Featured Post
Posted by Lizzie on Sep-5-2008
There’s a lot of talk about women’s issues this election cycle. Thanks to Hillary Clinton, and now Sarah Palin, we’re back in the spotlight. In that vein, Congress is pressing for a revote on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which failed to pass previously. McCain has come out again it:
“I am all in favor of pay equity for women, but this kind of legislation, as is typical of what’s being proposed by my friends on the other side of the aisle, opens us up to lawsuits for all kinds of problems,” the expected GOP presidential nominee told reporters. “This is government playing a much, much greater role in the business of a private enterprise system.”
I’ve recently engaged in a half-hearted IT job search - in anticipation of my eventual graduation from the Tech program. There seems to be a little available, but I’ve heard that women are not treated favorably in the IT industry. It would please me, and thousands of other women, tremendously if this actually became law. Would I know that my male counterparts were making more than me? Probably not. But this act would give me recourse should I find out about a pay discrepancy after the fact. As a woman hoping to work in a male-dominated field, I would feel just a little better knowing I had a safety net.
There was some talk that this law isn’t necessary. I beg to differ. I worked with a company (unrelated to the tech field) that cut me a mystery check. When I inquired to what the purpose of the check was, I was told that it was to make up for a pay difference between me and my male counterparts. I had no idea that the men were making that much more per hour than I was, but there was a lawsuit and the settlement agreement was that this company would pay the hourly difference to each female for whatever period of time they agreed to (I think it was 3 months, even though I’d been there for over a year at that point). I left that company not long afterward, but my eyes had been opened. The reasoning for the lower pay was that women are mothers and so are prone to miss work because of their sick children. Men, on the other hand, are more reliable and should be rewarded. Really?
At a time when a major political party has nominated a self-proclaimed “hockey mom” to be vice president, there should be no more “she should get less because she’s a mom”. This woman is seeking a job while parenting 5 children (and potentially helping parent a grandchild) so the reason listed above would apply to her and her pay should be cut significantly. Right? No. Wrong. Her husband will be able to tend to the children while she runs for office and he can tend to the children while she continues to govern Alaska (except that he’s got a full-time job plus an extra job on the side in the summer, but that’s not this issue). It’s only fair that the rest of American women enjoy the same equality in pay as the women who govern them.
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Oct
19
Posted by Lizzie under
family
I am always looking for a great sale - especially if I can find it online. I’m a huge proponent of online shopping and a lot of times shopping at smaller sites. That, I think, is one of the best ways to support American small businesses (with a certain big box store moving into town a lot of small businesses closed their doors).
I mention this because my family, God love them, refuse to hear me when I about this kind of thing. I get coupons in the mail for stores, but only for buying online. I can find really great prices for things that are available here at a much higher price. But my family has decided that I’m slightly insane.
I don’t see what’s so insane in getting up to 75% off of an item because I’m buying it online. Sure I have to wait to get it in my hands, but that’s fine with me. And most places offer deals that include free shipping, so that isn’t an issue (and the price of gas kind of negates that argument, in my opinion). I’ll be getting packages from online retailers without the hassle of fighting the crowds and getting up at 3am on Black Friday. Why is that crazy? I think it’s a little crazy to go through the hassle when there are better ways to spend your time. But that’s just me.
Anyway, isn’t shopping online a lot like catalog shopping? I remember when I was young my grandparents would get the Sears catalog and other catalogs and they’d buy from them. I remember going through and picking out Christmas presents from them. That- to me- is basically the same thing as shopping online and no one thinks buying stuff from a big name retail catalog is crazy. Well, no one in my family.
Ha! We’ll see who gets to enjoy the day after Thanksgiving. Because I won’t be fighting the early birds who would just as soon rip your arm off as to allow you to get away with that fabulous sweater. 
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Oct
19
Posted by Lizzie under
health&wellness
I was in the ER yesterday afternoon and noticed something really interesting. A lot of the nurse’s aides were wearing what looked like MP3 players. It’s bothersome to me because shouldn’t they be paying attention to patient care or something? I mean, the nurses seemed pretty busy and aren’t their aides supposed to be helping ease their loads?
At any rate, my health issues haven’t quite gone away yet. I’ve hit one more bump in my road. My infection was getting better but I developed a bad case of pleurisy. I’ve had that before, but this was a little more severe possibly because I’m already fighting some crap and my stress really hasn’t been lessened much in the last few days (I’m not really going to go into detail about what’s happened, but it’s pretty depressing). I thought I was developing pneumonia because I was having some serious difficulty breathing. But I was lucky. Pleurisy usually clears up on its own eventually. I just have to take a little more pain medication to deal with it and to keep the swelling down.
I’m starting to get really worried about losing my health insurance. I don’t even know what I’ll do about health care if, for some reason, I’m thrust into the masses of the uninsured. We don’t have any free clinics around here and my doctors don’t take patients without insurance. This last incident just made it all the worse.
Keep your fingers crossed for me.
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Oct
19
Posted by Lizzie under
School
I’m taking an Internet Ethics class in school and we’ve been having some really interesting discussions. Lately we’ve been talking about online security systems and if employers are abusing them in any way. The main discussion is around whether or not employers have a right to keep tabs on what their employees are doing during office hours, but we’ve also discussed if they have a right to spy on them after hours.
I know that the term “Dooce” comes from someone being fired for her online activities after working hours. It seems to have happened a lot, actually, but she was the first to make it public.
At any rate, we were discussing the ethics behind such a firing. My own opinion is that employers absolutely can watch their employees while those employees are on the clock and on office equipment. If they’re surfing or chatting during this time then they’re wasting company resources and should be held accountable. I think, though, that when the employee clocks out and is no longer representing the company in any way, that’s where the employer rights stop. Would they have a right to fire someone for speaking at a political rally of someone whom the employer opposed? No. So why should they have the right to fire someone for writing a blog post during their own time?
I think it’s interesting that we’re discussing this right now especially. I’ve read about this for a long time and assumed that everyone who was involved in the online community would have formed an opinion in one way or the other. I didn’t even think that some people had never heard of such a thing. It’s amazing to me, I think, because I’ve been exposed to so much during my time online and I automatically think I’m so far behind everyone else that everyone else has already addressed these issues. I guess I was wrong. Very interesting.
I’ll be talking more about the issues we’ve discussed when the class is over. I don’t want to get into so much that my professor thinks I’m plagiarizing myself, but it does make for good blog conversation. Especially employer computer security.
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