Very Funny

As regular readers know, I’m taking Innovation & Risk this term. The final project for that class is a group project where we needed to come up with a disruptive innovation idea and apply the various models we learned in class to realize the innovation. My group’s innovation is BIOSCREEN, a biofilm layer that literally eats infectious virii and bacteria on contact and can be easily applied to hard surfaces in any building with modern air circulation.

One of the fun parts of this presentation is coming up with a way to demo your innovation. I thought of the idea of using disappearing ink that we would label and describe as H1N1 virus that we’ve dyed blue and suspended in a liquid for safety that we could spray onto a surface that had been theoretically treated with BIOSCREEN. The disappearing ink would disappear, and we could say that the virii had been eaten, tada!

This, however, presented a challenge. Before you continue, ask yourself where you would buy disappearing ink. Toys R Us? Yeah, they don’t carry it. Spencer’s? No go…and by the way, they have basically become a soft-core sex shop, so be forewarned. Smaller toy shops? No luck at the ones in my immediate vicinity. One toy shop woman looked at me like I must be crazy to even ask for it and suggested I try OfficeMax (which resulted in serious Why The Face from me). Buying online means buying either in bulk or paying $8+ for express shipping of a $1 bottle of disappearing ink. Creating it yourself is do-able, but it requires chemicals that are even harder to find. Remember those magic shops that they used to have in malls? They’re all gone now, at least around here.

So, on Sunday night, I was frantically Googling to try to find disappearing ink in my area. “Magic shop” led to only a few hits, mostly in downtown Chicago, and I didn’t want to drive there on an evening just to buy disappearing ink. However, “Joke shop” turned up a local gem: JJ Blinkers (warning: site is noisy!), a joke and costume shop in Antioch, just a few miles from home. They were already closed when I was Googling, so I made a note to call them the next day. I also found a store in Waukesha, WI…which is out of the way for my dear husband from his work in Milwaukee, but he was willing to head out there for me if JJ Blinkers turned up dry.

I got out of our morning staff meeting at work at around 10:20am on Monday and proceeded to call JJ Blinkers to check on the ink status:

Female voice: JJ Blinkers! How can I help you?
Me: I need disappearing ink. Do you have any in stock?
Female voice: [chuckling] Sure! Liquid or powdered?
Me: Hmm…well, I–

And my cellphone got cut off. So, I called back.

Male voice: Hello?
Me: Hello? (wondering if I somehow redialed wrong, because that sounds like DH, but I checked my display and sure enough, I was connected to JJ’s)
Male voice: This is JC, right?
Me: (even more confused, but then I realize they probably have me on Caller ID) Oh yeah, I just thought I had called the wrong number for a sec. I need disappearing ink.
Male voice: Yep, in powder or liquid form?
Me: Liquid form, just a couple of small bottles.
Male voice: Great! I’ll bring it home with me tonight!
Me: ::boggles::

Speaking of why the face…I was totally confused. It had sounded like DH, but I’d clearly called JJ’s, and whoever I talked to both seemed to know who I was and why I was calling JJ’s but then told me they’d bring it home.

So, I called DH’s phone and got his voicemail. I left him a message describing my confusion and proceeded to be absolutely perplexed. I wondered if my phone had somehow connected me to Scott and not the joke shop without telling me…or if someone working at the joke shop actually knows me from somewhere. Or, if caller ID had gotten much more sophisticated and they knew my address? Or, if the owner had simply meant that he had it at home and would bring it to the store tonight such that I could pick up tomorrow.

Hours later, DH calls me back and lets me know that, completely appropriately, the joke shop helped him confuse me. It turns out that DH had tried to call me at 10am, but realized I was still in the staff meeting. So, he decided to just head over to JJ’s on his way up to Milwaukee to save me from having to call. He was there right when I was calling, overheard the saleswoman and realized it was me. So, when I called back, they conspired to have him pick up the phone and handle my call. It was awesome on two counts: the hilarity of my confusion and the fact that DH had been a sweetheart and had handled this for me.

Very funny, JJ Blinkers… And thank you, dear husband…you are awesome.

