A lot of fast food workers start at something more than the minimum wage. This doesn't represent anything except the near irrelevance of a minimum wage that's about one-third of what it would be had it been adjusted to keep up with GDP growth over the last 40 years. The minimum wage was meant to be a living wage. It isn't. And neither will be whatever Walmart decides to pay its entry-level workers.
If they raise starting pay to $15/hr, like workers have demanded, I'll take it all back. But I'm not holding my breath.
The CEO started out by saying "We're going to make changes in a few months that will create a situation where no Walmart associate in the United States makes federal minimum wage." That could mean different things.
I also want to know what "they" means. Because it could just mean WalMart is shifting their workforce to 1099 contract workers. So "they" won't be employing nearly as many people.
That could mean different things.
Really?
"We're shutting down all of our U.S. stores."
"We're staffing all of our stores exclusively with robots."
"We've gotten assurance from the incoming Republican congress that one of their first initiatives will be ending the uniform federal minimum wage. Wage regulation will be outsourced to the states, because federalism."
"We've developed nuclear weaponry and we plan to destroy the planet."
Coming soon: you have to tip people working at Walmart!
it could just mean WalMart is shifting their workforce to 1099 contract workers
That seems like it would be an odd thing for a retail store to do. Also a shitty thing to do.
4, 7: Yeah, 7 was my thought. I suppose I shouldn't put anything past Walmart, but it would be extremely stupid and risky for them to put the kinds of employees who are presumably the ones getting minimum wage (cashiers, shelf-stockers, greeters, right?) into contract status. I can't imagine how that that would be even colorably kosher under FLSA, much less most state laws, and it would create massive liability and be a feeding frenzy for the plaintiffs' bar.
It's really not that big a deal. They could raise their entry wage 25 cents above the minimum wage, and then reduce their raises by just enough, so that it doesn't cost them anything.
Did anyone read the OP? There was a subtle note of incredulity.
It could also be one of those standard business scams where they agree to raise wages a set amount, and then increase the prices on various (or all) goods in the store by an amount two or three times the amount it would take to cover the added labor costs. Then if(when) people complain about raised prices raise hell about greedy employees forcing people to pay more for whatever it is and use it to negotiate wages back down to where they were before. If that succeeds, then, they can announce that they can now afford to go back to LOW! LOW! Walmart prices which somehow are still higher than they were before the whole thing.
When the minimum wage increased in Minnesota we saw a bunch of business owners trying on a fairly petulant version of this one but it went over poorly, which was heartening.
Grrrr. "petulant." I swear I typed that correctly.
It really is a remarkably weasel-worded statement. If it weren't so depressing I'd almost be looking forward to seeing the shenanigans they come up with. (Also, somebody let Charlie Rose host a morning show? Did CBS just say fuck it, we're obviously just killing time with this slot?)
15 Charlie Rose, (who I used to enjoy - go figure) living up to his reputation for fellaCEO.
I just can't get over how credulous the OP is.
No! No! I'm being intentionally misread!
I'll be impressed when they knock it off with the 29 hour work weeks.
I believe that Walmart is going to follow through on this. Liberals have been arguing for years that it is economically rational for employers to pay higher wages because it would lead to higher profits. I always believed that to be true. Walmart has accepted the argument, as Costco did some years ago. They will get better workers, they will stick around longer, and they won't be so interested in unionizing.
Walmart has taken some other "liberal" positions over the years, such as installing solar panels on lots of its properties. It also promoted energy efficient light bulbs early on.
20: It would be pretty awesome if they had a $23,000 job for 29 hours of work/week with full benefits.
It does seem like the prevailing managerial strategy of "Maximize employee turnover, and minimize number of employees, at all costs" may not be optimal in all cases.
Yeah, let's not do away with the 29 hour work week quite so quickly.
It also promoted energy efficient light bulbs early on.
Do other companies want to pay more for their electricity than they have to?
Yeah, 29 hour a week jobs are so great, some people even get to work two at a time!
