In the new york metro area, public sector average hourly wage in 2006 was $31.01/hr as compared to the $23.32 average in the private sector: http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ocs/sp/ncbl0872.txt
Thats really remarkable. State and local government employees earn a third more than private sector in the NY metro. That's easily a lifestyle-impact difference. How can this be?
Under what conditions would you expect this to actually correspond to the relative difference in hourly productivity? Conceptually, its difficult to see exactly how such a situation might arise in free labour market conditions.
Ought such an obvious difference in pay result in a highly competitive hiring process for state & local jobs? Why, then, the proverbial shortage in teachers? Why, then, such an infamously poor public education system?
Not really sure how to go about probing this further, but my off-the-hip reaction is to call shenanigans on this wages disparity!
From personal experience, the overall quality of service & human I've encounted in the course of my dealings with people on the NYS payroll is not easy to reconcile with the apparent disparity in wages.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
innovative idea?
How about establishing a cash-only pay program along w. a parallel share ownership guideline?
Inevitably, top executives tend to be the people w. alot of service and many years' worth of equity grants in their portfolios. Given the uncertainty principle, and in the absence of diversification, executives must value each subsequent grant at an ever-heavier discount. So we expense millions of dollars worth of grants, that are instantly devalued in the eyes of the recipients. Why do this? So inefficient!
Usually the reasoning goes that the top executives must signal the market via personal holdings of the company's stock. So this goal may be accomplished via share ownership guidelines!
This has the added benefit of each transaction being done via public market but still must be disclosed as an insider transaction.
Now, what is the first thing that comes to your mind when you see lots of share purchases being done by insider executives? Good value! Must be a good deal if insiders are out there buying shares, right?
Its a win win.
Inevitably, top executives tend to be the people w. alot of service and many years' worth of equity grants in their portfolios. Given the uncertainty principle, and in the absence of diversification, executives must value each subsequent grant at an ever-heavier discount. So we expense millions of dollars worth of grants, that are instantly devalued in the eyes of the recipients. Why do this? So inefficient!
Usually the reasoning goes that the top executives must signal the market via personal holdings of the company's stock. So this goal may be accomplished via share ownership guidelines!
This has the added benefit of each transaction being done via public market but still must be disclosed as an insider transaction.
Now, what is the first thing that comes to your mind when you see lots of share purchases being done by insider executives? Good value! Must be a good deal if insiders are out there buying shares, right?
Its a win win.
Monday, February 11, 2008
performance measure = pseudo science
There are perfectly obvious things a company can do to use money to manage people. Peer pressure works. Numbers work. Systematic approach works, as with any science. Abandon the knee jerk confidentiallity of the annual review process. Forget about keeping everyone's salary secret. A) it aint a secret. Unless you live under a rock, you know within a few K how much everyone on your floor makes. Don't try to hide salary info, shout it from every corner. Transparency means accountability. If everyone knows how much everyone else makes, free riders can't hide. Discrepancies become glaring. Now you get paid not just how much you think you are worth, but how much everyone thinks you are worth. Your valuable workers know they are valuable. Each of us knows the relative quality of the work we are capable of.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
human nature
5 million years, 2.5% worth of genes separate us from chimps.
Primates have more in common than not.
And yet, we are the only ones who bare fangs without aggression (laughter), the only ones to make eye contact. Our interactions are still filled with subtle clues that serve the same function as the elaborate social play of all primate tribes. We unconsiously display our empty hands, put them on our knees, or desks. We show our necks to signal submission. We also laugh to show submission.
That's why it is impossible to think of a laugh-out-loud joke that isn't mean: we laugh, but it's just another way to play out our primate games of aggression/submission. We laugh at our bosses' jokes, then tell our friends about how dumb those jokes are.
Some days, especially if the first site that greets me upon arrival on Wall Street is a bunch of news vans, I am convinced that I can tell what the market is doing. A physical sensation, of ups and downs.
Perhaps its my unconsious reading of the subtle displays of the traders around me. Maybe more visible fangs than usual? or less?
If this is actually true, if it were possible, for a super intelligent being deeply attuned to these social displays than say an average observer to actually discern the individual and collective bets being made, the hopes, the fears. Well. That would spell the end of any hopes we might have for a telecommuting job market, wouldn't it. Cause it would mean that we need to be physically present.
