The Next Dark Age
We're in it Now
Daisy the Foster Goffin’s
After two weeks, I took Kiwi the Green back to the Refuge. I wrote a short report on things I learned about him and sent it to our director. The idea is to start to get a handle on the purpose of fostering. Then I brought home Daisy:
http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf
I forgot how loud a cockatoo can sound in my house.
Online Community Fatigue
The other day, my mother sent me an e-mail asking if I was a member of Shelfari. I’d never heard of it. Apparently, it is another place to log in and share your library. I told her I am on Librarything. And if I wasn’t there, I’d be on goodreads, because that is where the cool kids are. I’m just too lazy to log it all in again.
I just received an e-mail from Barnes and Noble. They have launched a community and since I am such a good customer, they want me to join. So I went in and looked – I already have an account. Picked my “pen name”. Grabbed an avatar.
They want me to build my library – including CDs and DVDs.
I had to create an account on typepad the other day just to comment on someone’s blog. I am really tired of creating profiles. Has anyone coined a term for that yet?
Retired or Something
This is Spooky the Cat. The only cat that has ever been allowed to live in my house. He came with a roommate that moved out seven or eight years ago. Spooky is now seventeen.
Spooky once amused himself by hunting. His favorite prey was my late great dog, Dallas. Because she would freak out. Check it out:
Before the cancer got her, Dallas was sixty pounds of jump-the-fence muscle and this 12 pound cat would stalk, strike and watch her go insane. Shadow still looks around the corner before he heads down a hallway – that’s how dangerous this cat was.
This morning Spooky was sitting in the kitchen as I was walking out the door. I saw him staring at something on the floor. It was one of those bugs that my friend Carol (who used to kill them for me at the office) called “thousand leggers”. Several inches long.
I don’t do well with bugs.
I waited to see if he was going to take care of it for me. He sat watching for a minute. Waiting to pounce? I grabbed a big magazine, just in case. The bug was gone. Did Spooky eat it? I followed his eyes. No, there it is. Wait – Spooky is moving in. He batted it with his paw. It ran. He batted it again.
Dude. Are you just playing? You are going to lose it. I slammed the magazine down. Spooky vanished. He doesn’t appreciate loud noises.
What are we paying him for, anyway?
The Starbucks Recession Indicator
I read this article yesterday and wasn’t going to comment because I know I will be snarky. But it is interesting and then the comment thread was more interesting. I will try to control myself.
MSN Money – one of my favorite places on the Internet, has an article called, “The Starbucks Recession Indicator”. It goes like this:
“… I propose the Starbucks theory of international economics. The higher the concentration of expensive, nautically themed, faux-Italian-branded Frappuccino joints in a country’s financial capital, the more likely the country is to have suffered catastrophic financial losses.”
The idea in the local sense is that Starbucks followed all of the new communities growing and sprawling across the map. So when the real estate markets crash, they rather take Starbucks with it. The other area would be the financial districts – 200+ stores in Manhattan, for example. This is the international angle. The supporting evidence is the statistical “How many Starbucks are in this area?” to “How much trouble is that area in?” London and Madrid have plenty of Starbucks, Italy has none, etc.
You can read the full text here.
Anyway, the comment thread was “What recession indicators do you see in your area?” And a lot of people said, “There aren’t any.” The wait at Olive Garden was half an hour at 8pm on a Thursday. The casino was packed – stuff like that. One person said that homes aren’t selling – and this is a big deal in my neighborhood. Another person noted that car dealers are having a very hard time of it.
My family has been with the same Chevy dealer for 25 years – same sales guy even. We just learned through the grapevine that they are closing in January. The last time I bought a car – April, 2003, Chevy didn’t have a small SUV. I had to go to Saturn, and felt guilty about it until the next year when my mother bought her Malibu. I am feeling just a bit guilty again. As if my purchase 5 ½ years ago would somehow have made a difference.
No, I am not thinking of running over and buying a car. But I am considering the concept of balance:
Where is the line between personal fiscal responsibility and one’s duty as an employed person to support the economy?
