| Strategies
for increasing your pay | | |
| Get a side
job that won't interfere with your bread-and-butter job, but that may be fulfilling
personally and at the same time help you earn extra money.
You should also apply some of the questions raised
earlier to the way that you run your own household. What actions have you taken
to increase your income? What measures have you implemented to cut back on spending? Making
more money and curbing spending are worthwhile general objectives, but the ultimate
goal is to amass enough money so that it sustains you without having to earn it.
Learn from those newly minted millionaires mentioned earlier: Engage in long-term
wealth accumulation. The main way we can do this when employed
by someone else is to divert a substantial portion of our income to investments.
Of course, it's much easier to set aside a large portion when you're making lots
of money than if you're eking out a living.
Last-resort feel-good measure
If you're just not in the mood to consider
self-improvement techniques at this time and find yourself in an utterly hopeless
job situation, there's one thing you can do to feel better: Compare your position
to less favorable jobs. If you can find a copy, pick up a book
called "The Worst Jobs in History: Two Thousand Years of Miserable Employment,"
by Tony Robinson. I received this as a gift from friends who live in England,
David Bowman and his lovely wife Tracey.
This book focuses on lousy jobs in England, but it
serves as an excellent antidote for that common malady known as
"job dissatisfaction" that afflicts most people at one
point or another in their careers.
As an example, after the Romans invaded and occupied
Britain in A.D. 43, there were plenty of job openings for "puke
collectors," an occupation described by the philosopher Seneca
in "Epistulae Morales."
Robinson writes: A "passage of Seneca
refers to the charmingly sophisticated habit of spitting and throwing up at table.
'Cum ad cenandum discubuimus, alius sputa deterget, alius reliquias temulentorum
subditus colligit': 'When we recline at a banquet, one [slave] wipes up the spittle;
another, situated beneath, collects the leavings [i.e., vomit] of the drunks.'"
Robinson's assessment: "What a truly revolting job, wiping
up acrid-smelling cocktails of food, lumpy mixtures of Falernian wine, roast meats,
the ubiquitous Roman sauce made of fermented fish and, of course, semi-digested
dormice." The book is loaded with unsavory means of employment,
and knowledge of these may profoundly alter the way you perceive your current
job. If you have a comment or suggestion about this column,
write to Boomer Bucks. | 
