queerbychoice (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
queerbychoice) wrote2005-02-11 08:34 pm
queerbychoice) wrote2005-02-11 08:34 pm
Job & Other Thoughts
I finally have a start date for my new job! It is March 7th. This means I have not quite a month left of unpaid vacation before being restricted to what I suspect will be an unpleasantly less vacation-filled work schedule than I've had for a long while. (Newly hired employees in the U.S. generally start out with two weeks of vacation time per year, but over the course of the five years I worked at my previous job, I had gained enough seniority to be increased to three weeks and then to four weeks of vacation per year. Re-adjusting back down from four weeks to two weeks is not the most desirable experience, but hopefully in not too many more years I can re-build my seniority back up to four weeks.) So, what shall I do with my remaining not quite a month of freedom? any suggestions? My taxes, I guess, should be worked in there somewhere. But I think I should also have fun adventures.
This article frightens me terribly. "By conservative estimates, 50% of South Korean women in their 20s have had some form of cosmetic surgery." And what percentage will have had cosmetic surgery by the time they're older? "A woman's magazine recently advised its readers to spend 30% of their incomes on looking good." Um, I tried really hard to think of every cent I ever spend that could possibly be classified as even vaguely appearance-related. Here's what I came up with.
I have nightmarishly awful dandruff that can only be stopped from disintegrating my entire scalp by the use of the most expensive shampoo ever - I think they must manufacture my shampoo out of liquid gold or something. So, each bottle of shampoo costs me $15. I don't think I use up nearly one bottle per month, but for the sake of being very sure not to underestimate, let's say that I do.
I do not own a comb or a brush or a razor or makeup, so I spend no money on any of those things. (My hair doesn't react well to combs and brushes - all they do is split all the ends and fill it with static electricity. It looks much better if I just detangle it with my fingers whenever it needs detangling.)
I spend money on acne-control products. I used to spend more than I do now, back when my acne was worse, although back then my dandruff was still able to be controlled by a shampoo only half as outrageously expensive, so the total amount of money spent on skin and hair care was very similar. These days I use a lot of hydrogen peroxide on my skin, which is very cheap so at most it costs me perhaps $5 per month. I also buy occasional astringents and other antibacterial products, totalling perhaps another $5 per month. In the past three years I've developed a mild case of chronic psoriasis on my cheeks (this is essentially "dandruff of the face" and stands as further proof of just how bad my dandruff problem is), so now the only way to prevent my cheeks from developing painfully dry, cracked, rock-hard scales is to spend money on medications for that. Aloe Vera is the only thing I've found that seems to help. Aloe Vera is cheap and lasts a really long time, so the amount I spend on it is quite negligible, but I also spend more money on lip balms for my chronically chapped lips, so let's say my total expenditure for lip balms and Aloe Vera combined is around $5 per month.
I have inherited a susceptibility to canker sores, in which my immune system goes crazy and starts attacking random spots on my tongue or the insides of my cheeks as though they were invading aliens. (Canker sores happen more often to women than to men because female hormones area major contributing cause of them, but both of my parents have them, not just my mother, so I think I inherited a more severe susceptibility to them than most women have to cope with.) Unfortunately my immune system is very effective indeed at killing off my tongue. Anyway, there's an ingredient called sodium lauryl sulfate in most toothpastes that tends to severely aggravate canker sores, and the only toothpaste on the market that I know of that does not contain sodium lauryl sulfate is an outrageously expensive form of Rembrandt toothpaste marketed "especially for canker sore sufferers." This costs me $7 per tube. For the sake of simplicity, let's say I use one tube of toothpaste per month, and let's say I might spend another up to $2 or so per month on toothbrushes and dental floss and the like.
The only brand of deodorant that I'm not allergic to is Suave. It costs about $4 per stick. How many sticks of deodorant can one use in a month? In the interest of erring on the side of overestimating again, let's imagine I use two.
It is a rare month that I buy any clothes at all, but again for the purpose of begin very sure not to underestimate, let's imagine I spend as much as $40 per month on clothes (including shoes, hair ties, purses, sewing machines, thread, and other things that one might not at first think of to count as "clothes").
