Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 94 Editor's Choice: 19
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filet mignon and spaghettios aren't the only options
[Read the article: My husband thinks I should make more money]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]manyctnj says:
"Smoochy, what do you think copy editors earn anyway? if you're planning to raise a family on what a copy editor makes in New York City, you'd better hope you qualify for food stamps. Or government cheese. Yes, people live on less than 6-figure salaries. People also do without adequate health and dental care, never travel and see the world, never see a Broadway play or eat in a decent restaurant, live in fear of bill collectors, and send their kids to community colleges when they'd rather attend better schools."
manyctnj, I was a first a grad student (making less than 16K/year) and then a copy editor (making substantially more, but never more than 50K) living in the San Francisco area in the boom years (1996-2002). After I left grad school, I even had student loan debt to service (though admittedly not on the law school scale). I was not doing research for information on how to get government cheese. I traveled to Europe, bought not top-shelf but still decent (i.e. not all-Ramen-and-Spaghettios) groceries, ate out at halfway decent restaurants (and some really nice ones every once in a while), had health insurance. Never did I feel like I was desperately short of cash. If I had been married at the time to someone of similar means, I don't suppose our financial situation would have gotten any harder, and could have even become easier thanks to some shared costs. (I come from a middle class background, since that seems to make a big difference to you.)
I'm sorry, I just don't buy your argument. Even in the most expensive places in America, there is a middle ground between being a corporate lawyer and being on welfare.
I suppose the LW's husband would have grounds for complaint if his wife were demanding tons of expensive stuff and then refusing to chip in. But that's not the impression I get from the letter (which admittedly could be fudged to improve the LW's appearance, but since we can't determine that one way or another, let's pass it over for the moment.) Her letter seems to imply that it's her husband who now seems to want the best of everything, partly because he feels it's necessary in the social world that he now travels in, and that he's demanding that she contribute to that *even though it's not what she wants*. I'm sure she enjoys it to a certain extent; but if, say, the husband decided that the family car needs to be a Lexus (because anything else would look bad), should she refuse to drive it because she didn't think they should spend that much money?
jf
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oh, and one other thing
[Read the article: My husband thinks I should make more money]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]manyctnj says: "Having read the post describing a copy editor's job, I'm now also having a hard time understanding how that job could possibly be more interesting or rewarding on any level than that of a lawyer."
Well, having read all the descriptions of lawyering, I have a hard time understanding how that job could be interesting or rewarding on any level, period. Different strokes for different folks. :) Many of us enjoy prose for its own sake, like the material we're working on, get satisfaction out of working with authors to make writing clearer and better, and enjoy being part of a team that produces it for publication to the world in a professional and easy-to-read fashion.
jf
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family of five?
[Read the article: My husband thinks I should make more money]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]manyctnj says: "As for a family of 5 living on one copy editor's salary, sounds like a nightmare to me."
Um, who's talking about a family of 5 living on one copy editor's salary? The scenario in the letter sounds like a choice between a family of two living on a copy editor and a lawyer's salary or a family of two living on two copy editors' salaries (or the equivalent). If kids (particularly three of them) were in the picture, it would be a different picture. But how do you know that three kids -- or any kids -- are in the offing at all? The conflict in the letter about money is about paying off law school debt and paying for the "best money can buy". Children aren't mentioned at all.
Incidentally, I was raised on a teacher's salary and a social worker's salary. I did OK. Went to an Ivy League school even. I just think that you might have to come to grips with the fact that your idea for what is an acceptable baseline level of income isn't everybody's. It's a difference of opinion that is the driving force behind the LW's conflict, so this discussion in the comments here ought to be instructive to all of us taking part (myself included).
jf
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you "know" eh
[Read the article: My husband thinks I should make more money]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Not 2 salaries, just the one, because you know darn well that LW is going to expect to stay at home when the kids arrive, so the fair comparison is that LW's husband stays at home and raises the kids and they all live on her salary."
I don't know that. And neither do you. THE LETTER WRITER SAID NOTHING ABOUT KIDS. Period. Their conflict is about money in the here and now.
jf
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JetBlue now has more than one aircraft type too...
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Just a nit to pick: JetBlue is no longer an all Airbus shop. I got on a JetBlue flight from JFK to Buffalo during my Christmas-week travels last year and was disoriented by how small the plane was, since I was expecting the typical Airbus. Turns out they now have some of those new Embraers (E170, I think). Not sure what the rationale for the decision is...
jf
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how ryanair will do free tickets
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ryanair's O'Leary has a very specific plan for how to fund a free-ticket airline: for-pay games on seatback computers, including slot machines and video poker:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4400676.stm
While I have no idea if this will actually work, it honestly doesn't sound that far fetched. If you're already paying more to transport the passenger than the passenger pays to fly, why charge the passenger at all if you expect to have other ways of making money off of him or her?
jf