Tag Archives: work

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Present, If Not Accounted For

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Lemme just break down the high-level stuff for you this morning:

– Memorial Day: good. Drive was OK. Tough getting out of town on I-43, but it loosened up sooner than I thought it would. I got about 42 miles/gallon on the trip. Helped Dad with splitting/stacking wood on Saturday, then on Sunday, the splitter puked. Dad’s afraid he needs a new engine or something. That could suck. Sunday, I met Petters out at the T-Bird. It was my first time there since Knitt was drinking, but pretty much all the same people were there. I think I even saw one of Knitt’s uncles or cousins or whomever.

– Work: fine. It’s all the same crap that I was doing before, but with less hawking. I’m starting to get a sense of the office cliques and figuring out who-hates-who. I was recruited for one of the groups and shot down membership by effectively stating, “I don’t give a good goddamn about any of that shit. I work, I go home, I come back.”

– Apt search: sucks. I passed on a 2-bdrm on WI Ave after Michelle talked me back into my actual price range. I also have no chance of purchasing a home for the foreseeable future. Not that I was really desperately itching to do either, but that revelation also made me realize that I probably won’t be able to afford getting married or having a kid any time in my 30s.

– Brewers: on notice. Went to the game last night w/ Lorch for zero monies (he had vouchers for free tix from eating pizza). It was nice to see them finally get a win, but one cannot escape the fact that in any other division, this team would have squandered a substantial lead.

– Time: out for now.

General, Uncategorized

Short Entries

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I wanted to pop in and say a little something in here today, for the simple reason that I’ve been lax in doing so most of this week.

Moving to Milwaukee and starting a new job is going to be an adjustment. I really really can’t wait to find a place to live down here. The commute is longer than I’m used to, processes and stuff at work are (of course) different, and I feel a little out of my element in general. I want to sleep in my bed.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s going just fine, and everything will come together eventually, but this period of transition is going to weigh me down for a little bit. I felt like I wasn’t paying much attention to Michelle early in the week because I was having a hard time finding myself a place (not to mention a method) to relax.

Tomorrow is Friday, though, and that means I’ll only have five weeks left before I have to move. I should put my vacation requests in right now. Don’t let me forget to do that today. I’m going to the Brewers game with Nick Petters tomorrow. Hopefully being back at home will help get them on the right track again. I’m also planning on going out to a ‘happy hour’ thing with people from work, somewhere around Bayshore Mall.

Saturday, I’m going up to Oshkosh so I can pack, get a haircut, and be at my house. I forget if I told the mailman to hold my mail *through* Saturday, or *until* Saturday. I also wonder if the way I think of those things is the same way the US Postal Service thinks of them.

OK, and the stacks of paperwork around here only get bigger, so I should get to it.

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Schlemiel! Schlemazl! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!

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I’ve been keeping it on the DL, just so as to avoid a lot of questions, or to jinx it, but now things are set in stone.

I took a job in the financial aid office at UW-Milwaukee. This will be more or less a lateral move for me professionally, but with a slight increase in pay and it puts me down in the city where I spend a vast majority of my free time (for obvious reasons).

It’s nice to stay in the UW System, because my benefits and retirement will basically follow me. Also good timing because the lease at my apartment is up as of June 30, and that’s pretty much exactly 60 days from now anyway.

So, I’ve gotta get back to work and start thinking about all the crap I need to finish up around here in the next 10 working days. Gimme a call or an email if you want. I’m excited.

I leave you with an “oldie but goodie” photoshop:

General, Sports, Uncategorized

Quiet (Good) Friday

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I finally have a couple moments to breathe today.

It’s been a really hectic week of work, just due to the volume of processing that had to be accomplished. I feel bad that I haven’t really been inclined to blog even when I get home, in part cuz I’ve missed the news for most of the week…

What *can* I tell you?

I thought the end of the business with Iran and the British sailors was pretty interesting. I don’t think anyone can really fool themselves into believing that anything Iran does right now won’t have some effect on the international response to their nuclear program. Personally, I can’t imagine why any nation’s leader with half a brain would want to get into a pissing contest with G-Dub– just give us 21 more months, and it’ll all be over, everyone will be able to relax and stop sleeping with an ICBM under their pillow.

Well, except for Israel, of course.

In sports, the Brewers 2-1 start to the season is nothing to sneeze at. They can’t win every game all season, but hell– if they win twice as many as they lose all season, that will make them… (ponders the math)… 108-54. They’ll never win that many games. They could get sort of close to that and still be unbelievably awesome. I’ve been saying to people, “less than 90 wins will be disappointing.” I’m going to stick by that. It’s only 9 more victories .500 ball, and should be totally do-able for this group.

The only two things that have been troubling to me so far this year:
1. Carlos Villanueva’s shaky first appearance of the season (I think he’ll be OK in the long run)
2. Jose Capellan’s crybaby attitude

Note that both items relate to pitching, which is the most important thing to this club– they’re still very young, and are going to be prone to streakiness at the plate. They need consistency somewhere, and there are a lot of dollars invested in the pitching staff.

