Question: I hit a wall yesterday with my almost 21-year-old daughter. She’s a college student with a part-time job who lives at home. We support her except for her spending money, which means we spend a lot on insurance, car payments, tuition, cellphone, etc. Yesterday was her day off, and I came down with one of those viruses that knock you out. I asked her to pick up her father at work and take him to pick up his car at the dealership. She said she had plans already (with a boy who had just dropped her last month without warning but now he is all sorry) and couldn’t help me out. This is on the heels of her refusal just last week to help me out in a similar circumstance because she was tired from work.
Well, I blew up and probably overreacted, but I just felt so crappy and didn’t feel up to driving. I feel like we do so much for her that she should help us out when we need her. She puts everyone else in her life first and accuses us of holding our support of her over her head. I am at a loss.
Is this something she will grow out of? When do you just figure the kid is who she’s going to be and throw in the towel? She is basically a good kid who doesn’t party or get wild, and she works hard at school, but shouldn’t we expect more than that?
Answer: Tell your daughter you overreacted, you’re sorry, and that if you had it to do over, you hope you’d handle your anger differently.
Then, explain that your anger persists. You and her father have supported her not because you expected something in return, but because she’s your daughter and you love her, and wanted her to have the best start in life that you could provide.
Now that she’s 20, though, you see her role in the family as changing – she’s no longer “just” your kid, she’s also a fellow adult. Since she’s not fully independent, you’re still going to provide things as parents do, but since she’s also a household member who can vote, drive, and hold down a job, you and her dad are going to ask her for some adult contributions to family life. That will include errands, household chores, any number of things.
And just as being tired or busy wasn’t an excuse for a child to skip making her bed or setting the table, being tired isn’t an excuse for skipping out on the responsibilities of an adult member of the household.
If she reacts badly, then invite her to articulate what she thinks her role is in the family. Listen to the answer. If you’re not sure how to respond – or if you find yourself getting angry – say, “I’m not sure how to respond, so I’m going to sleep on it.”
Then do that. Think about what you believe is right and fair, then see how you can align your expectations – and your enabling, er, spending on her behalf – with what she’s willing to give.
E-mail Carolyn Hax at tellme@washpost.com, or chat with her online at noon Fridays at www.washingtonpost.com.
Online recruitment is increasing, especially in engineering firms, but many new jobs are part-time, according to research.
Recruitment firm Monster said its employment index, reviewing job opportunities from a number of career websites, had increased by 8% in the past year to its highest level since the end of 2008.
Manufacturing jobs such as plant and machine operators, assemblers and craft positions showed the biggest growth, especially in the South West.
Michael Gentle, of Monster, said: “With ONS (Office for National Statistics) figures showing unemployment edging downward and employment rising by 376,000 people over the year, the UK certainly has reason to feel comforted by an expanding job market.
“However, a lot of new employment opportunities have come in the form of part-time work, especially in sectors like construction where firms are recruiting but not for long-term positions.
“This suggests the job market might not be as steady as the figures initially suggest. Nonetheless, overall recruitment growth continues in a positive direction, especially in the economy’s key sectors.”
Adams became a set-piece specialist during his Norwich career
Former Norwich City midfielder Neil Adams has taken on a full-time coaching role in the club’s youth set-up.
The 45-year-old, who played 206 times for the Canaries, will step up from his part-time job to coach the under-16s and assist under-18s boss Ricky Martin.
Adams will quit his roles as BBC Radio Norfolk’s matchday summariser and a Norwich Evening News columnist.
“It’s really extending what I’ve been doing the last few seasons,” he told BBC Radio Norfolk.
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“I don’t think you can look much further than the end of last season in the way of highs for Norwich City.
“To get back into the Premier League was massive and we had some incredible games.”
During his 10 years commentating on the Canaries, Adams has seen three promotions, two relegations and one play-off final defeat.
He has shared that commitment with a part-time role on the Norwich academy coaching staff.
“Neil has been involved with the academy for 10 years and has overseen nearly every age group from under-12s upwards,” said Martin.
“This has given him a vast amount of experience and an opportunity to work with elite players.”
Traditional part-time summer jobs for students are going to long-term unemployed workers according to local job-placement specialists.
Minorities around South Florida are being hit with some of the highest unemployment rates in the state once you break down the latest Florida Unemployment Data.
When you factor in Unemployed, Under-Employed and Discouraged workers in the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the state Agency for Workforce Innovation, South Florida’’ job numbers look even worse.
The latest figures show Miami-Dade’s Overall Unemployment rate climbing to 21.8 percent. Broward’s 17.1 % and the latest statewide unemployment between the 2nd half of last year and the first quarter of 2011 is 18.8% according to the U-S Labor Department.
Greater Miami-Dade has the highest Unemployment rate in the country for major Metropolitan Areas according to the U-S Labor Departments just released Job Numbers for May.
The big question all over South Florida? Why isn’t more being done to attract new business, grow jobs and why did Governor Ric Scott refuse federal transportation money which could have put more Florida residents back to work.
Coconut Grover Resident Linda Murphy says ” I think he just gave away 3 Trillion dollars to the U-S Government that we could have desperately used that could have created maybe millions of jobs.
Ohio Tourist Ashley Heard following the rising Unemployment rate Nationwide and says adds, “I really don’t think any changes have been happening for the past 2 years. For the past few months it really has risen and so it is bad”.
According to the Miami’s Beacon Council, from may 2010 thru May 2011, Greater Miami saw 3700 new positions. But it also reports another 3000 jobs were cut during the same period. So the net gains was only about 700 positions.
Florida’s Agency for Workforce Innovation quotes another Job-Tracker, “The Conference Board” and reports there were 246,917 Job Postings statewide in May which was a gain of 42,319 positions over the past year.
As if last week’s employment report wasn’t pessimistic enough, a new Kauffman Foundation paper raises the possibility that the long-awaited recovery of lost jobs may take longer than we hoped, in part because startups are not performing at their historic norm.
As has been well-established, net job creation in the United States over the past three decades has mostly been driven by new and young companies. High levels of gross job creation and destruction at older and larger companies tend to cancel each other out, and the net additional increment of new jobs each year emerges mainly from younger firms. This is due, in no small part, to their sheer volume–there are simply more new and young firms.
In their paper, Starting Smaller, Staying Smaller, Kauffman researchers E.J. Reedy and Bob Litan highlight a “slow leak in job creation” in the United States. Part of this is a reduction in volume–not surprisingly, the annual number of new employer firms (i.e., those that have employees aside from the founder) fell from 2007 to 2009. Fewer new firms means fewer new jobs, which means a reduction in net job creation.
It gets worse, however: there is ”a longer-term trend that began earlier in the decade.” Even before the onset of the Great Recession in late 2007, new companies were “starting smaller”–creating fewer jobs upon entry. And, once in existence, startups over the last decade have been “staying smaller”–creating fewer jobs in their first years of existence. Hence, a slow-motion jobs leak. As a result:
The relatively restrained job creation of new businesses in recent years will, therefore, have a substantial negative impact on longer-term employment levels.
In other words, we are going to be living with these consequences for a considerable amount of time. This is reminiscent of Tyler Cowen’s argument in his recent book, The Great Stagnation.
To some observers, some of this will not be surprising. The economic expansion from 2002 to 2007 was one of the worst on record, with earnings growth and job creation lagging behind those of nearly every other expansion since 1948. Most notoriously, the employment-to-population ratio barely moved, a symptom of weak growth; the ratio plunged further during the recession and now stands at its lowest level in 28 years. The lackluster job performance of new firms during this period is thus one culprit behind poor economic performance.
So why is this happening? As the paper points out, there are probably too many factors at work to fully disentangle. One persuasive explanation might be the nature of economic growth over the past decade, particularly before the recession. As we all know, the housing bubble and its related financial legerdemain distorted large parts of the economy, from unsustainable construction to massive numbers of people moving to Las Vegas.