To play a fully productive role, you have to be physically present.
Primates have more in common than not.
And yet, we are the only ones who bare fangs without aggression (laughter), the only ones to make eye contact. Our interactions are still filled with subtle clues that serve the same function as the elaborate social play of all primate tribes. We unconsiously display our empty hands, put them on our knees, or desks. We show our necks to signal submission. We also laugh to show submission.
That's why it is impossible to think of a laugh-out-loud joke that isn't mean: we laugh, but it's just another way to play out our primate games of aggression/submission. We laugh at our bosses' jokes, then tell our friends about how dumb those jokes are.
Some days, especially if the first site that greets me upon arrival on Wall Street is a bunch of news vans, I am convinced that I can tell what the market is doing. A physical sensation, of ups and downs.
Perhaps its my unconsious reading of the subtle displays of the traders around me. Maybe more visible fangs than usual? or less?
If this is actually true, if it were possible, for a super intelligent being deeply attuned to these social displays than say an average observer to actually discern the individual and collective bets being made, the hopes, the fears. Well. That would spell the end of any hopes we might have for a telecommuting job market, wouldn't it. Cause it would mean that we need to be physically present.
To play a fully productive role, you have to be physically present.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
I really wish there could somehow be MORE 1995 hip hop. From Brooklyn
I really wish there could somehow be MORE 1995 hip hop. From Brooklyn. Or the Bronx. Or Queens.
Epic poetry from Smiff n Wessun, the likes of which the world hadn't seen.
What other underclass left a creative mark of poetry?
How did poetry go from the intellectual games of the rich and the educated, to the ghetto?
Sure, there is lots of sex and violence and drugs. What good poetry doesn't have these things?
But there is also poignancy and heartbreaking love.
"I find reality follows me where I roam
360 degrees back home
bucktown"
Epic poetry from Smiff n Wessun, the likes of which the world hadn't seen.
What other underclass left a creative mark of poetry?
How did poetry go from the intellectual games of the rich and the educated, to the ghetto?
Sure, there is lots of sex and violence and drugs. What good poetry doesn't have these things?
But there is also poignancy and heartbreaking love.
"I find reality follows me where I roam
360 degrees back home
bucktown"
Friday, December 28, 2007
a note on opera
I am extremely pleased with this product. I am enjoying the process of learning a new (to me) browser, it's really invigorating!
I looked into some sort of Firefox AdBlock add-on equivalent, but there isn't one. At first i was really pissed, but then I checked out the wildcard function in Tools/Preferences/Advanced/Content/Blocking/Add.
Even just 4basic rules, expressed individually as:
/*.ads.*/
/*.advertisements.*/
/*.doubleclick.net*/
/*.googlesyndication.*/
blocking google ads made me especially happy, as AdBlock doesn't do this.
will take care of most of your ads. As in, you won't see any more ads.
That is extremely neat!
The mail client is also pretty cool. It was super easy to import all my gmail addys. No cofiguration necessary: wizard prompts for username and password and syncs w gmail just like that. I'm setting up filters to associate w. each gmail addy, so I can easily sort.
O yeah, and almost forgot: the original reason why I grabbed it was due to famed formatting abilities. These turn out to be OK. There IS a built in-functionality for zooming text size independently of frame size, but you do this globally, via Tools/Preferences/Advanced/Fonts. As opposed to being able to do it on the fly, customized to each page. However, even this global font size customization appears to be limited to size 21 font.
I tried to find some documented evidence of this, but am unable to do so, so maybe just me?!
I looked into some sort of Firefox AdBlock add-on equivalent, but there isn't one. At first i was really pissed, but then I checked out the wildcard function in Tools/Preferences/Advanced/Content/Blocking/Add.
Even just 4basic rules, expressed individually as:
/*.ads.*/
/*.advertisements.*/
/*.doubleclick.net*/
/*.googlesyndication.*/
blocking google ads made me especially happy, as AdBlock doesn't do this.
will take care of most of your ads. As in, you won't see any more ads.
That is extremely neat!