I believe that's all of my expenses that have any impact whatsoever upon my physical appearance. A maximum of $15 shampoo + $10 acne care + $5 psoriasis/dry skin care +
$7 toothpaste + $2 other dental products + $8 deodorant + $40 clothes = a maximum of $87 per month spent on appearance-related items. This adds up to barely 5% of my net salary (after taxes) at my old job, and only a bit over 3% of my net salary at my new job. In order for $87 per month to constitute the 30% of my salary that this Korean magazine recommended, I would have to earn only $290 per month, which would add up to $3,480 per year annual salary, or $1.67 per hour if working a 40-hour work week.
In order to spend 30% of even a $12,000 per year annual salary on appearance-related items, one would have to spend $300 per month, every single month. WHO THE HELL SPENDS $300 PER MONTH ON THEIR APPEARANCE???? What can you even buy that would cost that much? A whole lot of plastic surgery, I guess. Because it just makes so much sense for a society to define attractiveness in such a way that one has to spend 30% of their income on painful surgeries to achieve it.
This article frightens me terribly. "By conservative estimates, 50% of South Korean women in their 20s have had some form of cosmetic surgery." And what percentage will have had cosmetic surgery by the time they're older? "A woman's magazine recently advised its readers to spend 30% of their incomes on looking good." Um, I tried really hard to think of every cent I ever spend that could possibly be classified as even vaguely appearance-related. Here's what I came up with.
I have nightmarishly awful dandruff that can only be stopped from disintegrating my entire scalp by the use of the most expensive shampoo ever - I think they must manufacture my shampoo out of liquid gold or something. So, each bottle of shampoo costs me $15. I don't think I use up nearly one bottle per month, but for the sake of being very sure not to underestimate, let's say that I do.
I do not own a comb or a brush or a razor or makeup, so I spend no money on any of those things. (My hair doesn't react well to combs and brushes - all they do is split all the ends and fill it with static electricity. It looks much better if I just detangle it with my fingers whenever it needs detangling.)
I spend money on acne-control products. I used to spend more than I do now, back when my acne was worse, although back then my dandruff was still able to be controlled by a shampoo only half as outrageously expensive, so the total amount of money spent on skin and hair care was very similar. These days I use a lot of hydrogen peroxide on my skin, which is very cheap so at most it costs me perhaps $5 per month. I also buy occasional astringents and other antibacterial products, totalling perhaps another $5 per month. In the past three years I've developed a mild case of chronic psoriasis on my cheeks (this is essentially "dandruff of the face" and stands as further proof of just how bad my dandruff problem is), so now the only way to prevent my cheeks from developing painfully dry, cracked, rock-hard scales is to spend money on medications for that. Aloe Vera is the only thing I've found that seems to help. Aloe Vera is cheap and lasts a really long time, so the amount I spend on it is quite negligible, but I also spend more money on lip balms for my chronically chapped lips, so let's say my total expenditure for lip balms and Aloe Vera combined is around $5 per month.
I have inherited a susceptibility to canker sores, in which my immune system goes crazy and starts attacking random spots on my tongue or the insides of my cheeks as though they were invading aliens. (Canker sores happen more often to women than to men because female hormones area major contributing cause of them, but both of my parents have them, not just my mother, so I think I inherited a more severe susceptibility to them than most women have to cope with.) Unfortunately my immune system is very effective indeed at killing off my tongue. Anyway, there's an ingredient called sodium lauryl sulfate in most toothpastes that tends to severely aggravate canker sores, and the only toothpaste on the market that I know of that does not contain sodium lauryl sulfate is an outrageously expensive form of Rembrandt toothpaste marketed "especially for canker sore sufferers." This costs me $7 per tube. For the sake of simplicity, let's say I use one tube of toothpaste per month, and let's say I might spend another up to $2 or so per month on toothbrushes and dental floss and the like.
The only brand of deodorant that I'm not allergic to is Suave. It costs about $4 per stick. How many sticks of deodorant can one use in a month? In the interest of erring on the side of overestimating again, let's imagine I use two.
It is a rare month that I buy any clothes at all, but again for the purpose of begin very sure not to underestimate, let's imagine I spend as much as $40 per month on clothes (including shoes, hair ties, purses, sewing machines, thread, and other things that one might not at first think of to count as "clothes").
I believe that's all of my expenses that have any impact whatsoever upon my physical appearance. A maximum of $15 shampoo + $10 acne care + $5 psoriasis/dry skin care +
$7 toothpaste + $2 other dental products + $8 deodorant + $40 clothes = a maximum of $87 per month spent on appearance-related items. This adds up to barely 5% of my net salary (after taxes) at my old job, and only a bit over 3% of my net salary at my new job. In order for $87 per month to constitute the 30% of my salary that this Korean magazine recommended, I would have to earn only $290 per month, which would add up to $3,480 per year annual salary, or $1.67 per hour if working a 40-hour work week.
