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More events of today
After the events at the mall I took LuLu and Smiley to the library. You know all that poetic nostalgia I have for my time as an employee there?
Yeah, tempered a bit.
Today The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel published an online database of every city employee's salary and financial benefits for 2007.
Naturally, I looked up the folks I know. I was shocked. There are some former co-workers of mine who still have the same position, and all of them have a minimum of 15 years on the job by now, and probably close to twenty.
Even with overtime, the average of the bunch was $25,000.
Wow.
Then I saw the name of my old supervisor. She's since been promoted and now stands two responsibility/pay levels above my old job. With a hefty chunk of overtime pay she just barely approaches what I made last year.
And for the record, I make diddly-poo by most standards.
So the moral of the story is: I guess you can't go home again, or the grass isn't greener, or whatever other platitude you choose to recite.
And feel free to sock anyone who says all city workers are overpaid.
But I guess I really did make the right choice in leaving the library ten years ago.
Huh. Will wonders never cease?
* * * *
One thing about that online database, and the criminal and civil court records available on the web, and the Department of Neighborhood Services reports, etc.
I understand they've always been open records, available to all.
But I think the web does a disservice by having it sit out there for all to see. If I want to know what Suzie Q makes for a living or when she was busted for meth, I should at least have to put forth the effort to go to the library or city hall to find out.
I think that physical distance weeds out the freaks and the peeping Tom's. If you go all that way to view the info, chances are you had a legitimate reason to do so.
And yes, I'm guilty of pandering to the voyeristic nature of it too. But hypocrite or not, it isn't right.
* * *
Here's a shock. The city inspector came back today and out of the blue said "now don't go writing about this on Slapinons again."
Turns out he's read the site, and has possibly visited more than once. Oopsie. Small world.
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Yeah, I guess we never know who manages to find us on these pages, huh? I hope you didn't write anything bad about him!
Beth
http://journals.aol.com/luvrte66/nutwoodjunction/ -
There's definitely something to be said for not knowing how much a person makes. It puts people in a 'totem pole' state of mind. And yeah, I think it's messed up that personal info is so available on the web...going to look for records like that seems more honest.
It's always been a 'policy' of mine to keep what I make quiet. People think differently of you if they think you do better or worse than they do. Chris does the same thing, when asked how much he makes he always responds "enough to live on".....but one day his boss handed him his paycheck (stub, it's never actually a check) and cussed him for how much he makes. Apparently a lot more than the general manager of the restaurant.
On a library note, I know a woman very well who went from librarian to budget analyst for the county and then 'retired' into (I can't think of the title, director of something) head of the county libraries.....I know that her pay progression was incredible. From bare minimum wages to sick wealth in 25 years. It can be done working for the city/county.
have a good one~
~Bernadette -
It's the truth, you can't go back, and somehow the decisions that are made seem all right now,....
Love the story....
Jeanne -
Publishing peoples wages has not yet reached here...I think there would be a real outcry if it did. Mind you it would be ineteresting Lol. Many years ago I worked in a Bank in Edinburgh and had done so for about 9 years one day we got a pay rise and naturally we were all discussing what we would do and how much we got...I discovered I was getting equal to the youngest junior girl in the Bank...after 9 years !! so of I went to find out why..only to be told. "Well you are disabled you know" WHAT..I exploded..I did as much and quite often much more than a few of the others I could have mentioned...anyway they very kinldy aid they woudl review the situation at next YEARS pay rise.....F**K you I thought and immediatley looked for another job which I got within a month at at least £5000 a year more !! Now if we had had somewhere we could see others wages were I could have know that many years before and doen something about it !!! Love Sybil xx PS Thanks to diabled laws I don't think that would happen now...but one never knows !!
5/22/08 7:36 PM