The mail client is also pretty cool. It was super easy to import all my gmail addys. No cofiguration necessary: wizard prompts for username and password and syncs w gmail just like that. I'm setting up filters to associate w. each gmail addy, so I can easily sort.
O yeah, and almost forgot: the original reason why I grabbed it was due to famed formatting abilities. These turn out to be OK. There IS a built in-functionality for zooming text size independently of frame size, but you do this globally, via Tools/Preferences/Advanced/Fonts. As opposed to being able to do it on the fly, customized to each page. However, even this global font size customization appears to be limited to size 21 font.
I tried to find some documented evidence of this, but am unable to do so, so maybe just me?!
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Extra company holidays: 0-cost employee benefit
Extra time off: why everyone should love it.
Ahh... the so called "work" week between Xmas and New Year's Eve. My estimate is that precisely 0 work gets done in the 3.5 business days between the 2 sets of national holidays.
Exhibit A: FDR drive @ 8:45 am. Traffic speed: 75 mph. On a regular Wednesday, my CBR barely gets into 3rd gear all the way to Wall Street from LIC, Queens. This morning, I was limited only by my gloves' ability to block wind. Wall Street itself: empty, but for the obvious tourists posing for photographs, adding theirs to the millions of identical frames already extant. Sure signs of not-really-a-real-work-day.
Amazingly, here we are, expected to show up on time w. the whistle, even though 0 actual work will get done.
Undoubtedly, you have friends who get this week officially off. Enough companies see common sense and realize that they will spend MORE on lighting up the offices, than they will derive in actual value from those few of us who actually show up.
What would it cost to have a company-wide week long holiday? I say nothing. Not $1. Why? Because salaried employees shift work. The weeks before and after holidays are likely busier than usual, with many of us working longer hours to wrap up the year's loose ends. Those few workers who don't take vacation days during the holiday weeks only do so because we realize that no work will actually be expected of us. Essentially, we show up simply to hang out. We show up so as not to lose *real* vacation days, during which we would ordinarily be pretty busy.
Other examples of time similarly wasted include summer Friday afternoons, which are consumed by thoughts of beating traffic to Long Island or upstate.
Solution: sanction official company holidays for days between Xmas and New Years. It will cost next to nothing, especially when taking into account the cost of keeping offices open. Your employees will value this benefit. They will tell all their friends about it. They will work harder in the days leading up to and following the holidays themselves.
Its a win-win. And how often do you get a win-win in HR? Enough said.
Ahh... the so called "work" week between Xmas and New Year's Eve. My estimate is that precisely 0 work gets done in the 3.5 business days between the 2 sets of national holidays.
Exhibit A: FDR drive @ 8:45 am. Traffic speed: 75 mph. On a regular Wednesday, my CBR barely gets into 3rd gear all the way to Wall Street from LIC, Queens. This morning, I was limited only by my gloves' ability to block wind. Wall Street itself: empty, but for the obvious tourists posing for photographs, adding theirs to the millions of identical frames already extant. Sure signs of not-really-a-real-work-day.
Amazingly, here we are, expected to show up on time w. the whistle, even though 0 actual work will get done.
Undoubtedly, you have friends who get this week officially off. Enough companies see common sense and realize that they will spend MORE on lighting up the offices, than they will derive in actual value from those few of us who actually show up.
What would it cost to have a company-wide week long holiday? I say nothing. Not $1. Why? Because salaried employees shift work. The weeks before and after holidays are likely busier than usual, with many of us working longer hours to wrap up the year's loose ends. Those few workers who don't take vacation days during the holiday weeks only do so because we realize that no work will actually be expected of us. Essentially, we show up simply to hang out. We show up so as not to lose *real* vacation days, during which we would ordinarily be pretty busy.
Other examples of time similarly wasted include summer Friday afternoons, which are consumed by thoughts of beating traffic to Long Island or upstate.
Solution: sanction official company holidays for days between Xmas and New Years. It will cost next to nothing, especially when taking into account the cost of keeping offices open. Your employees will value this benefit. They will tell all their friends about it. They will work harder in the days leading up to and following the holidays themselves.
Its a win-win. And how often do you get a win-win in HR? Enough said.
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