About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
Read MoreJuly 27, 2008
Whew, from one spectrum to another. I drove home from San Diego just around midnight, and left again before 6 am to catch a flight, and now I’m on the East Coast for two days of meetings and turning right back around and leaving again.
It’s humid.
I’ll have a Con update when I get back, I have to upload some of my photos. I’m going to have a LOT of catching up to do.
July 25, 2008
Aside from not ever having a possessed phone when I was their customer, their service just seems to get more and more excellent. My parents have a T-Mobile family plan and I just called to change the family plan to a cheaper package with 700 minutes instead of 1000.
One, they offer a callback service. Instead of making you wait on hold, they ask for your name and number, and they call you right back, if you prefer.
Two, the CSR didn’t go through any rigamarole when I inquired about the minute usage and told her about my intention to change plans: she immediately offered the plan I knew would fit best, noting that there was one other option but that it wouldn’t save as much money.
Three, she quickly backdated the change of plans so that it would take effect for the current billing cycle rather than having to wait until the next one, saving me $10 for this bill effective immediately.
Four, she also corrected the contract dates from the botched up replacement phone fiasco where my mom had insisted to ordering phones that I couldn’t afford, without waiting for me to help select phones they could use. Those phones were sent back a few months ago, but I’d never called to make sure they’d made any necessary corrections to the contract dates. All fixed!
Five, she gave me all the information she had on the T-Mobile Home Service (I asked), and offered to get me to the folks who had more information if I wanted it.
And all of the above was completed in five minutes. I LOVE T-mobile’s customer service.
July 24, 2008
The lock on my driver’s side has been malfunctioning on and off, more on lately than off, over the past month. It doesn’t respond to the remote when I arm the alarm, so I hear a quiet little *thunk* …. *thunk*….. *thunk* as the door tries to lock in order before arming the alarm. Since it can’t quite make it, the alarm is never properly armed, so I have to manually lock and unlock that door in order to use the remote alarm.
It’s mostly inconvenient, but when I’m busy and in a hurry, I don’t want to forget and rush off leaving my baby unprotected! A family friend promised to come over and teach me how to diagnose and fix the problem, but it’s been two weeks and the man still hasn’t called or shown up, so I’ve asked a good friend to help me out.
He thinks he knows what’s wrong with it, but I’m going to put it through a field test to be sure of exactly what does and doesn’t work before I go spending money on it. With any luck, it’s just the one lock unit that will have to be replaced, and he can help me install it. In the meantime, I’ve found a couple car enthusiast forums with huge lists of installation guides, and am hoping to learn some car savviness, wish me luck!
July 23, 2008
Well, not really. But I’m going to give my bags a last looky-loo, and then toss them in the car, fill up and get going!!
Whoo!
We have free wi-fi throughout the convention center this year, but unless I email my posts, I probably won’t be doing much blogging between now and next week because the laptop is just too heavy to carry. Oh, and I’m on va-ca-tion!! I’ve got a few posts scheduled, though.
I’ve got my $150 in Shell gas cards in my wallet, my $200 in cash (my entire budget for the trip), and a short list of people I’m going to spend that cash on. After that? It’s all food, parking and me!!
So very excited. This is going to be awesome. Have a great week everyone!
Higher Education, yea or nay?
As an Asian, I was raised to believe that higher education was the key to advancement, and practically the key to life. Even knowing it can mean nothing, having met my share of M.D./Ph.D. idiots, I still have a thing for the validation of a higher degree. I can’t deny that I’ve also got a fascination with the idea of being called Dr. Revanche someday. [Smartass friends suggest that I change my name to Doctor. Funny!] But I digress.
I’m not trying to make a six figure mistake without first evaluating the costs and benefits. The last time I did this, much like The Baglady’s analysis, the benefits didn’t bear out the costs. At the time, though, I was able to secure a major raise based on my work and experience. Now, assessing the prevailing head winds, I may have reached the point of salary saturation.
A: If I stay in my field, there are some benefits to attaining higher education than the standard bachelor’s degree, but it’s not a pass go, collect $200 step to success. Experience is equally, sometimes more, prized. I’ve got experience in spades for the amount of time I’ve spent in this industry, so I’m set for moving up into the management level. If I want to continue on this path, though, I still need to seek out greener, happier pastures in keeping with my intention to move out. I had set a tentative goal for the end of this year, I’d still like to make that happen.