BGD & DC Trip Wrap-up

Wednesday:

On Wednesday, I arrived at DC’s Union Station with my luggage and headed out. I quickly found the Metro and checked the class map to see where the hotel was (where the class was leaving from). There was a red pushpin right near a Metro stop near K-street, so I took the Metro there. After getting out, I looked around but couldn’t spot our hotel. I kept staring at the map and still couldn’t find the hotel. It turns out that the map wasn’t centered on the hotel; it was centered on one of the myriad of places we’d be meeting people at during the week. So, I was in the wrong place. At this point, I’d be running late to get to the hotel, and I realized taking Metro there meant a 4-6 block walk with my suitcases, so I took a cab. I checked into my room and then called the instructor to see where to meet them. It turned out that I’d only missed like the first ten minutes of meeting with Congressman Kind, because he had been running late, too. I took a cab from the hotel to the Longworth building. For reference, here’s a quick map of the House and Senate buildings I’ll be referencing in this post. (Google Earth/Maps is also helpful here.) Longworth is one of the House buildings toward the bottom of the map. So, that all worked out okay, aside from me already being a sweaty mess. Meeting Congressman Kind was relatively uneventful. Most of his talk was about how he sees many common issues between the parties and believes in bipartisan efforts.

Our next stop was Union Station (hey! I was just there!) for lunch. I didn’t really get to hear the guy that met us there for lunch. I was sitting kind of far away, and there was alot of ambient noise. However, Ed Greelegs was sitting near me, and I got kind of a private audience with him, which was great! I really enjoyed talking to him. Then, we walked to the Dirksen Senate building to meet with Deb Whitman. Deb was really enjoyable. She went through the real version of how a bill becomes a law. She gave an example of a bill that she’s been working on for two years for her congressman, a relatively unobtrusive one that would prevent people convicted of violent or abusive crimes from working in nursing homes. Even though there’s no opposition to it, it’s still taken years for it to even get into committee. (It actually moved out of committee and made it onto the floor list while we were in DC. She texted us to let us know that we were her lucky charms!)

Then, we walked to the Hart building. I can’t remember if we met with someone or if we just went over there to see something. What I do know is that we found out that the Senate hearings regarding Health Care were being held over there, and we eventually tracked down the room. We didn’t have enough time to really sit in, but we got a quick glance inside the room:

There was also a Calder sculpture in the lobby. I took a picture, just because it’s a tie back to Chicago (where Calder has a famous Flamingo sculpture).

Our next stop was a lobbying office on Constitution. I found the location using my G1 and had GMaps give me walking directions, but the class ended up taking a different and longer route such that we walked a mile for what should have been a half mile walk. The view from the office of the Capitol was spectacular; I took 2-3 photos. At the office, we heard from a person, not affiliated with the office–he just met us there, who (by his own description) makes conspiracy theorists stay awake at night. He manages public opinion, which is to say, he does things like push polls, hiring protesters, hiring people to ask questions at town halls, and drafting opinion letters that aren’t real. Ironically, I can’t recall his name. Then, two of the lobbyists spoke to us about their job.

One of the things that most people in our class found shocking (but I already knew) is that lobbyists serve a valuable purpose in the system. They provide information to the Congress (via staffers, usually) that the people might not otherwise know. Congresspeople aren’t experts on every topic, and lobbyists primarily give briefings. In the 80’s and 90’s, they’d gain Congress’ ear by taking staffers out to dinner or having fancy parties. But now, staffers aren’t allowed to accept things from lobbyists, which really sucks for the (incredibly underpaid) staffers…and has basically made it such that you have to be independently funded (i.e., your parents are rich) to be a Congressional staffer…and being a staffer is the #1 way to get into more influential positions later. So, by cutting off lobbyists from staffers without compensating staffers, we’ve created a system that kind of sucks and will eventually really screw with the quality of our government. At any rate, yeah, the lobbyists are trying to sell the staffers on something, but every single person we talked to, lobbyists included, noted that staffers, even back in the “good old days”, couldn’t be bought. A staffer can’t force a Congressperson to vote a certain way, and it was rare to come across a Congressperson who could be bought. That is, the scandals were scandals because of their rarity, and they got overexaggerated. What lobbyists do for staffers generally is to help them get briefed on side effects of legislation that they might not understand, to keep the Congressperson from voting for a bill that might not do what (s)he thinks it will do. And, staffers are generally smart enough to take what lobbyists say with a grain of salt. Many DC-ers commented on Obama’s anti-lobbyist policy and said it’s a huge mistake. They said it will end up with him getting less-qualified staff because he’s enacting a rule that eliminates anyone with any real history in DC…as you pretty much go into being a lobbyist when you aren’t working on someone’s campaign, if you’re good at understanding and working the system, have contacts, etc. So, I mention all of that because it seems like it’s still not really understood or well-known.