Last sports comment of the day: If you want to believe for a second that the Bucks are NOT trying their damnedest to tank the season while appearing to not tank the season, then please follow this link to some listings for a lovely condominium development I’ve recently invested in down in the Mississippi delta.

I went off a couple weeks ago about the integrity of my profession, to the confusion of some and the disinterest of others. If you are at all interested in what has become the hottest news item in financial aid departments across the country, check out this article from Inside Higher Ed on some new info that’s being turned up. I still think that the vast majority of my colleagues are ethical and honorable people. It’s this 1% or less that are (A) making the rest of us ill, and (B) going to cause some changes in the way we do business. Just a matter of time… Until then, my hope is that the students don’t suffer more confusion or stress than they already have.

I’ll be in Madison this evening (Friday) and then the Milwaukee area for the duration of the weekend. Plan accordingly.

Have a happy Easter!

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A Man Walked into a Bar Quick-Moving 4×4 Peppered With Giant Spikes

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This is probably my busiest “processing” week of the year at work. We got started on the upcoming aid year, and trying to juggle two at once always presents a lot of time-consuming issues. On top of that, I have to get a whole mess of nursing students set to go in the next couple weeks…

I understand that for most of you, what I do at work is not really interesting or relevant, but I thought I would just mention “what I’ve been up to.” Yesterday, as I communicated to a few different people, my brain was mushy enough at the end of the day that I just wanted to be beaten over the head repeatedly with a heavy, blunt object. Like a 2×4. Or something. Next week will probably be better. Opening day on Monday, anyway…

In other news:
Joe & April had a good time in Germany, judging from the reports I’ve received. April’s folks are coming into town this weekend, now that the Knitts actually have enough room to house guests at their domicile. I was surprised that I didn’t get any feedback about the wallpaper that was on the computer when they got home, but I decided that there is probably some revenge scheme afoot that I’ll be surprised by later.

Jim Droste asked me to read at his wedding in June. I graciously accepted ((I also just realized that saying I’ve known someone for 10 years really isn’t that mind-blowing anymore. This fall, I will have known people I’ve known only since college for 10 years. That really doesn’t mean much, I guess, other than 10 years used to seem like a significant segment of time.)). Unfortunately, Michelle won’t be able to join me, since that’s also WILS seminar weekend. I’ll be looking forward to it either way…

I caught myself up on some things about the house last night that have been nagging at me, so I’ll feel OK doing some “recreational tinkering” this evening. I think I might get a HDTV tuner card for the PC. I’m curious about the sort of reception I’d be able to pull through the air. I guess I should go the Internet to find the facts about how well that would work.

I’ve had to type the word “verification” in a number of emails this week. Makes it seem strange that I have consistently been misspelling it– most often, it’s “verfication” instead. Spell check is good. I think you should consider spell-checking all your email before you send it. Even the casual/personal messages. Just push F7. That’s it. Every time. Make it a habit. F7 to check, then F9 to send. Unless you do the mail through the interwebs, then I don’t know what the hell you got going on.

I’m really just rambling here, time to tune in for Brewers baseball ((Yesterday, I sent the guys an email with the subject line “Could someone please pot Kent up?” but if my experience in broadcasting is any indication, the message was met with a middle finger, and the delete button. Doesn’t hurt to ask, I guess)).

General, Uncategorized

Integrity

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    • CAUTION: professional soapboxing ahead…

When people ask me how well I like my job, I often respond that I like it well enough, and that I vastly favor it over anything I could do in the private sector. I’ve chosen to work in higher education because I believe that it is noble to pursue knowledge, which is what the students around here are alleged to be doing.

Regardless of how much I can/could/do complain about stupid questions, helicopter parents, or disagreements with co-workers, the fact remains that I view the core responsibility of my job to be:
help students find the best means they can pay for college, if they can’t afford it on their own.

The fact that the costs for education (even at a public institution like mine) are spiraling out of control without federal aid programs keeping pace is a separate issue from what I do. I am not the person with whom a student or parent should file grievances about the paltry amounts of federal and state grants, or the fact that an extremely profitable private loan industry has sprung up to fill the gap between what students can get by working with my office, and what the people upstairs have billed them. These issues should be raised with state representatives, governors, and Congressmen. As a professional, I am doing what I can on those fronts through continued membership/involvement in national and regional organizations whose purposes are to offer feedback and guidance to the Administration in power.

That being said, back in my cubicle, I put forth my best efforts to address the questions of students who visit me, and offer the best advice that I am privy to. When my school made the choice to align itself with a particular private lender, I and all of my colleagues were wary of the notion that we should point a student in a particular direction, rather than laying all the options out for them (this even after we conducted market research on what product would be the best option for the majority of our students). Our director reminded us that choice is something our students would never lose, and that we should responsibly remind them of the plethora of loan options available (I always have, and will continue to do so). This is just one example of how I think the ethics and moral standards of people who choose this profession are of the highest order, and the perception of my “core responsibility” is shared among my colleagues.

The value that I place on my ethical standards is why I and the vast majority of student aid administrators around the country are appalled at the notion that we would ever put the students interest second in our daily work.

