Low-paying gigs hard to live on

There is little money to be made by low-end musicians. By low-end I mean the guy who plays piano in Nordstrom's department store or the dude strumming guitar on the schooner tour of some second-rate city's polluted harbor. There is even less cash to be made by musicians in small clubs who many times must guarantee a certain number of patrons otherwise they could actually lose money.

But "real" professions in offices don't seem to be any better these days. As jobs begin to trickle back, I am noticing pay is way down.

I saw a rather typical ad recently from an employer who wants to hire a journalist for a newspaper/web-site operation. The job required candidates to have a four-year degree, be experts in various software such as Photoshop, InDesign and Flash, be able to write sports and news stories, do page layout and manage a couple of part-timers. Weekends and night work was required. The ad said the salary was "competitive." When I checked to see what competitive meant, I found out it was $20,000 a year. And this isn't unusual, particularly in journalism. Makes you wonder why anyone would spend tens of thousands of dollars on a J-school education.

As employers have the upper hand in a bad job market, they are requiring a vast array of skills. This is not all that unusual in journalism jobs, but the salaries being offered are what folks could have expected 25 years ago with a degree and maybe a year or two of experience. The pay is so low that you might as well take that gig singing Van Morrison tunes at the tacky airport hotel lounge. Cubicle work certainly isn't that much more lucrative these days.

Of course, employers are like anyone else -- they tend to get what they pay for. Even though the market is flooded with fairly talented folks who would be willing to lower their salary demands, it's not always the best move to hire inexperienced folks or people with questionable work histories just to save a buck. That bargain-basement employee in the long run might not be such a good idea if your company ends up being sued for libel or some form of malpractice.

Past catching up to the present

Even in 1960 my displeasure with winter was obvious. Didn't like it in Brooklyn, where this picture of me was taken. Didn't like it when my family moved to Long Island. And didn't like it while in high school in Rockland County, N.Y. No wonder I ended up going to college in southern Virginia. Winters are milder there, but still not mild enough for me. I recall being in shock the first time it snowed. The usually green campus was pretty in white but my anxiety rose with each inch of the fallen flaky stuff.

My first choice of colleges was the University of South Florida in Tampa. However, due to not being the best of test-takers, I screwed up my SATs and ended up in Lynchburg, Va. I have no regrets. Lynchburg College was a fine liberal arts school in a very scenic area of the state. In some ways, I wish I could have settled down there after graduation. Instead, I went on journalism career-driven romp up and down the East Coast before eventually coming back to Virginia in the mid-1990s.

As I look out over the gray, northern Virginia sky today, I wonder what course life would have taken if I would have ended up in Florida in 1979 -- what relationships would have been forged, what career would I have chosen, etc. One wonders about the road not taken when the current path seems to have led to a dead end. The winter slows everything down, allowing for the past to catch up to the present.

Of course, it's impossible to say things would have been better or significantly different -- that I would have become a physical education teacher (my original career goal) if I went to Tampa, or played in a great rock 'n' roll band (my first love). I might have gotten swallowed by a shark in the Gulf of Mexico at the age of 19 or been flattened on the streets of St. Petersburg by a runaway Buick driven by an infamous "blue-hair" with over-sized sunglasses. I might have eventually ventured back north, just to test my tolerance for winter or for nostalgic reasons, only to perish in a frozen park lake.

Still, it's interesting to consider what better things might have happened with a left turn at the intersection instead of a right. Unfortunately, when you're making those life-charting decisions at 18 you really don't have enough data or a crystal ball to choose the best course. Who would have thought in 1980 that newspapers would be dying because of a thing called the Internet and that seasoned journalists, such as myself, would be scrambling for jobs in 2009? Who would admit at 20 years old that they really don't know themselves yet or that they might be forced to reinvent themselves later in life when most folks are beginning to look forward to retirement? While I do know of a few people who knew exactly what they wanted from life early on, and made their visions into reality, I think most of us just stumble around, bumping into furniture as we go. The key is to try not to fall down the stairs.

The biggest challenge for me this winter will be in dealing with the unknown for the second year in a row. I still feel disoriented from the events of last year. The cold and dark days makes navigation more difficult. There is something about sunlight and warmth that makes impossible things seem possible. Maybe it's just an illusion, but it's a good illusion.