In order to spend 30% of even a $12,000 per year annual salary on appearance-related items, one would have to spend $300 per month, every single month. WHO THE HELL SPENDS $300 PER MONTH ON THEIR APPEARANCE???? What can you even buy that would cost that much? A whole lot of plastic surgery, I guess. Because it just makes so much sense for a society to define attractiveness in such a way that one has to spend 30% of their income on painful surgeries to achieve it.
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Then there are the salon things I consider too horrific to even think about getting, but so many women do--for instance, all body waxes. Or manicures and pedicures, which aren't as horrific, but can be rather expensive.
The other thing I should mention is that high-end makeups cost quite a bit. I never wear makeup, but before we got married, Trysha and I went makeup-shopping at Clinique--we were thinking of doing our own makeup for the wedding, but turned out to be so bad at it that we ended up hiring a professional makeup artist instead. Anyhow, a month's-worth of makeup at the clinique counter costs $150 easily. Thank god I never wear makeup on a daily basis.
Anyhow, I would never do any of those things on a regular basis, but I think some women do see haircuts, makeup, pedicures, and waxing as absolute necessities, and if you get the high-end stuff, it's terribly expensive. Although I'd never do it myself, I do understand how someone could spend that much a month on their appearance even without getting plastic surgery.
On a happier note, I'm so glad about the start of your job! I'm sorry that you and Trysha didn't see each other while she was in CA, but you're always welcome to come visit us in your month of vacation if you'd like--we'd love to see you.
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Then i have products to keep my unruly hair in check. I use Friss-ease which is middle of the line - that's about 7 to 8 bucks a pop. Average of one a month...
Yeah, hair can be expensive.
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i use burts bees and intersperse it with 4 year old sensodyne that i bought all i could of when i realized they were changing their formula. i prefer it to the burts, but what's a girl to do?
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But now I'll look for Welleda, just to try that out.
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That said, the Rembrandt does seem to actually whiten my teeth, which ain't bad considering how much coffee I drink....
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hm. yeah, just a tip, if you're desperate.
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It seems that the average wage in South Korea is $1,800 a month, making $21,600 per year. But it may be that the women's average is lower than the men's average, and there may be a lot of people making less than average.
But you are quite right - it is ridiculous - even horrifying - to spend such a large amount of money on so-called attractiveness. Unfortunately it often appears that women's lifestyle and fashion magazines collude with capitalism in imposing ludicrous demands on women.
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This adds up to barely 5% of my net salary (after taxes) at my old job, and only a bit over 3% of my net salary at my new job.
Isn't that wonderful?!! More spare funds to spend on books!!
The only additional - albeit only vaguely related - expenditure I can think of is glasses (not that I buy them on a monthly basis) - which, overall, still cost less than contacts.
But I reckon that, once one threw in professional hairdressing (cut, colour, rebond etc.), designer clothes, Lasik surgery, a nose job or so, expensive skin-care products etc., it would be difficult to keep to a $300/month budget.
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My thoughts exactly. ;-)
"The only additional - albeit only vaguely related - expenditure I can think of is glasses (not that I buy them on a monthly basis) - which, overall, still cost less than contacts."
I haven't bought new lenses, nor for that matter had my eyes checked, for about seven years now, and I'm aware that I should. I know that my eyes are not significantly worse (I was always very good at detecting small changes in my vision and each time I did go to the doctor, first to say "I need glasses" and later to say "I need better glasses," the doctors always said, "well, you really don't necessarily need them yet, but since you somehow managed to notie such a small difference in your vision I guess we'll give them to you"), and since my eyes were not significantly worse I was never sufficiently motivated to attempt to figure out the bizarre health insurance of my previous employer, under which optometry was excluded from the normal health insurance plan but was covered under a separate optometry-only plan provided by a different company and accompanied by all sorts of confusingly complex regulations designed to save my employer money.
I think my new employer will have sane health insurance. I think I will get my eyes checked very soon after I am hired.
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I used to be against make-up, jewelry, hair die, you name it. I somewhat have drifted away from that (probably in order to get use to Diane, who has gotten several piercings since we started going out and has dyed her hair numerous times). But I would be very unhappy if she got her breasts augmented or some surgery.
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