Men vs. Women: Negotiating: Why women make 80 cents to a man's dollar

This blog is mostly for the girls in my cohort of speech therapists. We're all in the process of getting jobs, and I just wanted to share something I heard on NPR a few weeks ago. A study showed that men are four times more likely to negotiate their salaries than women. The average graduate level employee that negotiates their salary for their first job makes 1-1.5 million dollars more over the course of their career than someone who does not negotiate the salary of their first job.

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So how do you negotiate salary? Here's a link to a Washington Post article about that: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/jobs/how-to/negotiate_salary_guidance.html And here's a link to an askmen article about it: http://www.askmen.com/money/career_100/141_career.html The ask men article seems quite useful... And I have no idea why they have a website called askmen. It's kinda weird. But the article is good. I had to X an ad to see the article, but that's not a big deal.

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The main idea of these articles is to do your research, know what you're worth, let them introduce the salary, and then talk it out with them. Anyway, some of us that are working at schools will have exactly 0 opportunity to negotiate. Although EBS, which contracts therapists to schools, will pay an SLP on average 3-7,000 more per year than the district would have otherwise. Which means that school districts do negotiate. Anyway... NEGOTIATE! Think of whether 1.5 million dollars is worth a little conversation instead of a rubber-stamp "yes" when they make an offer.

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As Speech Language Pathologists, we are in demand! A good number of us will be working at a place that wouldn't have an SLP, or would have to pay thousands more per year to a company to contract one, if we didn't work there. I have found a job for CFYs that offers 62,000, one that offers 63,000plus, and one that offers 94,000 for a CFY!

An SLP versus A SLP

It's an historic moment... well not really. For me at least. But using "a" versus "an" is a question and a bit of a pet peeve of mine. I haven't 'looked up' the correct usage, but I'm gonna say how it is on my own authority. Because you know me... the all knowing and all and such and whatnot and that. Read at your own risk...

The only reason that "an" exists is that there are words that start with a similar sound to "a." If you were to say "I want a apple" at a conversational speed, it would sound like "I want apple." It sounds like you aren't using the article "a." As far as I know, no one denies that this is the reason for the existence of "an." That extra letter N helps us understand that a speaker is using the article "a"

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Now lets move to SLP. It starts with an S. Why does it sound better with an "an"? Well, because S doesn't start with S. S starts with "eh" Two parts: "eh" and "s". S So you could say "I'm a speech therapist," or you could say "I'm an SLP." Personally, I wouldn't say or write "I'm a SLP." Even when I do say it, I tend to put a little pause (glottal stop) between a and SLP. Another example might be university. You wouldn't say an university. It's a university. Because university starts with the y sound, which is a consonant.

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Spanish has similar rules. If you use o (or in English) before a word that starts with o, you change it to u. Agua is feminine, but the water is "el agua" because if you were to say "la agua," it would sound like one word.

In the modern world, language takes oral and written forms. An SLP sounds better, while a SLP may be said to look better. The written form is a reflection of the oral form, and in my opinion, should follow changes in the oral form.

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As far as "An history", this clearly breaks the "Use 'an' only before vowels" rule. I'm not sure how it gets justified, and I don't really care. As far as I'm concerned, it's "a history," and others can do what they want. At the end of the day, the purpose of language is almost always communication, and either form communicates the information.