The class split up to head back to the hotel. Some people wanted to take a cab, and others wanted to enjoy the (now cooler) weather by walking to union station. I ended up leading the walking group back to the station and eventually to the hotel. Along the way to Union Station, we came across a memorial to the Japanese Americans that were held in internment camps during WWII. I formed a quick friendship with the girls I walked with. Their names were Karen and Linda. One was a fan of Amazing Race and the other was a West Wing fan, so we had things to talk about.

We ended up back at the hotel. A bunch of people were going with the instructor to dinner and a night walk around the monuments, but I was tired of walking and tired in general, so I didn’t want to go. Neither did Karen or Linda, so we met separately and had dinner near the hotel. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a Walgreen’s. I wanted to buy a cheapie cup to use for soda at the hotel, and one of them needed a toiletry item. I ended up getting a DC souvenir glass. While looking at souvenirs and postcards (including the one that those of y’all on my postcard list got), I saw lots of camo-print items with a panda on them. I was like, “why are there pandas on DC things?” I had no idea that DC had a National Zoo that had pandas. Apparently, they’re a source of controversy because it costs alot to maintain them. After buying my cup, I went back to the hotel and crashed.

I should note, I had a roommate, who was also nice generally. But, she went to bed late most nights, and I went to bed early. She got up early in the mornings, because she took *hours* to get ready, literally. I woke up at the last minute I could. I don’t know how she exists on so little sleep. Also, she wore 2 inch heels every day. Granted, she took cabs many times that I walked or Metro’d, but still! I’d die if I were her.

The next morning, I met Karen and Linda in the lobby, and we Metro’d to our first stop of the day. We stopped in Union Station for breakfast along the way. Then, we headed to the Dirksen building for the Durbin/Burris town hall meeting. (IL senators have a longstanding tradition of holding a weekly town hall versus holding individual meetings with visiting constituents.) The meeting started with introductions from every group represented at the town hall. Then, they opened it up for questions, and anyone could ask any question. That didn’t mean you got an answer…but you got to ask. The highlights were:

• Burris accidentally introduced Durbin as “the senior citizen” instead of “the senior senator.”
• Burris meant to reference that there’s no intention of death panels for senior citizens, but instead said that there’s no intention of giving the death penalty to senior citizens.

So yeah, generally, Burris was a dolt, and Durbin was impressive. Then, we headed over to the house buildings for meetings there. Congressman Ryan struck me as a balanced and reasonable person, with good and innovative ideas. He also had what I jokingly call iPod nipples when DH has them…that is, he had an iPod Nano with lanyard tucked under his shirt, so that the headphones look like nipples.

You can see the list of people we met with in the post before this one, so I won’t itemize. Suffice it to say, we ran all over the place. I tracked it on Gmap pedometer, and I did around 8 miles of walking that day. I went on the Capitol tour, which sucked. I don’t recommend it. I mean, it’s free, which is nice…but you don’t get to see anything anymore. They’ve shortened it considerably since 9/11. The tour is less than ten minutes long. I really enjoyed meeting with the EPA. The two people who met with us were young and really enthused about what they do.

That night, the class went to a restaurant near the hotel. They had a martini drink that I loved. I had several. We all laughed and told stories, and it was a blast. Some folks stayed out late, but I crashed, as usual.

