Actually my salary is on the internet. I'm a little more outraged that they have my middle name on there.

Yeah, my salary is public knowledge, too. Everyone I know knows, because they're my board and voted it in, or my supporters and made it happen.

Yup. It's February and I've already spent close to $2000 in medical expenses. Two eye-doctor visits a week, plus two X-rays and an MRI.

Yeah. I'm not sure the amounts for this year yet, but they can't be small. (Two OB visits, one visit to the Maternal Hypertension specialist, one ultrasound, and two blood draws just since the first of the year.)

And, of course, they're only going to get worse now that I'm on the every two week schedule for regular care.

American's hours worked declined the richer the country got -- we used to work 10-12, six days a week like they do in China today.

Used to? Whatchoo talkin' about, Willis?

Apparently, I work like a Korean. Or the Chinese. Do weapons of mass destruction come with the benefits package?

Though I suppose by the end of this year (my first full one on salary rather than hourly wage) I'll clock in at 1920 if I'm able to actually take off all the comp time i earn.

I was trying to do the math and scared myself. I should check my W-2s or a paystub from December.

Heh. I think in the Bay Area nobody could have a conversation for more than 30 minutes without rent, interest rates, or housing prices coming up.

In NYC, too. "How much are you paying?" is one of the first things you ask when you walk into someone's apartment.

The only thing keeping me in my current job right now is medical coverage. If I could get immediate medical with a temp agency, I am pretty sure I would leave for even a significant pay cut.

I'm in HR - I know everybody's salary, including my bosses and co-workers. Because I'm in the attorney biz, I also have a pretty good idea of what bon bon is making. Though that's not hard to find either since you can go to places like Vault.com or the Greedy Attorney website and see them all comparing notes.

In NYC, too. "How much are you paying?" is one of the first things you ask when you walk into someone's apartment.

See, this is totally what I'm like, and I've found some people get weird.

The taboo about disclosing salaries has its weak points -- unequal information between labor and management, difficulty identifying better work opportunities. It's not pleasant or efficient to have a store where only the manager knows all the prices and can charge each person different without their knowing, so why should the labor market be different? I know, salary is status and revealing it causes a lot of envy, but it would cut down on the amount of wasteful purchasing people have to do to signal higher status or try to fake it.

It also might do something about discrimination. For example, you can see something's wrong just from the averages, where the median salary for a single male is $26,700 and for a single female is $18,160. If you could see that kind of discrepancy at an individual level with people in your workplace, it could never last.

Salary: 41K
Rent: 800 per month
Debt: 21K

Not giving a rat's ass who knows?

Priceless.

I mean, I tell you people when I have earwax the size of a roach making me deaf. Why should I care about something as ridiculous as this? You know what I do for a living, some of you have seen the small box I live in and the car I drive, so, I mean, really?