Pretty sure what Walmart compensates as 29 hours is often a good deal more than 29 hours.
Even better, they are 29 random hours scattered through the week, so when you aren't working, you get to be on call.
29: please, professionals designed the aleatoric scheduling techniques to be safe,humane ,and effective.
Do other companies want to pay more for their electricity than they have to?
Mostly, they don't value efficiency savings.
Well, except now for all the Walmarts in San Francisco. Oh, wait.
21: I believe that Walmart is going to follow through on this. Liberals have been arguing for years that it is economically rational for employers to pay higher wages because it would lead to higher profits.
Hm, I wonder if that's not quite the argument that Walmart may be accepting. Rather, isn't it the case that a significant number of Walmart employees are on food stamps, etc. and that a significant number of Walmart customers (many of whom are their own employees) are as well? As long as that relative gravy train of federal dollars continues to flow to subsidize Walmart, underpaying their staff is perfectly workable. Usher in a Republican legislature that insists on reducing food stamp benefits, though, and their income goes down. They need to move more of their customer base into the non-food stamp bracket.
25: Both the solar panels on the roofs of stores, and the promotion of energy efficient bulbs to retail customers, are steps that walmarts competitors haven't taken, suggesting that Walmart is more willing to try to profit from going green than other retailers.
34: May also be a factor, but from a competitive perspective, paying higher wages will have roughly the same pluses and minuses independent of what other sources of income employees have.
35.2's references to the pluses and minuses refer to minimizing the employee urge to unionize and/or protest, I take it. I haven't really been keeping up to date on Walmart employment practices; I think they're not as bad as Amazon's, which is to say that yeah, it probably costs Walmart a fair amount to train new employees, so reducing turnover would be desirable. You only get the turnover if discontented workers have other options such that they can quit. As far as I know, options for workers haven't improved.
I'll guess that Walmart has been taking some hits in the face-saving department: protests really can work! And having your food drive for associates -- workers -- in need of food can go viral can look really bad.
35.1 that means they've squeezed all the blood out of suppliers and employees.
Liberals have been arguing for years that it is economically rational for employers to pay higher wages because it would lead to higher profits.
I might argue this, but I don't actually believe it. It largely depends on the industry but, in general, the less money employers give to their workers, the more money they get to keep. It would be nice if more virtuous employers who paid their employees well would see the extra wages made up in the form of lower turnover, but I think that point is largely theoretical and I'm not aware of data that backs it up.
Meanwhile, in the market, WalMart seems to have done pretty well for itself by treating its employees like shit, while Costco, which treats people well, is a quarter of WalMart's size.
That is, to say "pay your employees better and you will make more money" is a useful argument to make, but not one demonstrated to be true.
"pay your employees better and you will make more money" is a useful argument to make, but not one demonstrated to be true
Actually increasing profits is probably rare. But I thought significantly less decrease to profits than employers feared (based on a strict "number of wage-hours worked" multiplied by "increase in wages" cost estimate) had been pretty well demonstrated.
Costco, in particular, I don't think anyone would argue couldn't be more profitable by paying their employees less and treating them shittier. The benefits of higher wages--less turnover, more motivation, etc.--all basically come just from having a meaningful premium over the competition. If that premium is bigger than it needs to be (as Costco's likely is), then you're just eating into your profits needlessly. But the key point is that Costco can take this hit to profits and still be profitable. Sure, they could probably be even more profitable, but they're already thriving. That's the point that it's very hard to get some people to concede. Most businesses don't actually need to ruthlessly maximize profits in order to succeed.
Most businesses don't actually need to ruthlessly maximize profits in order to succeed.
Ah, "shareholder value maximisation". Definitely one of the stupidest ideas of the late 20th century.
Most businesses don't actually need to ruthlessly maximize profits in order to succeed.
On the contrary. Failure to maximize profits for the benefit of shareholders is, I'm told, the moral equivalent of armed robbery.
A penny over minimum is still more than minimum wage. I bet that's the sort of direction this is going in.