We've already had our first significant snowfall in the D.C. area. Luckily, we don't get the amount of snowfall that places like New York and Boston do. I am keeping my fingers crossed that good things can happen in the winter months. Maybe it will change my perspective on this time of year. Maybe the apparent dead end up ahead is just a dark tunnel across the harbor's icy waters. Perhaps there is light on the other side, even in the winter.

Poll: Mental health issues on rise

Excerpts from The New York Times:

“Everything gets touched,” said Colleen Klemm, 51, of North Lake, Wis., who lost her job as a manager at a landscaping company last November. “All your relationships are touched by it. You’re never your normal happy-go-lucky person. Your countenance, your self-esteem goes. You think, ‘I’m not employable.’ ”

Joblessness has wreaked financial and emotional havoc on the lives of many of those out of work, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll of unemployed adults, causing major life changes, mental health issues and trouble maintaining even basic necessities.

Sobering thoughts about aging

This chart from the National Social Life, Health and Aging Project shows what many of my closest friends and I have to look forward to in the next 5 to 25 years. Just think, in 5 years about 1 in 10 of those who graduated from college in 1979 will have trouble using the toilet. And 13.4 percent will have difficulty simply dressing. Daily living will not be what were told it would be. The golden years aren't looking so golden. I have no desire to fight my own feet in order to put on my socks.

Of course, few things in life remain constant or improve over time. Even wine reaches a point where it gets rancid. We have to accept that inevitable decline in all things, including ourselves. But who determines when the wine is turning bad? There is also the question of whether the wine is actually worsening or whether our tastes are changing.

It seems that life involves a series of reboots and dispelling of myths that can often get frustrating as one begins to have the advantage of a seasoned perspective.

Remember when we were told to drink several glasses of whole milk each day? Well, turns out that's a sure-fire way to die before you even begin having toilet issues. But I fully expect that sooner or later, drinking milk will be fashionable again.

Remember the American dream? Get an education. Buy a small house. Work your way up to a good job in a big company. Get a bigger house. Show loyalty and collect a pension after 30 years or so. Then retire to a warm-weather place and play catch with your grandchildren. Now, a bachelor's degree doesn't guarantee you anything. A small house won't necessarily appreciate enough to ever buy a bigger home and may, depending on the economy, lead you into foreclosure. Pensions are long gone at most companies, replaced by 401k plans. And employers show little loyalty, particularly to older workers, making it almost impossible now to work for just one or two companies in a lifetime. Oh, and those 401k and other savings plans ... turns out they aren't the retirement safety nets everyone said they would be when pensions were ditched.

Aging in America is not the rewarding, respectful or peaceful time we were told it would be or just assumed. Many people who should be at the height of their careers are finding themselves on unemployment lines. What's worse is that the future for these folks looks even more dismal because personal resources are being burned just to get through the here and now. If you are one of the 24.3 percent of the people who can't walk a block when you're 65, you won't even be able to be a respectable homeless person.

Whether one's problems are career, financial or health-related, "baby boomers" were not prepared for this. We adjusted and readjusted as boomers have done since grade school when we had to hide under our desks to protect ourselves from nuclear weapons, only to find out that that was one of the dumbest things we were ever told to do. We survived divorces which became fashionable, retooled our careers as technology took off and gave up drinking whole milk. We quit smoking and kept our hands on the 10 and 2 o'clock positions on the steering wheel. Unfortunately, someone mindlessly talking on their cellphone ran right into us and obliterated everything we worked for in our lives. Guess they didn't take driver's ed.

I am not a fan of aging if on top of having a 9.5 percent chance of having difficulty getting out of bed means that once I am out of bed I have nowhere to go. What good is there in medical science increasing our life expectancy if society and our culture casts us out in our 50s and 60s? I don't want to have difficulty walking across the room, assuming I have a room to walk across, only to find that once I am across it there really isn't anything there worthy of my attention.

Because we've eaten more veggies and get prostate exams regularly, the average life expectancy of men has increased to about 75. It was 10 years less when many of us boomers were born. That's the good news. However, I wonder who is going to take us to the pharmacy after the sun goes down when 30 percent of us won't be able to drive a car at night? I wonder how many of us will even be able to afford a car because no one will give us a job?