One thesis that might be advanced, then, is that the housing and finance bubbles (only one of which popped) also distorted entrepreneurship, prompting large numbers of people to start what were basically unhealthy firms right from the beginning. Our Kauffman colleague Paul Kedrosky has recently been giving a presentation on the number of ladders picked up by the California Highway Patrol as highway debris. Ladder debris climbed steadily from 2001 and peaked in 2006; thereafter, it plummeted. How is this relevant? As Paul tells it, ladders that were marginally attached to trucks likely indicate contractors who were marginally attached to construction–the housing bubble meant a flood of new people and companies into construction, further distorting the market.
Now, obviously, highway debris cannot totally explain the “starting smaller, staying smaller” phenomenon discussed by Reedy and Litan. But, it is likely the combination of several factors just like this–small distortions that inflated far beyond healthy levels–that lurks beneath the subpar startup trends. In any case, whatever the reason, the United States must find a way to reinvigorate its entrepreneurial sector, the most vital source of long-term economic health.
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Kent Mechels spent the last three Christmases away from his family plowing snow off Minnesota roads so people could drive safely. It was a hardship he accepted as part of the job, he said.
But Mechels’ latest sacrifice — getting laid off during a state government shutdown now entering its second week — has him thinking about quitting.
“I’m looking at other state agencies in different states right now. I’ve lived in Minnesota my entire life. I may be leaving,” said Mechels, a single father from Rochester. “When the state government treats their employees like this, I don’t need to be part of it.”
Many of the 22,000 public employees out of work in Minnesota’s budget impasse say they will get through the extended layoff by tapping into personal savings, relying on a spouse’s income or unemployment checks, and making household spending cuts. But others are looking for new jobs, creating the potential for a brain drain that would be one more negative from the nation’s longest state government shutdown in a decade.
Erik Pakieser, an emergency planner for the state transportation department, took to Twitter soon after the shutdown to shop his services for what he hopes could be a better-paying job in the private sector. The state stands to lose an employee it spent a lot of money training, the St. Anthony Village man said.
“If I get a better job, great. If I don’t, I’m going to get my state job back eventually,” he said. “Who knows? Maybe there’s a silver lining in all this.”
Isaias Petros, of Minneapolis, works in land management with the Department of Transportation and said he doesn’t have much money saved to get through the shutdown. Though he is single with no children, Petros said he needs at least a temporary job to pay back some student loans.
“I was not ready for this,” he said, adding that he was actively looking for “anything” that could help him support himself.
Not everyone is job hunting.
Brent Anderson, who manages Whitewater State Park in southeastern Minnesota, has a wife who works and said he simply plans to cut back on expenses. Anderson is spending more time volunteering at the Goodview Fire Department, catching up on paperwork and thinking about painting his house trim.
One of the biggest shutdown casualties in Anderson’s family is his teenage daughter. She was scheduled to take her driver’s license test last Tuesday and was excited about getting behind the wheel. Now she’ll have to wait because the state is not offering driving tests during the shutdown.
“It’s a little disappointment for a 16-year-old,” Anderson said.
Jim Ullmer, of Crystal, a commercial vehicle inspector for the Department of Public Safety, has been babysitting his 18-month-old granddaughter, who he took to an anti-shutdown union rally at the Capitol last week.
“We’ve cut back and skipped a lot of things just in preparation,” Ullmer said. “Right now I’m just babysitting little Anna. … She’s a full-time job and I love doing it, but I’d much rather be out doing my job.”
Ullmer also has been spending time on the phone. He’s the chief steward statewide for members in his agency who belong to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. He tells members curious about how long the shutdown will last to call their legislators.
“Ask them. They’re the ones who are keeping us out here,” Ullmer said.
The workers’ money woes contrast sharply with the position of state lawmakers, who are still eligible for their salaries during the shutdown — although some have chosen not to take them. And while their unions are a traditional power base for Democrats and support for Dayton remains strong, it’s not universal.
Brian Lindholt, of Minneapolis, says Republicans could end the shutdown simply by meeting the Democratic governor halfway.