The next morning, I was awake before my roommate. My plan was to check into my hotel for that night before leaving with the group to go to our first stop of the day. So, I went there first thing. I took a cab, even though it was only a few blocks away. The hotel location was awesome, right around the corner from a Metro stop. Also, I was able to get into my room at 8am, which is amazing. Then, I had another busy day of meetings. The two most interesting were Paula Pfingsten, a member of the press corps, and Grover Norquist, a Conservative leader and author. Norquist was an eloquent speaker, but he started off his bit by saying that the Republican party is the party of freedom and the Democrat party is the party of loss of freedom. He said many other things that bothered me, but that’s just a joke. Neither party is high on my list of defenders of freedom these days, but Republicans are far lower on the totem pole than Dems. So, I began making notes of all the freedoms I could think of that Republicans have either denounced or removed in the past decade or so that Dems have generally supported…you know, like the right to marry, the right to an abortion, freedom of speech to criticize one’s government, free borders (which goes hand in hand with free trade), the right to not have a cellphone company hand over your phone records to the government without a warrant…stuff like that. When Norquist asked for a question, I brought up all of this and asked if he still considers Republicans the party of freedom. His answer, in short, was that government security is important, the only vital mission of a government, and basically implied that rights should be sacrificed for security and/or those rights aren’t important enough. He did not give me a chance for a follow-up.

We ended up having a long lunch break that allowed for sightseeing, due to some cancellations and whatnot. I spent my lunch at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. I’d been to it before, but they had a Darwin exhibit that had inspired a smattering of picketers, and that made up my mind for me. I learned that Darwin was an avid beetle collector. I also went through an indoor butterfly garden with hundreds of butterflies flitting about. I saw tents being set up for the National Book Fair and resolved to look up more info about it, to decide whether to make it part of my agenda.

After our speakers finished up and the class finished a wrap-up talk, I had just barely enough time to Metro back to the hotel, change, and then Metro over to Chinatown to join up with my scheduled Segway tour. Though my feet were aching, I signed up for a Segway tour, which means standing in one place for 2-3 hours….’cause I’m brilliant. Anyways, I had tons of fun on the tour. I was one of the few that never took a tumble. Most people fell getting on or off, or they brushed a wheel against something and lost control…or one person didn’t realize she was about to drop off of a curb at the last second and jumped off. During the Segway tour, we saw the president’s helicopter land at the West Wing, which was pretty darn cool. I briefly saw an Obama head. The Segway tour was actually a great way to get the lay of the land before my day of touristing on Saturday. The tour guide recommended a few things that I hadn’t thought of doing but ended up doing, like lunch at the Native American Museum (the newest Smithsonian), the Japanese art exhibit, and seeing the pop culture exhibits at the American History Museum.

I had dinner in Chinatown and then Metro’d back to my hotel to crash. I spent some time on the internet, during which I found that the one author at the book fair that I’d want to see (Gwen Ifill) would be speaking too late for me to do. It was also supposed to be rainy, so I opted for touring the Smithsonian campus rather than doing the National Zoo. I decided to wake naturally instead of an alarm, which worked out fine because I didn’t sleep in much. I got everything packed up and checked my bags with the porter before heading out for the day.

My Saturday was as follows:

• First stop: Freer Gallery – Japanese art exhibit
• Next stop: American History Museum – saw the pop culture exhibits and the musical instruments area
• Next stop: Swung through the book fair – saw one author speaking, didn’t recognize her, got a tote bag and a picture with Bullseye at the Target tent
• Then, I walked along the mall to the Hirschhorn Museum (contemporary art) and sculpture garden – was interesting, but I wasn’t in a mood to contemplate art
• Walked up to the American Indian museum to have lunch – had to wait in line for a half hour to get lunch, mainly because people DO NOT UNDERSTAND BUFFET SERVICE. You do not have to wait in line at a buffet-style service unless the space demands it. In most large buffet setups, you just dart from station to station, like a bee in a garden. I’m so tired of people not getting this. THIS IS WHAT MAKES BUFFETS EFFICIENT, PEOPLE!!! So, anyways, the Mitsitam cafe at the American Indian museum has stations that serve food from each region represented in the museum. You can get South American food, Alaskan food, or lots of others. I got Midwest food. (Hey, I had to eat from my own region!) I had a pulled buffalo sandwich that was dee-lish. It came with Chayote squash slaw, also good. And, I got Fry Bread with Cinnamon and Honey for dessert…yummy! I also got Prickly Pear Agua Fresca to drink, which tasted kind of like watermelon juice. Then, I went upstairs in the museum and wandered around. One of the cool things about this museum is that it’s got all these story stations, which are basically cozy areas around a speaker or TV that has a recording of someone telling a story about American Indian life. I heard stories about how the stars came to be. It was a very cool museum.
• My final stop was the Portrait Gallery. I decided to see if Colbert was still there somewhere. If he was, I couldn’t find him.

