May 16, 2008 10:34

John Edwards stole my joke on air

I was sitting in a makeup chair at the Today Show this morning when who should slip in next to me but the former presidential candidate. Three first impressions:

• John Edwards really does have great hair.
• John Edwards seems to have a permatan.
• John Edwards had a headache.

The former senator said his contacts had given him a headache, so the makeup lady gave him some drops. When he settled in, the TV monitor began to blare with the sound of throngs of shrieking thirtysomethings outside.

"Wow, Senator," I said. "You've got a lot of fans."

He laughed. John Edwards has a really nice laugh. The fans, of course, were in fact there to see the first reunion in 15 years of the '90s boy band New Kids on the Block. Someone mentioned the crowds knew the words to every song.

"Just like they know all the words to your speeches," I said to John Edwards. "'Two Americas!'"

He laughed again. John Edwards is basically a really nice man who's accustomed to hearing retarded jokes from strangers.

Then it happened. When he got on air, he led with: "I thought all those fans outside were for me!" John Edwards totally stole my joke! Not that I mind. He's dreamy. I'd vote for him. I wish he'd run for president or something.

May 16, 2008 9:14

Career advice for college grads

Here's the segment I was on this morning on the Today Show. I'm on first, but stay tuned for the other experts; their advice is really sound, and plus they look better on TV. I cited CBCampus.com's list of top cities, for which the CareerBuilder offshoot looked at the availability of rentals and jobs, coupled with my own research on hot job sectors, top employers and unemployment rates. They were:

1. Philadelphia: cost of one-bedroom rental, $962 2. Boston: $1,343 3. New York: $1,520 4. Phoenix: $741 5. Chicago: $1,029 Source: Apartments.com, Careerbuilder.com

Note my enormous preggo bloat. The crew guy who clipped my microphone on worried I'd topple off the stool. I worried they'd have to go to a wide-angle lens. I assured Meredith Viera I'd try not to go into labor on set, but in retrospect, that would have made for a memorable segment, wouldn't it? Messy, though. Watch. Be kind.

May 16, 2008 8:53

That was me (and NKOTB) on the Today Show

Not much gets me up at 5:30 a.m. This morning a car came for me and took me to 30 Rockefeller Center. The place was mobbed with screaming people in the pouring rain. Now, I work just across the street, and I see crowds every morning waiting to catch a glimpse of Matt and Meredith—but nothing along these lines.

I was on a segment on the Today Show this morning about the best cities for college grads. (More on that in a later post.) The section of the show is called The Whip, and features five experts on a hot topic, which in this case was jobs and other prospects for recent college graduates.

I arrived in the green room, all bleary from a hideous night spent wrangling a sleepless three-year-old, to find an old friend: Carmen Wong Ulrich, a colleague from Money magazine. Since she left that magazine, she's published a book called Generation Debt and become a sought-after TV personality on personal finance. Carolyn Kepcher was also on the couch. You and I know her from The Apprentice; since she left that show, she's published a hot business book called Carolyn 101 and launched a company, Carolyn & Co. Media.

The others on the segment were Dale Atkins, the popular psychologist and author, and Rod Kurtz, an editor at Inc.com.

Anyway, so we get there at the butt-crack of dawn for hair and makeup. The amount of labor that goes into a show like this one is truly mind-boggling. This morning I necessitated the services of a limo driver, two very sweet pages, two very competent producers, a hair guy, a makeup lady, a microphone-fixer crew person, and, of course, Meredith Viera, the interviewer. And all that's for what amounted to a two-minute segment. Two minutes! I suppose it's comparable to the man-hours we put into, say, two paragraphs that run in TIME Magazine. But still.

So we step outside after our segment to a screaming, stamping, soaking wet crowd. The star attraction? New Kids on the Block. Seriously. "Some of them have been camped out here for two days," said a staffer. Seriously. Said a crew guy, "This might be our biggest crowd ever." Seriously!

But I am so not above the crowds. Carmen and I snuck out to a strip just yards from the stage and watched the sound check, hyperventilating like preteen girls. We called our sisters: "Can you hear this? It's NKOTB!!" Go on. Be jealous, girlfriends. I was feet from Donnie Wahlberg.

Step by step... / NBC

May 15, 2008 9:42

Does maternity leave harm careers?

I know; it's a cheap question. The answer is yes in some places, and no in others. The real question is: how does taking a maternity leave affect your career in your workplace?

At Bloomberg LP, apparently the answer is: like poop on a shoe. Last fall, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit on behalf of three women against the financial news and data company, accusing it of engaging "in a pattern of demoting women, diminishing their duties and excluding them from job opportunities after they disclosed they were pregnant." The women—Tanys Lancaster, Jill Patricot and Janet Loures—were all managers and senior executives...until they were in the family way, that is. From MSNBC.com:

Lancaster was said to be earning close to $300,000 in a senior position in the company's Transaction Products Department when she announced her pregnancy. "Almost immediately I began to suffer demotions, decreases in compensation as well as retaliation after I complained to Human Resources," she said in a statement.