“This is real. This is not a joke,” said Lindholt, a father of three who works for the Department of Transportation. “This is real life and we’re without a job right now because … they are holding the majority as legislators so they think they can strong-arm the governor.”
But Pakieser, who belongs to the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, criticized the unions for their close alliance with the governor.
“I feel like Dayton has gone out of the way to mislead people about his compromise attitude,” Pakieser said. He said a video is circulating on YouTube of Dayton imploring lawmakers in February to join him in pledging not to shut down the government, yet Dayton vetoed all major state agency funding bills Republicans passed at the end of the session.
“It just looks to me like he wanted to force a shutdown. … He chose to spread maximum pain throughout the state government,” Pakieser said.
Some, like Mechels, say both parties deserve blame.
“They’re hired to do a job,” Mechels said. “They’re not doing their job, and they’re using us for pawns.”
Click photo to enlarge
Sen. Rich Alloway, R-Chambersburg, has been promoting a service to local school districts as part of his job as counsel with a Harrisburg law firm.
Alloway said he has given information about Municipal Revenue Services to several school districts and made a presentation to Tuscarora School District staff.
MRS, an accounting firm based in Erie, is a client of Elliott Greenleaf, a prestigious law firm where Alloway works part time. “I don’t see where this is a problem,” Alloway said.
Alloway met with Tuscarora Superintendent Rebecca Erb and Business Manager Eric Holtzman after they expressed an interest in the MRS service. Also attending were state Rep. Bryan Barbin, who also works for Elliott Greenleaf, and former Franklin County Commissioner Cheryl Plummer of Cardinal Crossings Inc.
“He represented himself as Rich Alloway, not Sen. Alloway,” Holtzman said.
The distinction was not as apparent to Erb, who said she is on a first-name basis with Alloway.
“I did not know Rich Alloway’s relationship to MRS,” she said. “There was tension in the meeting. Mr. Alloway was trying to find a financial solution for the school district, and we didn’t agree.”
“For us it didn’t make sense right then to look at that kind of funding model,” said Holtzman, who declined to characterize the meeting.
MRS advances the money that a school district will collect on delinquent taxes for a 6 percent fee. The school district gets its back taxes in a lump sum from MRS, and MRS collects the trickle of delinquencies over two to four years.
“You spend your future dollars,” Erb said.
Erb and Alloway said the subject of MRS never came up between them again.
Alloway said he has mentioned MRS services to school districts in different telephone conversations and meetings with school superintendents.
“It’s up to them whether they take advantage of it or not,” Alloway said. “MRS shows how a school district can meet their budgets without raising taxes on people.”
Jim Taylor, Alloway’s opponent in the 2008 GOP primary election, brought the MRS issue to light in the front page story “Something’s Fishy” of the first edition of The TEA Party Press.
“Maybe this sort of thing goes on all the time,” Taylor wrote. “But it’s natural to wonder if this isn’t at least a little shady. We elect people to office and invest them with prestige and power, and then they turn around and use that prestige and power to enrich themselves.”
“This is just Jim Taylor being Jim Taylor,” Alloway said. “He’s still angry over losing the election, and he continues to attack me.”
Alloway is up for re-election in 2012.
“This guy (Taylor) is about making money for himself,” Alloway said. “He needs a villain to make money. This guy is a political money maker. This is another attempt to make money for himself by attacking me. It’s disgusting. It’s dirty politics so this guy can make money. It doesn’t belong in our political system.”
Taylor operates America’s Political Action Committee Inc. from an office in Greencastle.
The conservative PAC paid Taylor $25,557 in 2010, and $29,000 to Antrim Direct Mail, according to OpenSecrets.org. Antrim Direct Mail is a source of income for Taylor, according to his 2007 candidate statement of financial interests.
Alloway’s annual pay as state senator is $78,315. Alloway’s most recent statement of financial interests indicates he is “of counsel” with Elliott Greenleaf and a 50 percent member with Turnkey Property Development LLC, Chambersburg, Alloway Properties LLC, Chambersburg, and Echo Smart LLC, Harrisburg.
Taylor questioned Alloway’s compensation for moonlighting with the law firm.