One johnny-come-lately lender, who, make no mistake, is focused squarely on the millions of dollars it thinks that it should be making (rather than the umpteen hundreds of others), has managed to create a national issue out of student borrowing by positing baseless accusations and employing devious tactics to muscle its way in. This is the company questioning MY motives, and doubting MY integrity.

A long-standing lender (with whom I have not always had the best experience) surprised me by offering a well-thought-out response to a recent story from CBS News on this topic.

There has already been enough written or said about the specifics of this situation that I don’t see reason to hash through it again. But if you are in college, or have friends, siblings, or children who will one day (sooner or later) be in college, I would encourage you to watch the CBS report and also read the response. Most importantly, please have faith in the student aid professionals at your school, who are the only ones within this debate who have nothing measurable to gain by the accumulation of student loan debt.

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Something to Make You Feel Better, or Worse

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I was at my desk getting cross-eyed staring at a long list of ID numbers, and I realized that even if I wanted to, this is all I can do and still hope to be making a livable wage. This is certainly not the first time I’ve thought about this, of course.

In the moments that followed, I somehow stumbled across this:
Things Other People Accomplished When They Were Your Age.

So, depending on how you look at it, why not bookmark that page when you need a kick in the ass, or a kick in the balls?

Just for example, this site states that, at age 19:
Henry David Thoreau delivered a Harvard commencement address. Expanding on Emerson’s 1836 essay on “Nature”, he proposed that man should work one day a week and leave six free for the “sublime revelations of nature.”

… Hi, I’m Jason. I’m 28, and I push buttons on a computer.

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Calm Before Another Storm

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You thought I was talking about the radar, didn’t you?

Work has been very quiet this week. All the problems associated with the unstable first weeks of the semester are settling down. We’re passing the “point of no return” for dropping and adding and getting refunds. It’s been good for catching up on things.

Next week, though, the storm is going to hit when we shift the focus to next year and the freshies and their folks start calling. It’s the time of year when I feel the dumbest, because there are a lot of questions that you have to answer that only come up for about three weeks every spring. Most of our problems (and hence, my job) relate to making money show up in the kids’ accounts or sending it back. OK, that’s a major over-simplification, but it’s not like you care.

Point is, right now is when the relative-weirdos come and ask you their questions:
“Well, I live with my Mom on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and weekends from October to May, but from June to September I actually go to Tiajuana and get drunk with a talking chihuahua named Jose. None of this is that important, though, since Madonna adopted me with Brad Pitt back when I was 13. So whose information should I put on the FAFSA?”*

So, I thought I would take this opportunity to do a posting during the day for the last time for a while. What can I tell you that’s new?

Had the toilet overflow the other day. That sucked. Got up in the morning to take a shower and there was water EVERYWHERE. I got a little upset, and Michelle got upset because I was angry about the toilet, but we calmed each other down a little and took care of it.

I called my landlord the next day to tell him what happened and ask if he wanted to come over and look at it. It really seemed like he didn’t believe me when I said it overflowed during the night and we had no indication it was going to do that. I don’t know that much about plumbing, but to me it doesn’t seem like it should be *impossible.* He hasn’t been over yet, but it’s just some veneer that’s peeling away from the base of the vanity, and the flooring bubbled up a little near the toilet. So it’s not the end of the world or anything; I’ll put a note in with my rent next week if he forgets about it.

I really, truly do not care to hear another goddamn word about Anna Nicole Smith or Britney Spears, preferably ever. What’s happening in celebrities’ personal lives has never been on my radar, and when people get obsessed with a particular story, for me it becomes a game to learn as little about it as possible.

Just don’t be surprised if you bring it up to me and I bitch-slap you.

The Bucks narrow loss at the hands of the Pacers earlier this week really got me excited about baseball season. I called up Dave Schrubbe, and we agreed to go in together on a 9-pack of Brewers tickets. We chose the “Retro Fridays” package, viewable here:

One of the cool things about it is that we get an ’82 Brewers player bobblehead at all 9 games. Pretty sweet. We also get “free” tickets for Opening Day. So when you average it out, it was about 23 bucks a game for 10 games. I can live with that.

Also, like I mentioned to Dave– last time we bought a multi-game ticket package for a professional sports team in Milwaukee, they had a pretty good season.

Later this weekend, I am due to help out with the Knitts’ move across town. The weather may factor in to their plans, so we’ll see how it goes. Dammit, I gotta do some laundry tonight, too.

Enjoy yours…

* - the answer is David Hasselhoff

lists, Uncategorized

F Some of YI's

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This has been a relatively silent week, so this terse entry may not be very satisfying, but it is what it is.

1) The first week of the semester has been blissfully steady, not overwhelming. We’re going to start processing next year soon, so things will change.

2) I cleaned up my apartment. It’s awesomely good. This is officially the first time the whole place (from the garage to the first floor to the bedroom) is tidy and “put away.” I feel as though I can do other stuff.

3) Filed my taxes, and I’m getting a smaller percentage of my withholdings back than ever!! But it’ll still be nice to use the refund to pay some stuff back…

Perhaps more to come; I’ve also got a week and half of news to catch up on. How’ve you been?