I am posting here in the hopes of getting some help with an upcoming article in the Actuary. No contribution is to small. One seemingly insignificant comment can often trigger a flood of stories. All submissions will be presented in an anonymous, gender neutral fashion to promote transparency. Feel free to PM me if you are hesitant to share your stories on an open forum.
My previous article, called Love, Laughter and Long Division, was the most popular article in the December issue of the Actuary. In fact that article had more page views than all the other articles in that edition combined. Due to its’ popularity I have been asked to write a follow-up article.
As you may recall, the first article took the actuary’s spouse’s viewpoint to look at things their actuarial spouses did that were uniquely “actuarial”. Now it is the actuaries turn to strike back. I am hoping that people in this community can help me out by providing some stories about their non-actuary spouse. Looking for stories about the non-actuarial spouse doing things that drives the actuary crazy.
The idea is not to shame or embarrass anyone. I am looking for humorous stories about how actuaries and their spouses are different. For example the non-actuary might make a shopping list based on the order they appear in the supermarket’s circular or as they think of them. Whereas the actuary might create a shopping list based on an optimized path through the store with footnotes to indicate couponing opportunities. Other areas that seem promising are Communication, Housekeeping, Punctuality, and things the spouse did while you were studying for exams.
I don’t know if you’d consider expanding your scope a bit to just life in general . . .
but I do recall after starting in the profession and seeing the “Twofer” (see pic below) for the first time and thinking, “well, I guess our BI rates are about to go way up”.
This doesn’t deal with spouses either, but I basically spent the bulk of my career putting a price tag on insurance. So when something rings up wrong at a store, even over a trivial amount of money, I go fetch the actual price off the shelves and get it fixed. It annoys me to know how much from my own personal experience zillions of customers get overcharged because they didn’t pay close enough attention.
Now trying to keep track of the changing prices of thousands of items is no doubt a daunting task. When we get it wrong, the insurance department makes us go back and fix it retroactively which is of course a giant pain. But when Walmart charges the wrong price for something it’s generally a nonevent - my price gets fixed but I think about the other 99 people who were ripped off.
I think when there is an error, I should get 10x the difference up to a maximum of $20. If companies knew their customers would be proactively acting as a watchdog group more care might be taken.
It’s not humorous, I suppose it’s a poorly placed rant. But something I would write an article on.
Otherwise, there are a fair number of husband and wife actuarial couples so discussing that may be a slightly different angle on your earlier story if you want to stay close to your earlier theme.
she did several times come in to the study room on Sunday afternoon, while I was elbow-deep in the Bowers textbook, wearing just bra and panties and announcing, “It’s Sunday sex-day! Pay attention to me now.”
My initial post was’t exactly deluged with responses that were on topic. I thought that maybe my prompts weren’t specific enough. Going back to the drawing board, below are some enhanced propmpts that I hope will generate some good material. As always, feel free to PM me if you wish to keep your response confidential.
Thanks in advance,
Dave
Communication Styles - Direct or rambling
Housekeeping – dishwasher is a particular battle ground
Punctuality - Are you super puntual and spouse not (and why)
Exam Stories - Amusing or unusual things while you were studying for exams
Unrealistic Expectations of your Math Skills – why can’t you pick the lottery
Shopping – organized list or random, research purchases or impulse
Whoa. You’re wife is an actuary?
No way would that be possible here. We had kids when I was writing, my spouse always acts as the home support system, I offloaded a ton of work onto them.