I used to work for 10 cents over minimum wage. I was pretty unimpressed when I finally got a raise to 25 cents over.
It's economically rational for society as a whole if employers pay higher wages - it increases overall welfare. It might not necessarily help corporate profits, but it doesn't hurt them much either: some of the loss is passed on via prices, some is made up by Keynesian stimulus, etc.
45: I bet too.
43: Failure to maximize profits for the benefit of shareholders is, I'm told, the moral equivalent of armed robbery.
Why do I vaguely remember reading that this mindset is a comparatively new development? Are there actually "fiduciary responsibility" laws about this now, or were there always such laws, but what counted as 'responsibility' was a tad more humane; or is it that there are no such laws, and management practice has just adopted this mantra out of ... what, competitive pressure?
Who's qualified to answer this question? dsquared? I'm quite ignorant about it, as you can see.
Quickly googling: Wikipedia credits General Electric CEO Jack Welch in 1981. Forbes credits Milton Friedman in 1970.
Hm, it appears that the proper term is "fiduciary duty". Quick googling (for what?) yields a variety, but for the ignorant, WaPo provides this from about a year ago.
Pretty sure we've talked about this a lot before. Business people and some stupid law professors started to believe in the 1980s that there was something called the "fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value." In fact this duty never existed in the US and certainly was never the law of Delaware, which is the primary law governing corporations in the US. It was and is plainly a myth as a legal duty (for real, there's not a serious question about this) yet got upgraded to an ethical and purportedly legal duty for managers who wanted to be able to shield short-term greed in the guise of performing an "obligation" to shareholders. "I didn't want to fire these 30 year employees two months before their pensions kicked in. But I have a duty to the shareholders. It hurts to be so ethical, but I must do what my duty requires."
Key portions for my purposes:
Nor does the law require, as many believe, that executives and directors owe a special fiduciary duty to shareholders. The fiduciary duty, in fact, is owed simply to the corporation, which is owned by no one, just as you and I are owned by no one -- we are all "persons" in the eyes of the law. Shareholders, however, have a contractual claim to the "residual value" of the corporation once all its other obligations have been satisfied -- and even then directors are given wide latitude to make whatever use of that residual value they choose, as long they're not stealing it for themselves.
...
And a dozen states, including Virginia and Maryland, and the District, have recently established a new kind of corporate charter -- the benefit corporation -- that explicitly commits companies to be managed for the benefit of all stakeholders. The hope is that someday there will be a sufficient number of these "B-Corps" that they can be traded on their own exchange.
Okay. Just because I read it on the internet, I'm not (yet) going to believe that there is no legal obligation on the part of CEOs to maximize shareholder value, and I'd like to hear any corporate lawyers in the crowd speak to this.
On the second quoted portion: I've heard more and more about these B-Corps. Nice idea, though it sounds as though they may not be legally necessary: it's just that a corporate culture has inculcated the notion that maximizing benefit to *all* stakeholders is a special thing to do.
People keep telling me that.
Right, okay, not a legal responsibility. Thanks, Ripper. So how do we counter this other than through shaming?
Do you mean an obligation enforceable by the shareholders? That supersedes the business judgment rule?
I assume 56 is not to me.
Also, do you recall when we talked about this before? Either I missed it altogether or I didn't care about it at the time, so I didn't make a note of whatever I didn't learn. (I hope not to be deeply embarrassed if I participated in that thread and now have no recollection of it.)
So, it looks like I might end up playing a role in getting a min wage measure on the ballot in 2016. If I wanted a number high enough to turn non-voters into likely voters, and make a difference in people's lives, what should it be? $15, maybe?
58: How in tune to the national dialogue are Montanans? Do they know that the national push is for $10.10? Do they know that those wacky liberals in Seattle demand $15? I'm guessing that Montana folks are compromisers. I say $12.50.
But what's the cost of living in Montana? How many people are currently making minimum wage?
I'm off now. Please if anyone's inclined to speak further about the fiduciary duty to shareholders topic, carry on.
58: I tried converting the minimum wages just passed in SF and Oakland via cost of living differential to Missoula, and either city got me about $9, surprisingly. (And you seem to be almost $8 now, because you have annual increases.) But even those aren't necessarily living wage, and it should probably be at least double digits to get attention. So maybe 11 or 12?
Any possibility of eliminating the separate tipped minimum wage?
58: Neat! I'd base minimum wage off of federal poverty limits and assume a particular work week and family size. For example, if FPL for a household of three is $19,970 and you assume a forty hour work week, that's $9.50/hr. If you imagine that it's shitty to work full time and not be at least 150% FPL, you're at $14.25/hr. I think that's still pretty shitty assuming one parent with two kids, but I'd be careful not to get too close to, say, starting salaries at your public school, since I suspect that's where people start becoming resentful.
61.last is a cool idea.
Also, do you recall when we talked about this before?
Searching for Lynn Stout (The Myth Of Shareholder Value) it looks like we talked about it here.
Here's how the Alaska law that passed this year works:
1. Current minimum wage of $7.75 raised to $8.75 on January 1, 2015.
2. Raised again to $9.75 on January 1, 2016.
3. After 2016, adjusted for inflation using the CPI for the Anchorage metropolitan area.
4. Tips are explicitly designated as not counting toward the minimum wage, which was apparently already law in Alaska.
(Good thing I hung onto my voter's guide for over a month after the election!)
Obviously the cost of living is a lot higher here than in Montana, so that should be a factor in setting the exact numbers. This did pass easily in a very conservative state in a strong Republican year, so there's that.
||
Cow orker: "It's that material, what is it called? It's like silicone, but stronger"
Natilo: "Serious-cone"
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Stanley hasn't been around much the past couple years, blame-deflector.
The closest comparable place (in terms of cost of living, at least) that recently passed a minimum wage seems to be South Dakota, at $8.50, and that only got 54%.
64: A few other times as well. Extensive discussion in the thread following this post by LB from 2008 referencing a d2 post at CT which in turn referenced a John Quiggin post at CT, all triggered some idiotic stance taken by Posner. I thought Dodge v. Ford had come up at some later point as well, but not finding it. Plenty of reading material at those three links, however.
I think at $12, you would start getting "that's too high!" pushback from jackasses. I would make it $11.75, which I think is an attractive value because it has both a 7 and an 11 in it. Don't underestimate the power of numerology.
But I'm not sure that pulling a number out of my ass, or anyone's ass, is the way to go. It might be better to commission a poll - or look at existing polling data - to come up with a number that is as high as possible, which the voters will still support.
The nationwide $10.10 number was probably picked because it was very close to the real value of the minimum wage at its peak in 1968. Its easy to make the case that we should be paying people at least what they were paid 46 years ago, but, really, we should be paying people significantly more than they were paid 46 years ago.
I don't think that this was mentioned above, but one benefit to Walmart of raising wages is that, in a lot of locations, a great deal of the spending that their employees do is at Walmart itself. This isn't a benefit that would generalize to other firms.
A lot of the ballot measures that recently passed (Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska, SF) include not only a COLA (which Montana already has) but also a step-up, where the wage is raised, then goes up by a dollar a year for 1-3 years. Perhaps that's based on polling suggesting people are more receptive to phasing in the higher wage?
It looks like Montana is one of the few states that has a lower minimum wage for small businesses - $4.00 for all with gross sales of $110,000 or less. That was passed in the 2006 initiative that raised the general minimum wage to $6.15 plus inflation, and although it would now be superseded by the federal $7.25, moving to $10 or $12 would increase the gap significantly (and some professions are exempt from FLSA); perhaps set it as a percentage of the regular wage so it rises in unison?
I'd believe that phasing in the increase would work out better economically. A lot of smaller businesses work on relatively small margins, and probably a dollar increase in the minimum wage wouldn't be enough to knock the out but a three dollar one would. If you give them a space between the raises the economic benefits of a higher minimum wage have time to kick in and up their revenue enough that they don't end up in serious trouble for long enough that they'd go out of business.