Thanksgiving Travel
I heard on the radio yesterday morning that there will be 3,000 fewer flights available over the 2008 Thanksgiving Holiday as compared to 2007. Which means that tickets will be more expensive and planes will be jammed.
This will be made even worse due to the new fees to check a bag. I have spent enough time pontificating on that problem.
MSN has an article called “Tips to Speed through Security”. The only shocker was that in Terminal 3 at O’Hare you might stand in Security for an extra eight minutes if you pick the wrong line. I generally fly out of Terminal 1, so I don’t know which is the bad line in Terminal 3!
Anyway, here was the point of the article:
“More experienced travelers have other tricks that are second nature. For example, don’t wait until you reach the front of the line to start emptying your pockets. Take a minute to stash your watch, keys and loose change in your carry-on. Even if you’re using one of the new “checkpoint friendly” laptop bags, tie and neatly stow the additional wires so it won’t look like a bomb when it’s X-rayed. And because “everyone has to take off their shoes,” according to Payne, wear easily removable footwear such as flip-flops or slip-ons. Choose pants that don’t require a belt, and opt for an easily removed sweater or jacket, which TSA officials may make you send through the X-ray machine separately.”
Yes. You should be stripping in line.
Another interesting thought – and this is not the first place I have heard it – is that it might be better to ship our luggage that to check it. With the idea that UPS is more reliable that the airlines and it won’t be that much more expensive if you plan it well.
I do not vacation around Thanksgiving, but I do have to visit my other offices right around that time. If I am extremely lucky, I will be able to run it all earlier this year, but I don’t even have tickets yet. Also, I have already decided that I am driving to Ohio instead of flying.
You can read the full article here. But if you want my “expert” travel advice? Don’t travel for Thanksgiving.
Professional Validation
I don’t normally read WSJ, but a colleague – who was not on my side on this issue – brought me this article this morning called “Get Rid of the Performance Review!”
Two years ago, I had a pretty big temper tantrum, threw our system out the window and started over. My boss is an indulgent guy. As Culbert points out in the article, our salary increases were/are more a matter of budget and market than performance.
Our employment attorney told me that annual reviews hurt a case at least as often as they helped. After “interviewing” a whole bunch of manager-types, I came up with something rather similar to what this writer, Samuel Culbert discusses:
“The Solution: Performance previews instead of reviews. In contrast to one-side-accountable reviews, performance previews are reciprocally accountable discussions about how boss and employee are going to work together even more effectively than they did in the past. Previews weld fates together. The boss’s skin is now in the game.”
Our top managers bought it. I can’t say “embraced”, because it is still viewed as an annual pain in the neck. But most of them still prefer it to rating people on a scale of 1 to 10.
We had less of the “make the supervisor accountable for the employee’s performance” and more of the “empower the employee to talk about his personal and professional needs”. But we completely shifted our focus from a discussion of the past year to a discussion of the next year.
This time around, we had a relatively new employee say that she loves her job today but is working toward a degree in Accounting and her long term goal is to transfer to our Accounting department. Good thing to know. Even when the news isn’t what you want to hear, we should still be honest and respectful of each other. That way, when we come to the end of the line, we can feel good about the fact that is no-fault. We can still be in a good place. Keeping a good employee happy for two years and then having to replace her is way better than having a cranky underperformer for a decade.
One place where I diverged from Culbert is the question of when there is a performance problem. He says, in part:
“It’s the boss’s responsibility to find a way to work well with an imperfect individual, not to convince the individual there are critical flaws that need immediate correcting, which is all but guaranteed to lead to unproductive game playing and politically inspired back-stabbing.”
True enough. But sometimes there really is no alternative. My answer is that this is a different conversation, different documentation, different process completely. And the managers are charged with staying on top of that. Because while I am not a traditional HR enforcer, and we do not have strict policies for “Disciplinary Action”, I will recommend against an employment termination when I am not satisfied that the employee had knowledge of the expectations, was provided the tools to succeed and was aware of the consequences of failure. Generally, that means documentation in the file.
Corporate cultures are all different. What works for one company doesn’t necessarily work for the next. But I was very pleased to have this validation.
