Kimberlite wrote on Feb 15
th, 2011 at 10:59am:
Damn, you're cheap. I came to the same realization years ago, working in consulting. Maybe it's because I'm a long ways from retirement, but I always built in the cost for me to be on the run as well. Assuming that I could be charged for a breach of trust or something similar, my price has been a small island in the Caribbean (someplace that won't extradite me), enough money that I won't miss family and friends (which is more than enough money to fly them in regularly to visit), etc.
I think my price is higher than yours by at least two orders of magnitude (assuming you meant $300k, not the "300,00" that you typed).
The other thing I've realized is that as my decisions have more impact as my career progresses, I have more to lose. My price would continue to go up faster than any possible benefit to the person who wants to buy me off.
Yeah, it was supposed to be three hundred thousand dollars. I can imagine that one of our resident Euros might be particularly confused by that one.
I actually used to work in IT and I went into teaching once I could afford to do so. I think it's both depressing and hysterical when I hear people complaining about how much teachers get paid for "only" 9 months of work when I think about the fact that I had to save up so that I could afford to teach.
The $300,000 is just the amount that I know I need to finish out my retirement fund. If one of my students actually did offer me $300,000 for an A in one of my classes, I'd turn him down because I'd expect that the kid was more likely trying to record me on his cell phone as taking a bribe than actually trying to offer one for real. Can't imagine anyone paying $300,000 just to have a free ride in Algebra.
On a mildly related note, I also answer non-math questions for anyone who wants to know about something that I find interesting. Some students were asking me questions about religion, so I answered them, always saying, "Christianity teaches that..." or, "Buddhism teaches that..." as my answer to each of their questions about specific religions. One of the students noticed that and asked me what I believed, so I put up a challenge. Anyone who can guess my specific religion gets an A for the entire course (not just the marking period). They have to guess my specific religion, though, not just "Christian" or "Muslim" or whatever.
I figure if they can't even successfully guess what my religion is, then their parents would be hard pressed to show that I'm trying to push my religion on them when I answer their questions.