Author: Simon

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Hot Dogs

Humor is how we deal with the horrific.

We went to see the traveling Pompeii exhibit which made its way to the Cincinnati Union Terminal museum. I had seen many of the statues before in magazines and documentaries, but it was certainly more powerful to experience firsthand. Some of the victims had definitely died under varying degrees of agony. Baked and suffocated. Doesn’t sound pleasant. I didn’t find it appropriate to take photos.

But I did still take one of the dog.

And then I thought: this looks an awful lot like a whippet. And whippets are perpetually cold. My own whippet in fact recently cooked herself in front of the fireplace until patches of fur fell out. That’s some desperation.

So if there’s one shred of happiness from this tragic event, it’s that a whippet finally managed to get warm enough. It’s how Poppy would have chosen to go.

–Simon

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Punch and Clamp

I need to track more projects here and philosophize less! And as promised, here’s a project.

My tweeny daughter has aggression issues. And when I was her age I dealt with it by punching brick walls and cutting myself. Fortunately she asked for help in the form of a healthier outlet – a punching bag. I wish I had been able to talk to my own parents about mental problems.

So that’s what I got her. And I went official, UFC brand! Aww yeah. And no sissy 70# bag. No, this is the full 100! Which does limit hanging options, but I figured the I-beam in the basement that holds up the house should be strong enough.

And it also gave me a chance to use my bolt cutter – a tool I had purchased after a prior project involving chain segments. Previously, when I needed chain, I went to the hardware store and had an associate cut me off what I needed, which was an oddly awkward process to watch as they worked that pneumatic crank – equipment somewhat overkill for the rated chain I had selected. Now I can just have them cut one length, or better yet – buy a box pre-measured, and I cut to length on site. No lengthy store interactions, and no guesswork.

It’s also pretty manly to clamp through chain. Something about the raw power and strength of linked metal.

And so, some clamping and carabiners later, we had two sections of 250#-rated chain holding up a sand-filled stress-reliever.

By chance, the chain I selected was identical to what came with the bag.
That’s the appropriate look of anticipation.

It does shake the house a little bit, but I don’t think we’re in any danger of structural failure. A small price.

–Simon

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Bottoming Out

As I approach 40, I’m very much aware of my physical decline. But what I didn’t expect was the Internet’s warnings that my overall happiness will apparently be taking a dive soon too. Self-reported subjective measurements make for a lousy scientific statement, so it’s more one of those correlation-only type observations. As to the actual reasoning, that’s up for debate. Common theories include:

  • Innocence lost with the realization that your achievement peak has passed and life didn’t turn out that good (insert Pink Floyd song here).
  • 40 isn’t quite the point where maximum earning potential is reached, and workload appears imbalanced with quality of life.
  • Some form of the above as a midlife crisis.

The full graph indicates happiness begins to decline at 18, bottoms out in the 40s, and steadily increases starting at 50. Something like this (this was drawn freehand, so disregard the scaling issues):

So I decided to compare this timeline with my own life, and see if this is an applicable expectation, using life events as reference:

  • 0-7: Limited frame of reference/too young to care. I remember school being okay until we moved.
  • 8-11: New school. Kids were jerks. Wasn’t allowed to leave the house. Low happiness.
  • 11-12: Junior high started and I really enjoyed the first year.
  • 13-15: Struggled with grades. Wasn’t good at extracurriculars. Bad friends. No luck with girls. Low happiness.
  • 15-17: Moved across the country. Few friends. Bad grades. No girls. Overbearing parents prevented any kind of social life. No car in a town of rich kids. Bad clothes. Bad hair. No happiness.
  • 17-19: Started college. Greater freedom. Discovered interests. Found friends. Increased happiness.
  • 19-21: Own apartment. Girlfriends. Finished college. Even more happiness.
  • 21-31: Bad grad school experience. Tired of apartments. Horrible jobs and limited opportunities. Wife, car and daughter kept some stability, but overall a period of lower happiness.
  • 31-39: Better jobs. More money. Bought a house. Reasonably happy.
  • 39-present: Even better jobs and more money. Good life prospects. Happy.

If I try to graph the above, I end up with something like this:

And if I superimpose the two:

It would appear that I’m at the complete opposite level of happiness than where I should be.

Hopefully this means I’m early to the old age happiness party, rather than late to the middle age unhappiness one. Or maybe my life has been atypical in general. Who knows? But what I do know is that right now I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.

–Simon

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Overcoming

I’ll begin with an oft-repeated nugget of bullshit wisdom: “Money doesn’t buy happiness.”

And I’ll say that’s true, except no money also can’t buy happiness. The phrase isn’t that money can’t buy happiness, but that it doesn’t necessarily. So I think that a better version would be: “Money doesn’t necessarily buy happiness, but it’s a prerequisite.”

I began tracking my annual income in relation to yearly inflation and the American median per capita income a few years back, using my historical W-2s. Alas I didn’t save them all, and employer data retention limits their own historical records, but I can go back as far as 2011, and prior to that I can infer some pretty measly wages. So, after a 16+ year career (when I began working full time), this is what I discovered:

The Median

First off, the median per capita is, by definition, the income that most people have. It is therefore the income at which point you can survive with proper budgeting, since most people do so. It is also not something that happens with entry level jobs, and requires years of experience and some promotions to achieve. In my case, it was 7 years of working full time to achieve this median.

Inflation

Failure to increase wages will return a net loss as inflation chips away at real income value, so if your annual raises do not outpace inflation, you will lose actual worth. This drags out the process.

Transition

For the next 4-5 years following this introductory period, the promotions with job changes were decent but not enough to significantly alter my station. I’ll call this the transition stage: the point at which sufficient skills are acquired to warrant higher pay, but the opportunity has to present itself. It was the most competitive period of my career.

Overcoming

The following 5-6 years have since seen me significant compensation growth, I think because at this point I have acquired a very broad skillset but with pointed areas of expertise, which are in demand. Individually I broke into the 20%er bracket during this timeframe, which was the point at which I began to notice my purchasing power had significantly changed in relation to my younger self and the world around me.

Conclusion

In the spirit of this site’s ethos, these are my observations and interpretations of being an elder Millennial, by age:

  • 0-21: No job in this age range will return a livable wage due to lack of knowledge, experience, education, and an employment system that greatly restricts job availability.
  • 21-28: Any job in this age range will be limited in both responsibilities and salary.
  • 28-33: A job in this age range will begin to see greater salary returns, probably due to experience gained while in the prior age range.
  • 33+: A job in this age range can encompass a wide range of pay scales and opportunities.

Sooooo, anything before turning 30 is a wash. It’s the period of life that requires working hard for low pay while building skills and experience needed to compete for the higher-paying jobs. This pretty closely checks out with published salary by age reports, although I can’t personally confirm the next stages. Supposedly salary caps out in the 45-54 age range, so hopefully I have that to look forward to.

I admit, it’d be kind of depressing as a young person, and appears constant across developed nations. The postwar Baby Boomer period was anomalous, with its influx of unskilled high pay industrial jobs, followed by unsustainable financial policies to unsuccessfully maintain that growth. But a generation that lacked financial burden also proved to lack compassion and character, so there’s an upside to the struggle, for those who make it that long. (Also, money.)

–Simon