77. Wasn't it Henry Ford who made sure all his workers were paid enough to afford a Model T?
I didn't say Ford was a nice guy; I said the Waltons don't even deserve credit for original thinking.
Business people and some stupid law professors started to believe in the 1980s that there was something called the "fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value." In fact this duty never existed in the US and certainly was never the law of Delaware, which is the primary law governing corporations in the US. It was and is plainly a myth as a legal duty (for real, there's not a serious question about this)
This is completely wrong. There is absolutely and always has been a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value, but business managers have wide, bordering on unlimited, discretion to carry out that duty. "I didn't want to fire these 30 year employees two months before their pensions kicked in. But I have a duty to the shareholders. It hurts to be so ethical, but I must do what my duty requires." is complete and utter bullshit, but it's not bullshit not because the manager has no duty to the shareholders. It's bullshit because all the manager needs to say/think is "I don't think firing these employees before their pensions kick in will be good for employee morale, or for our corporate reputation with the public, so firing them would risk damage to long-term shareholder value." (And that's exactly what managers very often did say/think prior to the 1980s, when you are correct to note that a real shift did occur. But the shift was not in the law of fiduciary duties. The shift has just been a cultural shift in how (many) managers interpret and implement those duties.)
In practice the discretion of managers is so wide that the outcome doesn't necessarily look any different than just saying 'managers don't have a duty to maximize shareholder value', but it is nevertheless a real difference. (Note that B-corporations, noted above, do not have this same duty.)
We argued about this the last time this came up, and I know you disagree. But I thought I'd say it again anyway, for parsimon's benefit if no one else.
Now that I know Rocky is safe, I read 83. That's also how it was explained to me.
The company's duty isn't to maximize shareholder value, its to do whatever the Board of Directors says it should do. But Boards are chosen by shareholders, so naturally they favor maximizing shareholder value. The boards ensure that managers on board with this by giving CEO's whatever outrageous pay package they request.
Labor representation on Boards of Directors I think would be helpful in pushing against this trend, and having more socially responsible companies, but that is impossible because Socialism.
Thanks NickS and Stormcrow for the links to previous discussions. Thanks urple for outlining where the argument lies.
This is all in the service of trying to answer the question how we counter the problem. I haven't looked at the linked discussions yet (I just got back from the grocery store), but I'm guessing that emphasizing long- over short-term value/benefit will be key. But it's going to be a hard argument to make given that our measures of value have become so warped these days ... and I'm back to thinking that shaming is ultimately the best weapon.
Totally OT if anyone's around: I have some already-cooked (grilled) salmon to reconstitute tonight. While just microwaving is tempting, every online site says you're better off reheating in the oven. Fine. On a baking sheet, though? Can I do it in a glass (pyrex) baking dish? Why does everyone say baking sheet? It's just harder to clean, you see.
83: There is absolutely and always has been a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value, but business managers have wide, bordering on unlimited, discretion to carry out that duty.
I am so glad you were able to comfort parsi
Richard Sennett, Culture of the New Capitalism 2006
They formed the cadres of what Bennett Harrison calls "impatient capital." Impor- tantly, share price rather than corporate dividends was their measure of results. Buying and selling shares in an open, fluid market yielded quicker--and greater-- yields than holding stocks for the long term. For this reason, whereas in 1965 American pension funds held stocks on an average for 46 months, by 2000 much in the portfolios of these institutional investors turned over on an average of 3.8 months. The price trade in stock overturned traditional measures of performance like price/earnings ratios--famously in the technol- ogy boom of the 1990s, when share values soared in companies with no earnings
And of course 2000 is an era ago, after 15 years of accelerating computerized High Frequency Trading and Global Equity Markets.
....
I do honestly worry if I practice some kind of variant of "Nice Guyism" but fact is I don't really want anything. Maybe it is just deliberate negativity, anti-sociality, even God forbid, sadism and cruelty. It does worry me.