“I get a small monthly amount,” Alloway told Public Opinion. “I don’t actively do a whole lot because I don’t have the time. I refer business to them at times.”
Alloway is not a partner or an associate, but “of counsel,” an attorney who has a close, regular and personal relationship with the firm.
Alloway said he joined Elliott Greenleaf about a year ago after interviewing with a number of firms.
“It was a better fit for my limited time,” he said. “I’m not going to be a senator forever. It’s very reputable firm. They’re hoping to grow their business in south-central Pennsylvania.”
As a lawyer he must maintain his law license and education credits, Alloway said. The firm picks up the cost of his liability insurance.
“We are lawyers 24/7 no matter where we are,” Alloway said.
He said he chose to join a law firm outside his senatorial district to lessen the chance of any conflict of interest.
But according to www.elliottgreenleaf.com, Alloway’s law work concentrates on the district: “Alloway’s practice focuses on serving his clients in the firm’s core practice areas of health care, banking, educational municipal law, real estate and employment law, particularly in the Franklin, Adams and York Counties of central Pennsylvania.”
————
Jim Hook can be reached at 262-4759 and jhook@publicopinionnews.com.
This week’s episode of the Work Awesome podcast features David Sparks. David hosts the popular Mac Power Users podcast, maintains a regular posting schedule on his MacSparky website and finds time to work as a full time lawyer. How does he do it? You’ll have to listen to find out…
Show Notes
- David reveals how he manages to get all of his stuff done.
- How he feels about the feedback he gets on the Mac Power Users podcast.
- What David feels should come with the Mac…that doesn’t.
- . . . and we talk tea, desks, what music spurs him on (if any) and much more.
This Week’s Sponsor
This episode of the Work Awesome podcast is sponsored by Memonic. Memonic makes note-taking a cinch. From clipping to filing and organizing information, they make the whole process a no-brainer, with the best web clipper out there, and an interactive dashboard that even lets you collect information socially, in groups, with your friends and colleagues. To get a free one-month premium trial of Memonic, enter the promo code G-6E7754W on their Plans Prices page.
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TORONTO — Mike McCoy has amassed roughly 20,000 air miles in the past three months on his way back and forth between his two primary places of employment. He stands in long lines at customs along with ordinary travellers, hauling his own bags, including the big one with the Toronto Blue Jays logo on the side that he fills with baseball equipment.
He has a hotel room in Las Vegas and an apartment in Toronto. His salary bounces like a volatile stock. Since the season started, he has seldom seen his wife and their 3 1/2-year-old twin sons.
With the Jays, McCoy rarely gets in a game, but he has played seven different positions, including pitcher. In Las Vegas, he plays every day but has appeared in only 26 games because he isn’t around that much.
After a decade in professional baseball, the five-foot-nine McCoy has morphed from a minor-league lifer to an all-purpose temp worker for the Jays.
He has learned to travel light, and he certainly is not complaining about his role as the 25th man.
“I’m glad I’m the guy they’re calling up when they call somebody up,” he says.
The Jays put him on their opening-day roster and sent him to their triple-A club in Las Vegas 10 days later. That started a cycle that has seen him sent down and called back up five times. Twice his stint in the majors lasted a mere three days.
This is not exactly what McCoy had in mind when he started chasing his dream as a kid in his hometown of San Diego, where he still lives. But at 30, after years of slow but steady improvement in the minors, he has proven more useful than ever.
With Las Vegas, he is usually the second baseman and leadoff hitter, batting .320 with a .450 on-base percentage. With the Jays, he fills in where and when needed, as a late-inning replacement for his defence, as a pinch-runner for his speed, and even that one time as a pitcher in a blowout because somebody remembered he had worked a few innings on the mound in the minors.
It has been a long climb for McCoy, a 34th-round draft pick by the St. Louis Cardinals in 2002. He still loves his job, but now his life is better in other ways.
“I remember in rookie ball, I was making $850 a month,” he says. “Minor-league minimum isn’t a lot of money, especially if you’ve got a family. I always worked in the off-season, playing winter ball in Mexico, doing what I could to make some extra money.”