Again, if you would like to read the article in its entirety, you can find it here. I only read a handful of the comments, but they looked pretty charged to me.
Happy Monday!
Twisted Peppermint
Last year, I was taking a look at my spending habits. I buy far too many books, but they are mostly from the Library Used Book Store or the Clearance section of Half Price Books. So think a dollar apiece. I wasn’t about to give up books. What else? I eat out a lot, but generally at lunch time. Rarely do I go out to eat for dinner. I am not a clothes horse. I kinda have a lot of shoes, but don’t think I have an actual problem there. However.
I didn’t like the random way I was spending at two stores in particular: Yankee Candle and Bath and Body Works. So just for the sake of argument, I put a moratorium on all purchases from those stores for the entire spring – until the June clearance sale. It was not as hard as I thought.
I could never pull it off in the Fall and here is why:
The first year Twisted Peppermint came out, I thought it smelled good, but who wants to walk around smelling like food? I only used the soap. Last year, I was looking forward to having it back and it wasn’t released until closer to Christmas. I saw it in the store window on Friday. I don’t care if I smell like food. I don’t care that I spent $30 on the gift pack plus hand soap. It’s Twisted Peppermint!
All the preaching I do on saving your money, and I fall vitcim to the classic – seasonal limited editions.
The Worst Thing Ever Invented by Educators
The Open Book Essay Exam.
I am pleased to say that I never fell for the Open Book trick – I was never all excited by the prospect or allowed myself to be less prepared because “you have all the answers in front of you!” These exams are always harder. Always.
I took my proctored final this morning. Totally choked, but managed an 86. Then I went to work. Then I came home to do the Take Home Open Book Essay Portion.
I started at 4 or so. Stopped for an hour to eat dinner and let the birds out to play. Finished at 10:00. That is like a full week’s written assignments. Not cool.
Because I knew I would be done today, I volunteered to do a library event tomorrow morning. Right after my allergy shot. And we are meeting my grandfather for dinner. My next class starts in a week and I still have to take the pre req math tutorial.
I am going to take a shower and go to sleep. I promise to be in a better mood in the morning.
Continuing Education – Physical Therapy
I mentioned that I was going to physical therapy because my back had been bothering me. I also mentioned that it wasn’t so much that I was in a great deal of pain, as my doctor thought I would benefit from the “educational value”.
How’s this for “educational value”? I just read the Explanation of Benefits from my health insurance company. It costs more to see my physical therapist than it costs to see my actual doctor.
I had to research. These are some excerpts from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
“Physical therapists provide services that help restore function, improve mobility, relieve pain, and prevent or limit permanent physical disabilities of patients suffering from injuries or disease. They restore, maintain, and promote overall fitness and health. Their patients include accident victims and individuals with disabling conditions such as low-back pain, arthritis, heart disease, fractures, head injuries, and cerebral palsy.”
“Median annual earnings of physical therapists were $66,200 in May 2006.”
“Physical therapists need a master’s degree from an accredited physical therapy program and a State license, requiring passing scores on national and State examinations.”
“Employment of physical therapists is expected to grow much faster than average. Job opportunities will be good, especially in acute hospital, rehabilitation, and orthopedic settings.”
Hm. So this is where the jobs are.
For my first couple of appointments, it was probably worth it. The evaluation, the flexibility vs. strength bit. And the understanding that this is not my mother’s disk problem – it is a muscular issue and I own it. But the last couple of sessions have just been giving me new exercises – which I am pretty sure I can find on the Internet if I am so inclined. I cancelled my last scheduled appointment.
Looking on the Bright Side
The Dow had another nosedive of a day, which is not really news at this point. What I found interesting is that it began this morning with a report saying that retail sales dropped a whole bunch in September.
The bad news, of course, is that retail sales are a big-deal-economic-trend-indicator-thingy. But what I thought was:
Wait a minute. Haven’t we been telling people to save their money, already? Maybe we finally understand! Maybe we are turning a corner and coming out of our Rampant Consumerist Dark Age!
Or maybe it is just fear.
If you want to read the actual day’s financial report, you can find MSN’s here.
The Next Dark Age 