But
"talk pretty and tell what they want to hear so they smile back at you in gratitude"
seems so ultimately disrespectful so contemptuous and manipulative, so patriarchally protective that I think I would prefer to be an asshole by default.
World is so fucked up and full of lies and ideology that getting rejected strikes me as probably the best evidence of honesty.
It's just harder to clean, you see.
The solution to this is parchment paper.
90: Personally I don't think it matters a great deal; I suspect they say baking sheet because they're ubiquitous. A metal baking sheet will probably heat up faster than the pyrex, but when you're reheating something it, once again, it shouldn't really matter.
80: Wasn't it Henry Ford who made sure all his workers were paid enough to afford a Model T?
This is right up there with "Rosa was tired" as an example of contemporary liberal USian mythology. The program referred to was limited to senior, male workers, who were married with children, and it was carried out as more of a profit-sharing program versus a simple wage increase. And the other capitalists in Detroit still wanted to murder him!
93: Parchment paper, I should lay in some of that.
A while ago, someone at Balloon Juice recommended this. I'm not much of a baker (sweet style baked goods, cookies and such), but a reusable replacement for disposable parchment seems nice. Is it washable? I must check.
94: Agreed. The pyrex baking dish it is. Today is chore day, and I'm proving to be absent-minded left and right. Forgot to put an anti-static dryer sheet in the dryer. Christ's sake, the laundry is all stuck to itself with static. Forgot to get toilet paper, down to the last roll. Shopping involved laying in a bunch of basic pantry items, like white (unbleached, thank you) flour and mustard and whatnot -- things I usually have but am out of. Pantry items are heavy! 3 trips back and forth from the car to decant. I considered getting some whole-grain mustard, maybe for the fish? But that is not really for salmon, I thought, so I passed. Now it turns out that mustard is a favored approach to salmon sauces. Probably not whole-grain, though.
I promised a friend a "proper meal" -- meaning not just a bowl of black bean soup with crusty bread -- this evening, which is to be salmon with, I guess, some kind of pesto sauce, now. Plus grains of some kind, and greens of some kind.
/grumpily, but rallying, yours
Yes, I didn't mean to sound snippy though.
Said actress to the patient at the vasectomy clinic.
I'd have you for dinner any day, Natilo, snippy or not, provided you can put up with yesterday's salmon with some kind of pesto sauce plus whatever.
I don't really do dessert, unless you're okay with, um, tangerine sections? I can make cocoa! (actually I can't, I just have some Ghirardelli natural premium cocoa powder, which I have no idea what to do with. I assume it will last some time.)
I just have some Ghirardelli natural premium cocoa powder, which I have no idea what to do with.
Chocolate covered salmon!
Oh, you can't fool me there.
I'm off, anyway. Obviously I have some tasks ahead of me.
I'm doing a really shitty job of parenting today. I just keep losing my temper.
And why are all four kids plus the cat always within a square yard of me? If they're that close to each other, it's a safe bet they're antagonizing each other and UGH get away from me.
I'm letting mine watch stupid cartoons for hours.
The babysitter comes in 71 minutes. Jammies gets home Thursday night.
You're right; why am I not harnessing the TV? Done.
Now I'm just cuddling a tiny baby and a cat and my blood pressure just came down fifty points.
I'm really good at lazy parenting tips. My main travel tip is "fuck yes we're stopping at Mcdonalds for lunch."
My articles don't get cited enough.
I just have some Ghirardelli natural premium cocoa powder, which I have no idea what to do with
If you still have my address, I can think of a pretty good idea.
I can't believe you're asking for a cocoa-covered selfie.
It's Christmas, for crying out loud. My daughters are asking for far more unreasonable things.
Tomorrow I have a nanny coming to help for the afternoon and evening. Thank god. On one hand, I feel like I just don't have the rhythm down yet of handling all four together, but on the other hand when I lose my shit, it's inevitably over the two oldest just doing whatever shit that they'd be doing if we only had two kids.
