Coffee heat rising

Month: February 2009

Networking

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I am sooo bad at it. Networking, that is. I just don’t do well with schmoozing. Any day, I’d rather sit in front of my computer and type. Not that I don’t enjoy other people—I do, as a matter of fact. It’s just that I’m not very comfortable around strangers: don’t know what to say, don’t want to say anything, want to get back to…gardening, cleaning house, editing copy, cooking, eating, shopping, playing with the dog, writing blog posts, reading a book, hiking a mountain, just about anything.

{sigh} It’s four in the morning. In two hours I have to get up and get ready to fly out the door so as to spend the entire darned day—SATURDAY!—at a book publisher’s convention. There are so many things I need to do and so many things I want to do and so many ways I don’t want to spend seven or eight hours sitting around listening to people palaver about how to market your book online. Augh! If we don’t pick up some business today, I am going to croak my peonie!!!

Okay, let’s think positive here. There must be some advice on the Web about how to network effectively.

Hmmm… Here’s a guy who suggests you need to make yourself memorable:
-dress distinctively or at least sharp (heaven help me: my clothes are memorable, all right, for looking dowdy and out of style because I can’t afford the latest new duds and I refuse to wear shoes that hurt my feet!);
-“be fully present,” by which our author seems to mean you should sincerely pay attention to people (or at least pretend to);
-ask questions that cause your interlocutors to tell a story about themselves, an old reporter’s trick;
-find ways to repeat certain key words and phrases—videlicet, your name, your company’s name, your business or industry, your product, and your location; and
-contribute to the conversation, don’t just mumble semiconscious small talk.

Ah ha! I think that last is the stumbling block for me. I don’t have much to contribute to conversation and so tend to turn a lot of pet phrases like “is that so?” and “isn’t that interesting?” (not!).

Another scribbler tells us you should “be genuine and authentic”; I guess that’s the same as my mother’s advice to “just be yourself.” Trouble is, most people don’t seem very impressed with “myself.” She (the writer, not my mother) advises setting some goals for what you want to accomplish at a networking event (that’s easy: get a second client who will feed us at least one new thousand-dollar assignment a month); visiting lots of groups (eeek! one isn’t enough?); holding volunteer positions in organizations (uh huh: soldiers have got something when they say “never volunteer”); and becoming known as a resource for others (comes naturally for us fonts of all wisdom). Seriously: been there, done that…have yet to get business from one of these events.

Here’s another obvious piece of advice: follow up on business cards you collect with e-mails, phone calls, and personal contacts. And it’s another of those networking tricks I never seem to manage to make myself do. I’ve already got a stack of cards from ABPA meetings gathering dust around the house. Interestingly, none of the people who traded cards with me have tried to contact me, either, so I guess I’m not the only one who…well, would rather be dusting than doing this.

Is there ANYONE out there in the whole gigantic Internet who has anything intelligent to say about this?

…dear god… There’s an entire organization devoted to business networking. Of sorts. There’s a newspaper on the subject!

But in answer to the basic question: No. Evidently not.

Unemployment + Chase Bank = Hell on Wheels

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LOL! I just KNEW it!

As you may recall, my beloved employer, the Great Desert University, did its level best to ameliorate the pain of the unpaid furlough days it’s forcing us all to take by entering a Shared Work arrangement with the Unemployment Insurance Service.

This sounds great…on paper.Reality is a slightly different matter.

Although UI will, in due course, direct-deposit your money to a bank account of your choice, the first payment defaults to a debit card with Chase Bank.

Can you spell sweetheart deal, boys and girls?

I don’t use debit cards; I don’t want to use a debit card; I just want to get the $48 that allegedly has been deposited to this card out of Chase Bank and into my sweaty little paws, so I can carry it to the credit union and deposit it to a savings account, where it and the promised future direct deposits can sit until we see whether I get laid off or not. So, here’s what happens when I try to extract said munificent sum:

Dear ASK HR:

The debit card from Chase came in the mail, issued in response to the request for Shared Work payment for furlough days. I called the phone number on the information that came with the card. After about 15 minutes of jumping through punch-a-button hoops, I validated the card and got the access number and the PIN number.

 

For a number of reasons, I do not use debit cards. I have a credit union account, to which I asked to have the payments due me direct-deposited. Yes, I DO understand that the first payment cannot be direct-deposited. So now I have $48 on this debit card, which I would like to extract from Chase and manually deposit, in person, at the Arizona State Credit Union.

 

I drove to the nearest Chase branch. It is in a dangerous part of town where I would not ordinarily get out of my car—it is, shall we say, a lock-your-car-doors district. Stood in line interminably at the teller’s. Explained the situation, asked to withdraw the $48 that is supposed to be on the card. Jumped through some more hoops. And then what? She informed me the card was rejected. By now I’ve spent another half-hour dorking with this, for a total of 45 minutes.

 

Now she wants me to go to customer service, where I will be asked to dial the phone number on the card (which is the same punch-a-button hoop-jump number that has already fruitlessly consumed a quarter-hour of my time). I explain that I have work to do, and that the last time I called that number, there was no option to reach a person.

 

Back at my own phone, I dial a number for Chase listed on GetHuman.com. Eventually, I reach a person in the auto loan department. He connects me with a human being: in Pakistan or India!

 

Okay. After waiting 16 minutes to get through to this person, I explain the situation. He says he will connect me to a person in the Unemployment Office in Illinois. I explain that even though Unemployment Insurance is a federal program, in the U.S. it is administered by each state separately and that each state’s system is different, and so it will not do me any good to talk to the Illinois unemployment people. That notwithstanding, he insists on giving me a number in the Unemployment Office in Illinois. I hang up in frustration.

 

This little runaround has now occupied a good hour and a half of my time, not counting the time used fruitlessly to call a phone number at HR whose talking machine hung up on me before I could explain the issue. Nor does it count the 90 minutes spent sitting in a meeting listening to ASU and Unemployment Insurance representatives explain how to work the system, nor does it count the time I spent filling out forms.

 

When I’m working at ASU, I’m paid about $30 an hour. Thus, it has cost $45 worth of my time at ASU’s rate to try to extract $48 allegedly due to me. To make things more interesting, my actual, real-life freelance rate is $60 an hour. So, the truth is, I have now spent $90 worth of my time in an effort to retrieve $48 that has already been paid to me but which Chase will not disgorge.

 

I’m going to give up and write off the $48—I just don’t have time to kill this way. However, I would like someone to know how furious it makes me. I do not like to have my time wasted, and I especially resent being barred from retrieving unemployment insurance that I have paid for with my taxes and my employer has paid for with its taxes.

 

HR’s effort to cut through red tape and ameliorate the pain of the furlough days was a very good try and much appreciated by those of us who feel worried about our jobs and beat-up by the economy in general. However, it appears your time was every bit as much wasted as mine was. If a human being reads this message and has any clue how to reach an English-speaking human being at Chase (NOT another punch-a-button machine, NOT a foreign national who has no clue what I’m talking about!), please advise.

Don’t you love it?

Truth to tell, the exploit in the sub-working-class neighborhood where Chase directed me to its closest bank was as nothing compared to the misguided junket to our neighborhood Albertson’s, where I incorrectly thought the branch was located (they did used to have some branch bank in there, but it’s gone now—I won’t go into that store because it’s unsafe, and so I’d not noticed the bank’s removal). Not one, not two, not three, but FOUR cop cars were lined up in front, a couple of them left with their engines running. Inside, a gaggle of police officers were huddled with a guy who pretty clearly was a vic’ and not a perp. I surmised that he must have been robbed or at least pounced in the parking lot. Charming. Asked after the bank branch and was told to proceed deeper into the slum. And so, onward and downward.

Let’s calculate how much the futile effort to retrieve my $48 really has cost.

Time consumed:
90 minutes: sitting in an informational meeting, filling out forms
15 minutes: navigating punch-a-button phone lines to validate debit card and obtain various secret numbers
30 minutes: driving to Chase branch and being repulsed
20 minutes: reaching a human being on a Chase telephone and being repulsed
15 minutes: writing the diatribe above
TOTAL: 170 minutes, or 2.83 hours

Value of my time as a GDU employee: $30/hour
Value of my time on a freelance basis: $60/hour

Value of time, at taxpayer rate, wasted while I tried to retrieve $48 supposedly already paid to me: $84.90

Value of time, at freelance rate, wasted while I tried to retrieve $48 supposedly already paid to me: $169.80

Tell me: is there anyone out there who doesn’t believe we’re living in a Monty Python show?

Security Doors: Yea or nay?

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The last “safety alert” the head of our neighborhood group sent out reported seven burglary and prowler incidents over the preceding fifteen days. That’s one every two days. And it includes only the those that homeowners relayed to this guy, not every single episode on the police blotter.

At least two sets of perps are watching residents’ movements. They wait until a homeowner leaves, then break in a back entrance, walk through the house to the garage, open the garage door, drive their car inside, close the door, and clean out the house. Then they drive away, unnoticed by the neighbors. One woman was ripped off royally in the time it took her to run to the grocery store. The latest victim was close to my house, and the perps who drive the green station wagon were recently seen peering over the back wall at La Maya and La Bethulia’s house.

Burglar alarms don’t help. One guy, knowing it would take the cops 10 or 15 minutes to get there after the security company called them, strode through a house with the alarm blaring—he had plenty of time to lift a laptop and rifle through all the papers in the owner’s home office.

For quite some time, I’ve been quietly thinking about installing security doors on the four entrances in the back and on the side of the house, which cannot be seen from the street. Three of these doors are sliders; one of them latches but does not lock, and another will not latch or lock at all. All three Arcadia doors are alarmed and “secured” shut (more or less) with sticks in the runners. The back door is the worst menace: it’s a cheap Home Depot affair with glass lights and a single-cylinder dead bolt. Even I could bust through it: use my shoe to break a window, and then just reach through the opening and unlock the door.

I’m not fond of security doors. My feeling is that the burglars, not the honest citizens, belong behind bars. How can I say how much I resent feeling that I need to live behind bars, alarm systems, and glaring security lights when I have done nothing to deserve being locked up? But…on the other hand, if the guys across the street had had security doors front and back, they wouldn’t have suffered a home invasion, wouldn’t have been beat up, wouldn’t have been chased down the street by a guy waving a pistol. Security doors have other plusses, too. The one on my front door allows me to leave the door open to let the fresh air in on lovely days like today, and its ugly security screen lets me see out (sort of) without a stranger at the door seeing in. When someone rings the doorbell, I can open my front door to see who they are, but they can’t see whether I’m alone, how big I am, how old I am, or whether I have a mastiff standing at my side. These are good things.

On the other other hand, when La Bethulia was here the other night, she remarked that a house she owned in Moon Valley had a pair of security doors over an Arcadia door. During the hour or so it took her to go out to dinner one evening, the perps took a crowbar to the lock and just broke it off. This left them plenty of time to go through her belongings at their leisure. So…it may be that security doors are not as secure as they look, especially with instructions on how to “bump” a lock available on YouTube. My locks, like most people’s, are vulnerable to this easy break-in technique; to secure all my doors, I would have to replace every deadbolt in the house with safer locks, not an inconsiderable expense.

And speaking of expense: security doors are not cheap. Most of them are plug hideous: they look either like prison doors or like a kitsch dealer’s wet dream. See what I mean?

titanprisondoor
Welcome to the Big House!
titanhideous1
We wuv whales!

Titan Security Doors, the outfit my favorite door-&-window retailer does business with, does offer a coupleof models(that’s two, count’em, 2) that aren’t excessively offensive:

titansortaok2
Frank Lloyd Wright run amok
Okay, I don't hate this all THAT much...
Okay, I don't hate this all THAT much...

At first I thought Frank Lloyd Wright Drops Acidwould work, since the windows in front have a FLlW-like motif. But then La Maya pointed out that after you’ve looked at it for a minute or two, your eyeballs start to vibrate. Imagine two of those babies, back to back, spanning an Arcadia door. Ouch! Although We Wish We Lived on Nob Hilldoesn’t in any way fit the house’s general mood, neither does it cause pain to the eyes.

The cost of these charmers is so outrageous that if you have to ask, you can’t afford it. The window guy was here measuring a couple of days ago, but he still hasn’t called with an estimate. I figure he took one look around the place and realized there was no way I could pay to cover all the doors in back with the things.

Maybe the best strategy would be to put one on the kitchen door (which is just a regular exterior door) and a pair on the Arcadia door in the bedroom. This would secure the softest entrance, and it also would allow me to leave the bedroom door open at night, when the weather is nice. Then, if a miracle happens and I manage to hang onto my job for another couple of years, I can fortify the remaining two Arcadias. Meanwhile, I’ll just have to do the best I can to make it hard to open them.

AMEX kickback comes through, and surprises

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Nice timing for the annual AMEX credit-card kickback. This year it’s $210, which will almost make up for this month’s furlough gouges. One of our clients owes us $1,100, which hasn’t been forthcoming, but if and when that ever shows up, my half of the net plus the American Express rebate should carry me through the first three periods of reduced pay.

So far, I haven’t gotten any static from American Express, despite reports of questionable practices from those quarters. I did use the card at a Walmart before I’d heard of AMEX’s data mining schemes, but so far they have not cut my credit line. Possibly that’s because it’s a Costco card. It’s unlikely that AMEX would risk alienating a major client by slashing its customers’ credit.

Hm. I’ve spent an incredible amount of money with this thing over the past year: $18,717. Of that, $1,187 went to gasoline, $448 to eating out (really??), and $14.75 to “traveling” (huh? I haven’t “traveled” in years). “Everywhere Else” racked up a total of $15,742.

Oh, this gets better: a Quicken category report suggests I spent $578 eating out! The $14.75 was for lunch in Prescott, when I drove an out-of-state friend up there, not exactly “traveling,” IMHO. Lordie! Who would think I’ve spent that much in restaurants? I try to stay out of them, and generally restrict eating out to twice a month, max—and for lunch, never for dinner.

Eating lunch out is pretty much out of the question during the week, because the on-campus chow lines sell nothing but junk food, which I don’t eat. There are only a couple of decent places to eat within walking distance of the campus, and one of them is very expensive. So, I usually go hungry over the lunch hour, since we have no refrigerator and no place except the public toilet to rinse out dirty dishes.

Surprising. I’ll have to get a grip on that!

Cheap Eats: Grilled pork tenderloin

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During the late, great stockpiling expedition, I picked up one of Costco’s vast packages of pork tenderloin: two connected freezer-wrapped packets that, when opened, each disgorge two large tenderloins, for a total of enough food to last one old lady about three weeks. I also bought enough potatoes to feed the population of Ireland for a week or two.

With a good two or three months’ worth of meat in the freezer, it seemed like a good opportunity to invite friends to dinner. I decided to scallop a couple handfuls of the potatoes and to marinate and then roast the two of the four tenderloins on the grill. Leftovers could go into the freezer. La Maya and La Bethulia brought over an incredible salad, and I unearthed some of the brussels sprouts I bought fresh at Thanksgiving, blanched, and froze. It worked pretty well. Check this out:

Grilled Pork Tenderloins

You need:

dcp_2362-1 or 2 pork tenderloins
-lemon juice or wine vinegar (about 1/2 c for one tenderloin)
-olive oil (about the same amount as juice or vinegar)
-salt & pepper to taste
-fennel seeds
-garlic (one clove per loin)
-fresh rosemary or sage sprigs (optional)

Mix olive oil and lemon juice or vinegar, about 50-50. I used a cup of each for two tenderloins; this was more than needed. It can be refrigerated or frozen and used to marinate a future portion of chicken, beef, venison, or more pork. Add some salt and pepper to the marinade, to taste.

Slice the garlic into slivers. With a sharp knife, poke holes into the meat and stuff them with garlic slivers.Take about a tablespoon of fennel seeds and spin them in a blender or, if you have one, a coffee grinder reserved for grinding spices. Rub the ground fennel into the meat.

Place the meat in an enameled or glass dish and pour the marinade over it. Refrigerate for several hours or overnight. Turn the meat over once during the marinating process.