B: If I leave my field and try my hand in business, accounting, banking or financial advising, I’m almost certain to need some higher education. Perhaps not entirely a whole new degree, but definitely some classes in more quantitative subjects. School, though rather intimidating with all the talk of calculus and such, is really appealing. I’m loving the idea of an M.B.A. or an E.M.B.A, or an M.S. in Management. Not, however, loving the price tags involved just in applying. I’ve spent a whole lot of time this weekend researching business schools to get a feel for what they teach, and talking to friends who have gotten in to familiarize myself with the admissions process. An M.B.A. seems to run anywhere from 100k to 150k for a full time program without assistance. Ideally, I’d like to get a job that offers a healthy tuition reimbursement, preferably at the university itself. The entry costs are pretty hideous: $250, GMAT; ~ $250, application fee per school; $XXX, interview costs if necessary; $XXX, new suit if interviewing. (Friend who was recently accepted to b-school reminded me of that cost, I’m not sure if I’d spring for it yet but I may.)
If this is the path I choose, and I haven’t yet completed my research to make the call that the degree gives me the kind of leg up that I want, I need to:
~ have $2000-3000 in application money
~ start studying for the GMAT right now
~ find job options near all the schools I want to apply to that offer tuition reimbursement and figure out the balance of work vs school
So here’s the conundrum: I love my current field, and I love finance. To be honest, I love working, too, so doing what I love as a job is probably more appealing than I give it credit for. I’ll let you in on a secret: I always had a sneaking conviction that doing something for fun is fun, but doing something for fun because you have to for your job makes it less fun. It turns out that doesn’t mean it’s entirely not-fun anymore. Good to know.
I’m still pondering, exploring the options, and collecting information on the various parts of the country where I could attend school and work. Ultimately, the choice I need to make is whether or not the M.B.A. or a graduate degree gives me the kind of knowledge and ability that I need and cannot get simply by working in the field. Is it going to serve as a door opener where my experience alone may not suffice?
I’m not positive how to answer that question yet, but before I make the decision, I’ve got to decide where I’m trying to go (industry) and what I want to do when I get there (actual work).
Decisions, decisions, heavy decisions to be made right before Con!
July 22, 2008
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. By my measure, I’ve reached the height of my career with this company. There are a lot of reasons to stay: more experience, projects and management courses, not to mention the fantastic tuition reimbursement and retirement plans, but the overriding reason to leave can’t be argued with. This environment will get a whole lot worse before it gets better. My sanity has already been through the wringer and back, and the law of numbers says I’m going to lose it permanently if I stick around too much longer. No one wants to be the best-performing lifer in the asylum, right?
This brings me to a very important question: what’s next?
I ask myself that question daily to keep myself moving, working harder, smarter, faster and as best I can manage, more than 100%. And it was all to build my skill sets and knowledge, to get the promotions and raises to set myself up for the next step in my career. I thought I kept my eye on the bigger picture this entire time, but it turns out, the next step isn’t always that obvious. I need to break out of the comfort zone that is my job with the uberstress but is a known quantity, my responsibilities, my cushy healthcare with a doctor that takes me seriously and takes good care of me. The benefits, the things that are basically peripheral to the job itself are great, but the main dish isn’t so hot anymore.
So, this early on in my career, I’m not sure what the best next move is: to pursue higher education, deepen my experience by climbing the ladder to the next logical step (management), or broaden my horizons by expanding on my current experience in a related job (lateral move)?
What’s more important? Which road is the best for both the journey and where I want to end up? More than job security which doesn’t truly exist, more than oodles of money in the bank that can go away, I want to know that come rain or shine, richer or poorer, I have developed the ability to survive and thrive. I want to be the person who can pick herself up in any set of circumstances, determine what needs to be done to succeed, and make it there. The key to this is marketability and flexibility.
Decision making process to follow ….
I complained too soon. It was really just the tracking information page that was pathetic, because my package was delivered yesterday while I was at work.
Sadly, the contents were not all I’d hoped they would be.
The ruched scoopneck tee was a really soft, durable seeming material until I looked closer at it. The ruching was evident on the outside of the shirt: you could see gobs of thread at each of the gathers. When I looked more closely, the fabric near the gathers was stretched and in one spot, had a hole in it! A light experimental tug was all it took for the fabric to give. Definitely not high quality, definitely not a keeper.
The white button down was nicer in that it wasn’t ready to tear, but the construction was just a little too boxy. I often have this problem with shirts where there’s too much material under the arms and I look like I have a fabric-membrane set of flying squirrel wings. But on a shirt. Also, since it’s white, it’s quite a bit more see-through than I like. I’m undecided on this one because a seamstress could easily fix up the squirrel wings, but I’m not sure I like it quite enough.
All in all, I was a little disappointed in this ordering experience. After all, these shirts retailed for $34. Just because I got them at a discount shouldn’t, and wouldn’t, change their quality so that means they’re selling pretty shoddy, insome cases, overpriced clothing under guise of a schmancy name. If you could believe it, the receipt came sealed in a thick dark blue/metallic silver envelope made of nearly cardstock with a silver embossed logo. Their clothes were presented wrapped in a generous sheaf of tissue paper. If only the products matched the presentation and implied quality, I’d be much more impressed. Posh on the outside, poor on the inside. Hah, reminds me of Moneymonk’s empty castle, full cabin!
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