104: The littlest needs boob. The next littlest is wondering why she's not the littlest. The other two just figured you'd need more chaos. This is why God invented maternal siblings, or, failing that, Winnie the Pooh on youtube.
The Calabat has figured out that the laptop closes, and so he wanders into my office: "Mommy? Close? [pleading look]" He's mastered inducing guilt. Great.
My son has figured out exactly the wrong way to pronounce "horror".
My son calls hangers "hookers".
120 AIMHMHB, At at an age when I probably should have known better, I brightly informed my mother that you knew a house was a Horror House because of the red light out front. The hazards of the being the youngest in the neighborhood gang of boys.
Parsimon, silpat washes up great.
115: J. McQ, seriously? I really do have no use for baking cocoa -- just not a baker. The canister is opened, though; I inherited the entire pantry from acquaintances who were moving cross-country and didn't want to lug their cardamom pods and sesame seeds and japanese tea and, well, cocoa powder with them, so the stuff is already opened. If that's unobjectionable, sure.
125: Sure, why not? It would definitely get used.
Maybe you could use it to invent a new product for Taco Bell: the Doritos Cocoa Tacos.
126: email coming your way.
124: Thanks, on the silpat thingy, TJ. That may be my holiday gift to myself. I seem to trash baking sheets after about a year, and get tired of having to buy new ones. Um. Washable by hand, though? I am sans dishwasher.
Parsimon, I often wash mine by hand. Seems fine.
Great. Youtube features a number of videos of people making a huge gooey mess on their Silpats, with no ill-effects, so I'm in.
I don't suppose anyone knows whether farro pasta is disgusting or not. Another item from the inherited pantry.
Speaking of pay that could be better, despite receiving a very politely worded equivalent of Shaykh ibn Corleone's offer, I'm going to go ahead and accept it. I'll renegotiate at a later time.
I'm feeling very giddy and lightheaded about this and everything I need to do in the interim so I think I'm just going to head off to see some old Jean Grémillon films now.
Thanks to all who gave advice in the "Immigrants" thread and elsewhere. Woohoo!
Yay, Barry! Also, I think Heebie should just send Ace over to my house for a few days (weeks, years...). I'll take her until she starts asking "Why?" all the time.
Official congrats, Barry! Glad it worked out, even if the pay increase part didn't.
Yay Barry! Hopefully you can enjoy being done with negotiations (even though you didn't get everything you wanted), and just focusing on the job (and the move).
Thanks everyone.
(I don't suppose anyone has ever had experience shipping quantities of books overseas? Heebie can ship Ace to J, Robot's place. )
I shipped boxes of books from PL to the US using media mail/book rate. They took a couple of months, but it was much cheaper than anything else I could think of, and I got them all back in the end.
Anyone know about mailing things through diplomatic "pouches"?
Congratulations, Barry! Now you'll be 3 hours ahead of the British and Irish contingent so you can entertain us until the New Yorkers wake up.
re: 119.last
xelA uses 'No like!' and 'No more' liberally for that sort of thing.
'Daddy, no like! No like!'*
[e.g. I'm making his milk, which he wants, but I'm not doing it in exactly the right way, or with him on my hip, or something.]
He doesn't close the laptop, but he did for a while think that the mouse pointer was a fly, which he had to kill.
Congratulations, Barry! Now you'll be 3 hours ahead of the British and Irish contingent so you can entertain us until the New Yorkers wake up.
Unfogged is the greatest!
Hasten to comment! Hasten to the Mineshaft!
Commenting is better than sleep!
New Yorkers don't sleep. They loll in their opium dens.
143 is indeed great. An alternate version appends: Ogged is the co-founder of the blog!
I shipped books book rate from Morocco to the US, some 65 or so boxes, maybe about 12 or 15 kg each, I forget. I do remember thinking at the time that I was shipping about a ton of books.
Alternative slogan:
A*E*I*O*U
ANEBULOSUS EXTENDITUR IN ORBEM UNIVERSUM.
(Original was of course for AUSTRIA)