespeare even if they're reading on the 5th grade level and to solve quadratic equations when they can't do simple arithmetic in their heads.
But certainly some blame must go to the teachers' unions who, because the Democrats so fear their political power, have managed to continue to get contracts which give teachers virtual lifetime job security after just two or three years--even if a teacher burns out and her/his students learn less than similar students in other classes. In another blow against quality teaching, teachers get paid exactly the same whether they're excellent or poor.
The article suggests that President Obama may be willing to try to convince Democrats to take a stand. If anyone has the ability to persuade, it's him. Let's hope he succeeds.
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Yet Another Example of African-American Racism
Wednesday, May 26th, 2010
By Marty Nemko [source]
I received a press release titled, "Bay Area Welcomes 'Buy Black Only' Experiment"That press release announced a promotional tour by a top-university-educated couple (pictured, right) who, for an entire year, pledged to shop only at African-American-owned businesses.
In other words, they were proudly proclaiming their essentially boycotting all businesses owned by Asians, Latinos, Whites, and Native Americans.
I find the racism of that troubling.
A goal of their promotional tour is to solicit sponsors to expand their efforts.
When I queried the PR firm (Flowers Communications, which cites among its clients, Sears, Wells Fargo, McDonald's, Honda, and the Chicago White Sox) that issued the press release, I found the response from its vice president, Ronald E. Childs (pictured, center) equally racist:
"Welcome to America. Jewish people advocate patronizing their own business community first, before venturing outside their own, as do Asians, Hispanics, Italians, the Irish, Polish and people of virtually every other culture."Mr. Childs additionally attempted to justify "Buy Black Only" by citing Jim Crow and lynchings.
Dear readers, your thoughts?
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Keys to Productivity
Wednesday, May 26th, 2010
By Marty Nemko [source]
People often ask me how I accomplish so much. My key principles:- Before making most decisions, whether it's to support amnesty for illegals or whether I should see a movie, I consciously assess the risk-reward ratio of doing it, including the opportunity costs. In assessing that," I usually think broadly: "What are the risks and rewards for the world?" But I do that thinking very quickly, which leads me to my next principle:
- I rarely ruminate; I take low-risk actions. I usually learn more by trying something than by more-than-brief thinking about it.
- With every task I'm doing, I ask myself, NOT is this the fastest way, NOT is this the best way, but is this the most time- and cost-effective way? So, for example, I am aware that this post would have been better if I took the time to provide an excellent example for each bullet but, especially because I'm so busy these days, rather than not post it at all, I wrote this in the most time-effective way possible.
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