Pat Bean's blog

“Knowledge is money,” said a recent headline in the New York Times. The story, in response to four million workers recently quitting their jobs, many for higher-paying position, went on to note that if more workers knew they could make more elsewhere, even more would quit.

The brought to mind, my own decisions, several times, not to quit my job in favor of higher paying job opportunities. I loved being a newspaper reporter, and that was very important to me. In fact, I once stepped down from a higher paying editor’s position to become an environmental reporter. It was my favorite beat, and one that earned me several writing awards.  

I had decided being happy, and living on less, was more important than working a desk job. And I didn’t want to be one of those people I met as a reporter, those who thought a position and money made up for them going to work every day at a job they hated.

But then I then remembered, how sneaky I had been to gain knowledge of what the men at my work place were paid. I rifled through file cabinets when no one was around – and discovered that the men in the office were being paid over twice what I was making. This was back in the early 1970s.

I used that information in my fight for equal pay, especially after my boss, who joined the fight with me to upper management, had said I produced more work than any of his other employees.

I got my raise. As the NY Times article said, knowledge is money.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is a wondering-wanderer, avid reader, enthusiastic birder, Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder, Story Circle Network board member, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining.