Coffee heat rising

Saturday Night Wipe-out

OproverbialMG am i whipped.

Didn’t do much today but am just about wiped out with exhaustion. Compiled the Best of Money Carnival and scheduled it, but it was halfway done before this. Went with M’hijito to return the redundant dog crate to Walmart (His Maleness to haul the damn thing), there to collect a $90 refund. Ran over to Ace to pick up some new Danish oil with which to repair the puppy scratches on the kitchen cabinetry; got it home before I realized it was “walnut” stained; drove back through the heat-crazed traffic to get the “golden oak” flavor. Did the laundry, including the sheets. Fooled with the pool some more. Did battle with a difficult student who deserves a C-minus, is getting a B, and believes she should have an A.

Never did get around to cleaning house: too hot to function. Decided to put the puppy crate in a cooler part of the house, since the area where I’d like to locate Doggy Central is significantly warmer than any other rooms. Put the Navajo rug back on the wall where Pup tried to pull it down. Watered plants.

Finished off the day responding to a student who got a zero on the last paper (for not having done the assignment in spite having been warned at the draft stage) and threatened to go to the chair. Forthwith this development was topped off with the discovery that the washer overflowed and flooded the garage. Just spent a half-hour sweeping a lake down the driveway.

More gawdawful pretend news on the idiot box now, at 10:00 p.m.

Am I the only human in the country who’s bored stupid with the “what does the S&P credit downgrade mean for YOU?” pretend-news stories?

The answer:

Nothing.

There’s not a damn thing any of us can do about it.

Are we going to lose our shirts? Not likely: our shirts are already lost. You can’t lose a shirt you don’t have anymore.

Are we going to be unemployed? Probably; earlier this year a third of Americans were under- or unemployed. More recent data report that fewer than half of adult African-American men are employed, and that by 2018, less than half of adult white men will be employed; 22 million to 23 million people are under-employed or unemployed. Can we get any more unemployed than we are? Does anyone care?

So our credit-card interest is going to go up? This matters to people who can’t afford to charge anything on credit cards in the first place?

Our variable-rate mortgages are going up? How many more houses will go into foreclosure? Does this change things one way or the other? Real estate is already so profoundly trashed that a few more hundred thousand foreclosures will mean nothing.

Our student loan interest is going up? Will this make any difference to those of us who are going back to school because we can’t get work? Will it change the plans of college kids who couldn’t get jobs if they tried?

Speaking of going back to school to retool for new work that represents underemployment, I heard from a client who’s a medical doctor in response to my questions to him about medical transcription as a possible new income generator.

He said that indeed a medical transcriptionist can make a decent wage. And while it’s true some of the work is being offshored, most jobs are still here in the U.S. But, says he, “The job is tedious and low intellectual in my opinion. You and Tina are way overqualified for the job. I hope you can find a better option to use your talents.”

So true. However, there seem to be no better options. Tina’s already waiting tables two or three evenings a week, after she gets off her full-time editing job. I’m a little old for that kind of strenuous work, though I suppose I could clean house, another trade that pays more than I’m earning at adjunct teaching. Exactly how “intellectual” it really is to teach people who think Arizona is a “Great Plans” state, Wisconsin is a Rocky Mountain state, and World War I happened in the 19th century remains to be seen. And as for tedious: dealing with people who don’t pay attention in class, refuse to address the assignment, and then threaten to complain to your boss when you flunk them…that defines tedious.

If I can earn the same or more transcribing doctors’ case notes, actually get paid for all the hours I work, engineer an income all 12 months of the year, and not have to put up with a lot of bullshit, I’ll take a new form of unintellectual tedium.

Looks like we may have found JackDaniels’s real name: as he was clambering around the backyard yesterday it struck me that his name is Charley.

Asked M’hijito about that idea. He seemed to like it; said he wasn’t crazy about “Jack” because it’s too close to “Jake,” the name of his childhood pet.

So Charley he is. For the time being.

Hounds of the Baskervilles

 

5 thoughts on “Saturday Night Wipe-out”

  1. I hear you.
    I was driven out of a teaching position by a parent. Her child had not turned in anything for six weeks. When I mentioned it to her in passing (small Arizona school) the parent went ballistic- saying that I was undermining her son’s weak confidence to destroy him. She took the case all the way to the diocese. It was only because my family had been in the diocese for so long that I retained my position. I left the following year.
    It changed my perception of teaching forever.
    It only takes one to bring down a good teacher!
    Medical transcription sounds good to me.

  2. I don’t understand how schools and colleges keep anyone in education. I do enjoy teaching, but I need to be paid 11 or 12 months a year, and I really do need to have paychecks in consistent amounts. That probably defines most people, except for those who have high-earning spouses.

    Teaching is basically dealing with the public, and that’s always hard. Eventually it will burn you out. That explains the droves of former teachers you find in the business world. I ran into a guy selling washing machines at Sears who said he loved the job and was earning far more than he did in the classroom. And one member of my business group taught for years before he decided to become a travel agent — he now owns a very successful upscale agency.

  3. Funny, I meant to bring this up when you first mentioned medical transcription. The problem with earning a living at it is getting clients.

    Lots of people do it and even more want to do it. For every medical practice there are dozens of people who want their billing and transcription business.

    THAT would be your biggest challenge.

  4. @ Brandy: so it would seem. On the surface. This afternoon he nabbed her toy; after a brief pause, she tried to remove his head.

    It must be remembered, I guess, that she’s getting on in Doggy Years. There’s a limit to how much Puppy she can tolerate.

    @ E. Murphy: Yeah, it appears more and more that medical transcription is fraught with challenges.

    First, there’s the obvious: this is something that can be offshored to India and waypoints. And it is.

    Second, one of my friends, a chiropractor, says his office is looking into speech recognition software, which continues to improve as most things electronic do. Reasonably accurate software would allow one to convert a digital recording to digitally typed copy with no living middleperson.

    Third: what’s considered “good” pay in Arizona is…well, not. I would need at least $14,500 to supplement to pay the mortgage on the downtown house and leave me two or hundred dollah to indulge myself most months. That could very well entaill full-time, 10-hour days at this endeavor.

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