Economics from a people first point-of-view

As a self-employed cookbook indexer I felt obligated to see the movie, Julie & Julia, even though I never cared for Julia Child or French cooking. I mean, Meryl Streep is wonderful, isn’t she?

When the movie suddenly introduced Irma S. Rombauer, author of The Joy of Cooking, I was as stunned and in awe as Julia was. Irma has long been my heroine for producing the culmination of, and antidote to, all those syrupy Betty Crocker-type cookbooks I grew up with. Like Julia in the movie, I listened to Irma’s litany of  big-publisher perfidy with an equal amount of growing horror.

When Irma concluded her ‘plaint by wailing about the ineptness of her publisher’s indexer in putting “Crispy Chicken” under “D” for “Drumstick” rather than “C,” I probably had the biggest smile in the audience.
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Do you think about becoming self-employed? Do the thoughts in your head go something like this, “I hate working because….”

You know those reasons:

“I detest office politics.”
“I don’t get enough money to do this,”
“No one recognizes how special I am.”
“I can’t stand my lazy co-workers one more minute.”
“This is the fifth time I’ve been laid off. I don’t want to go out and job hunt again!”

Have you ever thought, “I should become self-employed!” Is that how self-employment happened, or might happen, to you?
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Once upon a time, a professor with a degree from the prestigious London School of Economics offered myself and another librarian extra employment to put together a resource list for his students.

We were thrilled. Then the professor let slip to me that he was also hiring an English professor to edit his workbook. My reaction, as someone who had all but three courses needed for a PhD in English, was to think (a) you didn’t need a PhD to edit, and (b) many English professors had no idea how to edit writing.

Then the economist dropped the real bomb. He told me that he had to pay his English professor buddy twice a much as the other librarian and me.

When I asked why, the economist said, “Because he can get a lot of work editing. But you girls’ opportunity costs for outside work are far less than his.” Continue reading →