Start a charcoal fire or turn on a propane grill. If you have some hardwood chips, soak these in water for at least 20 minutes before starting the meat.

dcp_2365Push the charcoal to the outside edges of the grill, so you will have a place to set the meat that is not directly over the fire. Toss on the hardwood chips, and then put several springs of rosemary, sage, or both onto the fire. Set the grates in place, and then place the meat on the grate so that it’s not directly over the hot coals. You actually want the meat to roast rather than barbecue—olive oil dripping on burning coals will cause a flare-up, which you’d like to avoid. Close the lid.

Allow the meat to cook about 30 or 40 minutes. Turn it once during the cooking process. My friends ran a little late, and so these tenderloins cooked about 45 or 50 minutes—they came out just fine.

Slice the meat across the grain, into medallions. Serve with rice, pasta, or potatoes, a nice green veggie, and some salad. Toooo excellent!

Scalloped potatoes

I haven’t scalloped a potato since I was a young thing: it’s a very old-fashioned dish. La Bethulia was thrilled: “No one makes these anymore,” she exclaimed—and she loves them. They did come out pretty tasty.

You need:

-four to six potatoes, depending on the number of diners and your mood
-about two cups milk
-a lot of butter
-salt and pepper
-some fresh parsley, chopped (optional, I think)
-a handful or two of shredded Parmesan cheese

Wash the potatoes; slice them about 1/8 inch thick. (I used a mandoline, a very handy little gadget—you also could haul out the food processor, if you have one. A sharp knife, however, will do the trick). Drop them into a bowl of icy water as you’re working.

Butter a flat baking dish well. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

dcp_2363Dry the potato slices on a clean dishrag or paper towels. Lay down a layer of slices in the pan; dot these with butter, season with salt & pepper, and sprinkle a little parsley over them. Repeat until you run out of potatoes. Dot the top layer with still more butter, and pour in enough milk to just cover the potatoes. Then sprinkle a nice layer of Parmesan cheese over the top.

Place this lash-up in the oven and allow to bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until the potatoes are cooked to your liking. The result is comfort food at its best.

Easy Brussels Sprouts

You need:
dcp_23661-frozen Brussels sprouts
-butter
-tarragon
-nutmeg

Melt some butter in a frying pan—more than enough to just cover the bottom of the pan. You’re going to braise these sprouts, which will cause them to take up some of the butter into their little sprout bodies. Provide enough for the purpose.

Place the sprouts into the pan with the melted butter. Roll them around to coat them well. Sprinkle on some dried tarragon and a little nutmeg. Turn the heat fairly low and cover the pan tightly.

Depending on how large the sprouts are, it takes about eight to fifteen minutes to cook. Stir occasionally, to be sure they don’t scorch on one side.

La Maya made the salad. I don’t know how she made it. All I know is she showed up with a dressing made of 18-year-old balsamic vinegar, which was pretty amazing.

dcp_2367
🙂

Word from On High: Stay Calm

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Yesterday the Deans tried to do a little damage control. The six of them called a “town hall” meeting of academic professionals and other underlings in related nebulous positions. The conversation was pretty interesting, and I (for one: possibly the only one) came away slightly encouraged.

To understand the subtext, you need to know just how precarious the “academic professional” or “service professional” position is. These are full-time jobs that,even though they’re nontenurable and usually ill-paid,are considered quasifaculty positions. Some are nine-month (academic year) and some are twelve-month (fiscal year) appointments, but in either event incumbents stay at the whim of the administration. APs are exempt, meaning the bosses can fire you at any time, for any or for no reason. Tenurable faculty cannot be canned for nothing, and neither can classified (nonexempt) staff, for whom dismissal requires a supervisor to go through the tortures of the damned. Thus, academic professionals hold the university’s single most vulnerable full-time job. APs include librarians, program directors, certain researchers and instructors, and various oddments such as graphic artists and editors.