As for the other two:

Patricot, who worked as a manager in the Global Data Division, claims that after returning to her job following maternity leave, she was demoted to an entry level position because her schedule had changed due to child care demands.

Loures was also a manager in the Global Data Division, and said her duties and staff were reduced starting with her first maternity leave and continuing through a second one. She is now employed in an entry-level clerical position, the EEOC said.

Pshaw, you say. The experiences of three women in a company that employs 10,000 do not a pattern make make. Besides, this is the firm founded and still majority-owned by the beloved mayor of New York, a well-known proponent of equal rights! Right? Well, consider this news earlier this month (from Newsday):

A lawyer has told a judge that the number of women accusing the financial services company of discrimination against employees who take maternity leave has risen from three to 58, with more likely to be added.

Oh. So here's what I want to know, especially from you ladies who weighed in about the duration of your maternity leave in this earlier post: after your leave, what consequences did you suffer—or benefit from?

May 14, 2008 1:49

Rx for pregnant moms: chocolate

I don't usually read the Journal of Epidemiology. But I will when it publishes findings entitled

Chocolate Consumption in Pregnancy and Reduced Likelihood of Preeclampsia

From the abstract:

Background: Preeclampsia is a major pregnancy complication with cardiovascular manifestations. Recent studies suggest that chocolate consumption may benefit cardiovascular health.

The methods I won't reprint, as they're a load of mumbo-jumbo to science dummies like me. But the findings are oh, so pure:

Conclusions: Our results suggest that chocolate consumption during pregnancy may lower risk of preeclampsia.

Now hand over that Kit-Kat. It's for my health.

May 14, 2008 11:20

One in three military women sexually abused

I'm digging TheWip.net, the website of Women's International Perspective, a compilation of thoughtful, surprising blogs from women around the world. There's a "byline portal" that collects articles in newspapers and magazines on global news (check out this fascinating International Herald Tribune story on the courtship of young Saudi women).

But what caught my eye today is this blog entry by Nancy Van Ness on the sorry way our military treats servicewomen. Denied equal treatment and training as men, nonetheless

the greatest danger that military women in Iraq and Afghanistan face is from their male peers and officers. More women there are the victims of sexual assault than of injuries from hazardous military duties. Reuters reported as far back as 1995, “Ninety percent of women under 50 who have served in the US military and who responded to a survey report being victims of sexual harassment, and nearly one-third of the respondents of all ages say they have been raped.”

Imagine volunteering for a dangerous, exhausting, difficult job no one else wants—and being rewarded with atrocious treatment just for being a gal. Read Van Ness's whole post; it's horrifying, but worth your time.

May 14, 2008 10:12

Professor fails students, loses job

From InsideHigherEd.com:

Who is to blame when students fail? If many students fail — a majority even — does that demonstrate faculty incompetence, or could it point to a problem with standards?

Here's what allegedly happened: Steven D. Aird lost his job teaching biology at Norfolk State University because he failed too many students. To make things murkier:

A subtext of the discussion is that Norfolk State is a historically black university with a mission that includes educating many students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The university suggests that Aird — who is white — has failed to embrace the mission of educating those who aren’t well prepared. But Aird — who had backing from his department and has some very loyal students as well — maintains that the university is hurting the very students it says it wants to help. Aird believes most of his students could succeed, but have no incentive to work as hard as they need to when the administration makes clear they can pass regardless.

Yikes. According to The Virginian-Pilot, 22 of the 24 students in his biochemistry course got Ds, Fs or dropped the class during his first semester of teaching in 2002. School officials told him his pass-fail rate was "unacceptable." But here's what else seems unacceptable: according to U.S. Education Department data, only 12% of Norfolk State students graduate in four years, and only 30% graduate in six years. As for the school, spokeswoman Sharon Hoggard tells InsideHigherEd, “Something is wrong when you cannot impart your knowledge onto students. We are a university of opportunity, so we take students who are underprepared, but we have a history of whipping them into shape. That’s our niche.”

Should a teacher lose a job because he refuses to pass underperforming students? Or is his abominable pass-fail rate a result of his lousy teaching? Hard to say. But I suspect the problem is bigger than this one guy and his biochem class.

May 13, 2008 9:00

In the U.S., maternity leave isn't a right

"So when exactly are you going on leave?" That's a question I'm getting a lot these days from managers and colleagues. That's usually followed by: "...and you're coming back when?"

I don't have an answer yet. I'm 35 weeks pregnant, and most people, according to my doctor, stop working at about 36 weeks. But I'm squatting in a management job for one more week, and then I have a couple of writing assignments I'd like to complete before pushing off. As for post-baby leave, I'll have to weigh many factors in deciding when to come back to work, including finances, health and childcare.