Until this year, his highest salary was $8,000 US a month (for a five-month minor-league season) in 2009.
But after stints with the Jays last season and this, he expects to take the winter off for the second straight year, mainly to compensate for time away from his family but also because he can finally afford the down time.
Under baseball’s collective agreement, his pro-rated minor-league salary is based on 60 per cent of what he made with Toronto last season. With the Jays, his pro-rated pay is based on the $422,300 US major-league minimum.
And no, he does not pay double rent. The collective agreement dictates that if he is sent to the minors, he hands over his keys to the Jays and they can sub-let his apartment while he is away. Even if they don’t, they reimburse his rent.
“Early in the season I rented an apartment for a month in Vegas because there were a lot of home stands and my family was coming up,” he said. “But I really didn’t get to use it.”
The Jays called again.
When they send him down, he usually flies home to San Diego for a day with his family, then makes the five-hour drive to Las Vegas. If the team has a long homestand coming up, he brings his wife and kids along.
Of course, the visit might be brief. His longest stay in triple-A has been 13 days.
Because he plays so little with the Jays, he admits his Vegas stints can be helpful.
“I want to be here, but when I get sent down I get an opportunity to play every day, which is good,” he says. “It gives me a better feel for playing again so when I do come back up I have a better chance to succeed.”
A career .298 hitter in triple-A, he has hit only .196 in 95 big-league games. But he is valuable for other reasons, which is why the Jays keep calling.
He hopes they want him back next year. “I love it here and the Blue Jays have been good to me,” he says. He also knows his time in the Toronto system will be a boon if he needs to go job-hunting this winter.
Meanwhile, his modest major-league breakthrough has given him the means to do something many of his wealthier teammates did long ago.
“Living in an apartment with two kids isn’t great, so last off-season we bought a house,” he says. “That’s nice. We’ve got a backyard where the kids can run around. You feel like your hard work pays off when you can do something like that.”
jlott@nationalpost.com
twitter.com/LottOnBaseball
OTTAWA—The Canadian economy posted better-than-expected job growth in June, helped by a gain in part-time jobs to post its third-consecutive month of increases.
Statistics Canada reported today that the net gain of 28,000 jobs came at the end of a quarter of slow economic growth.
It stood in stark contrast to a disappointing report south of the border, where the much larger U.S. economy gained just 18,000 jobs.
TD Bank chief economist Craig Alexander called the discrepancy “ridiculous.”
“In the wake of the recent recession, the Canadian economy is generating a job-filled recovery, even to the point where economists are worried about the fact that it doesn’t appear that we’re getting much productivity growth out of our workers,” he noted.
“Meanwhile the story in the United States is the dead opposite.”
Statistics Canada said the Canada economy added 21,000 part-time jobs, compared with 7,000 new full-time jobs.
Economists had expected an overall increase of 10,000 jobs.
Meanwhile, the country’s unemployment rate held steady in June at 7.4 percent as the number of people entering the workforce increased.
In the U.S. however, the employment rate rose to 9.2 percent, from 9.1 percent in May, according to the U.S. Labour Department.
The loonie was down 0.53 of a cent to 103.78 cents (U.S.) following the two reports.
BMO deputy chief economist Douglas Porter characterized the Canadian report as a small point in favour of the Bank of Canada gradually raising its key interest rate later this year.
“If you blinked, you may have missed the slowdown in Canada’s job growth,” Porter wrote in a note to clients.
“While the details of the release may not be as impressive as the sturdy headline, there is no denying that the labour market continues to make impressive progress,” he added.
The Canadian results came as the economy slowed in the second quarter.
David Madani, Canadian economist at Capital Economics, forecast GDP growth in Canada slowed to an annual rate of 1.2 percent in the April-June quarter compared with a rate of 3.9 percent in the first three months of the year.
Alexander noted that it was that weakness in the U.S., and worries about the global economy, that likely would keep the Bank of Canada from raising its key interest until next year.
The bank last hiked interest rates last September, lifting its policy-setting rate to one percent.