Before the current president acceded to the throne, some APs were theoretically tenurable: these worthies had “continuing” contracts, as opposed the more typical year-to-year renewable contract. A year-to-year renewable means the university issues a new contract annually; a “continuing” contract is effectively permanent. As a practical matter, the search process is so cumbersome and such a hassle that most people on year-to-year renewable contracts, afloat on institutional inertia, hang onto their jobs as long as anyone else. But of course, a continuing contract is much to be desired.

Not surprisingly, most of the layoff rumors blowing through the halls have focused on academic professionals. The libraries have stopped acquiring books and have canceled all their periodical subscriptions, rendering librarians redundant—quite a few of them have already been canned. Starting in the middle of last summer, we have heard volley after volley of theories to the effect that some or even all service and academic professionals will be laid off. And, not surprisingly, morale among this group is at an all-time low; fear and loathing, at an all-time high.

The overall gist of the deans’ remarks at yesterday’s meeting was uncertainty. They admitted that they didn’t have a clue, but, while warning that more cuts are pretty much inevitable in fiscal years ’09 and’10, they said they saw “cause for cautious optimism.” They insisted they are doing all they can a) to shield students from the worst effects of the disastrous budget cuts, and b) to minimize staff cuts to the extent possible. Those brief statements made, they opened the floor to questions. Videlicet:

What will happen if a state of financial emergency is declared?

The Board of Regents is the only entity that can do so. [This conflicts with the university’s rules and regs pertaining to employees, which specifically state the university president can declare a state of emergency.] The deans do not believe this will happen in FY 2010, and the FY 2009 disaster has now been wrestled into a “manageable” state.

Will the furloughs continue into FY 2010? Or will they morph into a permanent salary cut?

No, and no. The furloughs created massive administrative headaches, leading the deans to conclude that “furloughing is not a good way to do things.” [Roger that, bosses!] They urged staff to keep in mind that our college plays such a crucial part in the university’s mission and operation that it has “a privileged position.”

Will the satellite campuses be closed?

Not likely. However, the College’s vice-president (i.e., our Dean of Deans) remarked that it would be preferable to shut those campuses than to damage services at the main campus.

About three weeks ago, the questioner, an instructional professional with a continuing contract, received a notice from the vice-president for personnel stating that her contract would be canceled and replaced with a year-to-year or even possibly a semester-to-semester contract. Other APs have not received any such message. What’s the deal?

The deans are discussing the issue with the Provost’s office. They are resisting this move, because they wish to retain APs [who do much of the College’s scutwork]. If the College is forced to dismiss a lot of adjuncts—or if many of them seek work in the community colleges or the business world—we will be forced to close our doors. To retain APs, the university is doing all it can to increase funding. Our funding sources, which include tuition revenues [especially from out-of-state students, who pay exorbitant rates] and external funding grants, are up. Tuition revenues are up; retention is up. One-third of the university’s revenue comes from tuition.

That’s great, but what about contracts for academic and service professionals?

What is on the table are six-month or semester-to-semester contracts. We will not know what comes of this until April. The Deans are not included in the discussion. The administration wants more “flexibility.” They want to be able to end contracts summarily.The service professional’s twelve-month contract, which requires a 90-day warning of cancellation, does not provide this. In April, all service professionals may be told that we will be hired from July through December of FY 2010. This has not been firmly decided, but it is certain that multiyear (“continuing”) contracts will go away.

Will changing the contract’s terms affect our benefits?

No.

The deans wrapped up the discussion by saying that although the worst is probably over, we’re not through the storm; some rough times are still ahead. Things will be clearer, they said, in six to eight weeks, mid- to late March.

Isn’t that sweet? In one breath they tell us the university’s operations depend on our underpaid presence, and in the next they tell us they’re about to remove the teensy bit of job security we had. Now, instead of not knowing from year to year whether we’ll have a job, we won’t know from month to month. In all their earnestness to reach out to staff and calm the waters, what they did was reiterate an old truth of academia: Universities subsist on exploitation.

We need a union.

Well, at least it appears that those of us who survive into FY 2010 will see our salaries return to normal. It also looks like there may be a fair chance my job will not be RIFed. To be OK in a premature retirement, I only need to hang on for another year. It would be ideal if I could stay in this job for another three to six years, but even a single year would suffice.