But this I recognize: pondering the length of my maternity leave is a luxury. In our country, taking a paid leave from work after delivering a child is not at all a right. No law mandates that an employer must allow a woman paid time off from her job. The Family and Medical Leave Act guarantees workers at larger companies 12 weeks off, but that time is unpaid. Notes the Economic Policy Institute (bolds mine),

In a selection of 19 countries with comparable per capita income, the United States provides the fewest maternity leave benefits in both length of leave and paid time off (see chart). This is considered separate from any disability insurance for which one may qualify. In fact, the United States falls two weeks short of the International Labor Organization's basic minimum standard of at least 14 weeks general leave. It is also the only country not to guarantee some amount of leave with income.

Economic Policy Institute

Maternity leave is a hot topic on a lot of working-mommy blogs, including this one on WSJ.com. But it's mostly an argument confined to those of us lucky enough to hold professional, salaried positions where the main worry is about how the length of absence will impact our careers. What's interesting, though, is that even in countries that mandate paid leave, moms (and dads) fuss over the same thing. In the U.K., according to SmallBusiness.co.uk,

Research commissioned by Citrix Online shows that there are still concerns over government plans to extend parental, leave and parents and employers would prefer to introduce flexible working options. Parents also voiced worries over government plans to extend maternity leave from 39 to 52 weeks and give fathers the right to up to 26 weeks paternity leave with statutory pay, if the mother returns to work. Almost half of all dads (46 per cent) and 44 per cent of mums believe that taking extended leave would negatively impact their career.

Your thoughts? What's an appropriate length for maternity leave? Should the government force all employers to offer some paid leave? How long did you take off, and why?

May 12, 2008 2:12

Are stay-at-home moms worth more?

Salary.com released its annual Mother's Day findings on what it thinks moms ought to be paid. (Figure out your own worth on the site's Mom Calculator.) From its release:

For 2008, Salary.com determined that the time mothers spend performing the 10 most popular "Mom job functions" would equate to an annual cash compensation of $116,805 for a Stay-at-Home Mom and $68,405 for a Working Mom, down from last years calculations of $138,094 and $85,938.

Whoa. Stay-at-home moms merit more pay than working moms? How'd that compute? The website says it used proprietary software and these parameters:

The job titles that best matched a mom's definition of her work in both countries are (in order of hours spent per week): housekeeper, day care center teacher, cook, laundry machine operator, computer operator, psychologist, facilities manager, van driver, chief executive officer and janitor.

And:

The primary driver of mom's six-figure salary, however, remains the amount of overtime worked. This year, mom's overtime averaged 54.4 hours per week. According to the Salary.com survey, Stay-at-Home Moms work a 94.4 hour "workweek" - over half her time spent on the job is overtime. The Working Moms reported an average 54.6 hour "mom work week" in addition to their paying jobs.

Okay. I have no problem with the job of mom being highly valued, if only by some b.s. survey designed to garner the website some press. But what sticks in my craw is the devaluing of working moms and dads. We too perform those other roles—housekeeper, cook, shrink—but on top of schlepping off to bring home the bacon. I just can't figure out how a stay-at-home parent pulls more overtime than a working one. Someone help me out with this math.

May 12, 2008 11:56

In job interviews, the handshake counts

Hair combed? Check. Suit lapel free of latté dribble? Check. Resumé in some form of English? Check. Firm, strong handshake? Uh.

For many women and Donald Trump, the weird practice known in the Western world as the handshake is something we never master. Who cares, right? A friendly wave will do in most situations—and what with business going global, we may as well learn the art of the bow. But according to new research by University of Iowa business professor Greg Stewart, the grip is key to winning over a job interviewer.

"We've always heard that interviewers make up their mind about a person in the first two or three minutes of an interview, no matter how long the interview lasts," said Stewart, associate professor of management and organizations in the Tippie College of Business. "We found that the first impression begins with a handshake that sets the tone for the rest of the interview."

The as-yet-unpublished research was conducted with 98 students in the business school who were participating in mock job interviews with representatives from Iowa City–area businesses. The students also met at various times during their interviews with five trained handshake raters (!) who introduced themselves and shook hands—but otherwise did not participate in the interviews.

Stewart said the researchers found that those students who scored high with the handshake raters were also considered to be the most hireable by the interviewers.

Why is the handshake important?

Stewart suspects it's because a handshake is one of the few things that provides a glimpse into the person's individuality during the first few minutes of an interview. "Job seekers are trained how to act in a job interview, how to talk, how to dress, how to answer questions, so we all look and act alike to varying degrees because we've all been told the same things," he said. "But the handshake is something that's perhaps more individual and subtle, so it may communicate something that dress or physical appearance doesn't."