You would think everyone would be more supportive of the aging process -- from employers to the entertainment industry to Madison Avenue -- because we all get old if we're lucky enough to avoid premature illnesses or fatal accidents.

Maybe along with prolonging life, we better figure out a way to tweak our culture in a manner that allows mid-life and older folks to be contributing members of society. When we get out of bed in the morning, we want to go to meaningful jobs, see movies we can relate to, read books and publications with something substantial to say. Most of us are capable of working well into our 60s and 70s. If given the chance, some folks are still vibrant contributors in their 80s. But our culturally mindset has to change in order to have a more just and productive society. Just because 9.7 percent of us may walk across the room a little slowly doesn't mean we don't possess knowledge and skills that should be treasured.

I am not ready for the shuffleboard courts. I feel the pressure of time being preciously limited, but fortunately I don't have any of the problems listed in the chart above. At least not yet. And while I am blessed to be relatively healthy, it would be nice to feel like there is still a place on this planet for me that doesn't involve canasta and waxing poetic about the Ed McMahon. As many of my boomer friends would agree, we might not be able to play four quarters of full-court basketball or drink until the wee hours of the morning anymore, but we can think, feel, analyze and contribute in ways we couldn't in 1979.

Yes, daily life is bound to get progressively difficult after a certain age regardless of how many hours you spend on the treadmill. But it doesn't have to be made even more difficult by what seems to be a growing list of societal, economic and cultural shifts. Not being able to properly digest a slice of pepperoni pizza doesn't have to be made worse by losing one's sense of place in the world. Ideally, I would like to go back to an America where grandparents are respected, workers can retire comfortably and I can drink a glass of milk every now and then. Yet, I know that's not the way things are trending. And with the prospect of battling my underwear on the horizon, I have to wonder if Billy Joel was right in singing, "Only the good die young."

Sandwich shop justice

A bleach-blond woman in a sandwich shop that I visit occasionally claimed she gave the young, Latino cash register guy a $20 bill today. The cashier gave her change from $10. The older owner of the shop came over and checked the register. There was no evidence that a $20 bill was placed in the $10 slot, but the owner made good on the customer's claim anyway, seemingly to avoid further dispute. I felt bad for the young cashier because he was certain he did not make a mistake.

The woman, whose body language and attitude told me she was scamming these folks, sat down to eat her meal. Five minutes later, the owner walked over to her table and said that he checked the video in the back room and that she gave the cashier a $10 bill, not a $20 as she had claimed. He then pointed to the camera above the register, asked for his money back and calmly walked away after she ponied up the money.

As I watched this little random episode play out, it felt good to see justice served without further incident. I felt good for the young cashier who was proven to be correct. If life were only like this more often ...

Online "news" intentionally misleading

I have touched on this before in this blog. And here is another example of what is wrong with the lack of real journalists working in online "news" environments.

A headline on AOL's home page today reads: "Is Tiger Woods Ready to Quit Golf?" The text below the headline says: "A report has surfaced that wife Elin has given him an ultimatum -- one that might not bode well for his career."

However, when you click on the story you find out that Woods quitting golf is just a rumor and a pretty far-fetched one at that, according to the writer. But in the online news world, the home-page headline and readout served its short-sighted purpose in that it got me to click to the full story, even if it did so by being blatantly misleading.

Unfortunately, AOL isn't the only site guilty of trickery disguised as real news. And just to be clear, I don't usually go to AOL, Yahoo or sites like that for news. However, I am beginning to see newspaper sites doing similar, unethical things in order to drive web traffic. And that's pretty disturbing to a lifelong editor such as myself. Ultimately, I think it will fail from a business standpoint.

My advice to these types of quasi-news web sites would be to hire professional journalists in order to increase credibility. People seeking legitimate news want to believe what they are reading. They don't want to read one thing on a home page and a completely different thing once they drill down into the site. Over the long haul, credibility is more important than tricking people to click headlines that are misleading. Solid, reliable and original content will build traffic, not juvenile gotcha headlines that refer to supermarket tabloid reports.

Update: Reports came out later in the day on numerous web sites stating that Tiger Woods is taking a temporary leave from golf. He's not quitting. I can't really understand why anyone would even speculate that he'd retire at a still relatively young age. Plenty of public figures, including athletes, entertainers and even politicians have been guilty of similar things that are alleged about Woods. Rarely does anyone ever quit over them unless they broke a law and are forced to. The money-making machine that is Tiger Woods will return to golf soon enough. Hopefully, the media won't glorify him quite as much when he gets back on the course. Athletes and others in powerful positions are often arrogant enough to think they can get away with anything and still maintain their public image. Yet few ever get through their various indiscretions without some exposure and scars ... just ask Bill Clinton, Wade Boggs, Gary Hart, Roger Clemens, Koby Bryant and a host of others.

E&P: More than just a magazine

Editor & Publisher magazine is closing down after 125 years of publication. The web site will also cease operations.

Probably unheard of by most of the population, E&P was the magazine of newspaper professionals. Even more popular than its stories about the business were its famous classified ads. Long before the internet explosion, this is where many young and not-so-young newspaper people went to look for a job. I began subscribing to it while still in college in 1979.

In part, I got my job at USA Today in 1995 by answering an ad in E&P. I also was hired by a Miami-area daily newspaper in 1980 and found an editing job in Meriden, Conn., in the mid-1980s thanks to the E&P classifieds.

With newspaper jobs drying up and layoffs continuing, my search for employment just got a little bit harder today as I still went to E&P to read about trends in the business and to peruse the help-wanted ads.

Read more about the E&P demise.

UFO or Russian missile?

A light appeared in the sky over Norway this week. A beam seemed to be coming from the spiral. As I said in a recent post, more strange images in the sky are likely to be photographed because of all the digital and security cameras in use now. Story/more pictures.

Tattoos still taboo in the office

According to a 2007 Pew Research Center study, 40 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 40 have at least one tattoo. As common as tattoos seem to be these days, that statistic surprised me. I figured the number would be lower.

I worked in a large office building with hundreds of employees, many of them in the 18-40 range, yet I can only think of a handful of people who had tattoos. I guess a lot of my former colleagues were in the tattoo closet.

It seems those with ink in their skin are still reluctant to show their body art in the workplace as this Washington Post article explains.

"D.C. is culturally one of the most conservative cities I've ever lived in," said Sarah Graddy (not pictured above) in the Post article. Graddy is 31 and has lived in Seattle, Los Angeles and Gainesville, Fla., before coming to Washington to work for the government. She has three tattoos. "I just see fewer people displaying body art in the workplace here."

I have no objection to tattoos unless they become an obsession. Not sure I'd feel comfortable with a dude in a nearby cubicle coming in with his face looking like bar code, but I'd probably get over it if the guy was a decent worker and relatively normal human being. Still, I would advise anyone seeking work not to openly display their tattoos during a job interview because there are still many employers who will pick apart everything about your appearance and jump to false conclusions. Might not be fair, but it's just the way things are. We've battled race and gender discrimination. We've become accepting of sexual orientation and provided considerations for handicapped workers. Yet, in our constant quest for fairness (some might say political correctness) we can't seem to conquer appearance discrimination. If you appear too old, too fat, too tattooed you will be at a disadvantage, particularly in certain professions in cities like Washington.

Seems to me that tattoos are like anything else that we do to ourselves to express a feeling, image or belief. People dye their hair to look young or for self expression. They wear tinted contacts or shave their heads to change their appearance. They have a cross or star around their necks to express religious beliefs. And when it's all done in moderation and isn't a clear sign of some more serious, underlying issues, I'm not sure why anyone would be offended. Of course, if Bob the banker has a swastika carved in his forehead, I'm probably going to open my meager savings account elsewhere.

There is something about tattoos, even "tasteful" ones, that still seems to draw a wider range of opinions and reactions, both positive and negative. With so many people now sporting tattoos, it won't be long before they become more visible in office.

"Men of a Certain Age" a winner

A new series, Men of a Certain Age, premiered on TNT last night. And it appears that this show might already be one of the smarter programs on television. The first show mixed real-life struggles with a light touch of humor and irony throughout. Nice to see a television series with some appeal to people who are over 40. Also good to have something on commercial TV that doesn't contributed to the constant dumbing down of America via the boob tube. Even the musical soundtrack to the show was solid. My only complaint is in having to wade through all the advertisements. Wish Men of a Certain Age was on commercial-free HBO, although it's nice not to have to pay extra to see quality entertainment. We'll see if the show holds up throughout an entire season. So far, so good.