After that, I took the Metro out to Reagan International to pick up my rental car. People, do not rent from Enterprise near DCA. First, they’re off-site. Now, I knew that going in…but they have a shelter area that is marked for the Enterprise shuttle that is NOT where the rest of the rental car shuttles go. So, I had to hunt for this special shelter which took awhile. Then, the shuttle driver didn’t even stop at the shelter…he just did a slow roll to see if anyone waved at him. I didn’t, because I was in the shelter with like eight other people, so I figured him stopping was a given. It clearly wasn’t until I flagged him down. When I got to the site, the service was SO slow, and they were overly enthused about the upsell, even after I kept saying I was in a hurry and really didn’t want to upgrade. The girl wanted to give me a ten minute lecture about getting their insurance because it was sprinkling rain. She tried to sound ominous, and I just laughed. I have insurance. I don’t need theirs. Rental car insurance is a rip-off, in part because the only people who get it are the people who need it, if you know what I mean. So, finally, I was on the road back to my hotel to pick up my luggage. Fortunately, my generous tip to the bellhop when I dropped off my luggage paid off (the bags were very heavy), as he was super-speedy in getting it to me, so I tipped generously again ($5 for 2 bags). I ended up with plenty of time to make it to my friend’s concert out in MD that night. I even got to stop for ChickFilA on the way there. Woot!

So then I spent that night and part of the next day with our friends in MD. We played Pillars, and we caught up on things. I had an uneventful drive to the airport and then…more reason to not rent from Enterprise at DCA. They weren’t clearing the returns fast enough, so there was a line backed up out onto the street to get in. I waited 15 minutes just to be able to pull the car into the garage. Then I was standing by it for another 10 minutes waiting on an attendant. Finally, I gave up. I left the keys in the ignition, locked the doors, left the “turn in” copy of my receipt in the car (keeping my copy), photographed every side of the car and the keys in the ignition and then headed out to the airport shuttle just before it left. Then, I called the office and told them where the car was and why I’d left it there. They were friendly about it and admitted to being crowded, but still…it was just lousy service all the way around.

The flight home was uneventful. Oh, yeah, people were stupid at the Midwest Airlines check-in counter. Midwest and Airtran’s counters were right next to each other. Airtran’s “first class only” line was right next to the normal line for Midwest. And then on the far right, Midwest had their “online check-in baggage check” line. So, the normal line was empty, and the online check-in line had 30 people in it. What’s more, there were 3 “check-in luggage” machines, but only one was getting used, though all three were functional. I had checked in online, but this seemed ridiculous. I examined the signs three times, looked at the people in the line and then went through the normal check-in line. While in it, I looked at one of the people in the online line and asked why they were all standing in that line. The man was like, “That line is for first class.” I said, “No, it’s not. The line over there (pointing) is for Airtran’s first class. This is just the normal line…”, I paused and caught the eye of a desk attendant as I walked up to the counter, “…right?” She nodded. I shrugged and checked my bags in at one of the two free machines. I got many dirty looks from the line of people. But, as I see it, politeness only dictates that I inform them of their error, not that I let them go ahead of me once I confirm the error. (And honestly, it’s Midwest’s job to manage their line. One of those attendants should have fixed this problem.)

So, that was my DC trip. Pictures are posted in the gallery, as per the usual way of things.

Business, Government, & Democracy

A more vigorous description will come when I have time, but here is the schedule that I followed while in DC for LFGSM 5895:

Wednesday, September 23rd
11:30 – 12:00 – Congressman Kind – 1406 Longworth HOB
12:30 – 1:30 – Neil Hare, President, Global Vision – America Restaurant in Union Station on the 2nd Floor – 50 Massachusetts Ave NE (lunch included)
2:00 – 3:30 – Debra Whitman/Ed Greelegs/ Chris Brown – Staff Director Senate Committee on Aging – Room SDG – 31
4:30 – 5:00 – Steve Palmer at Van Scoyoc and Associates—see www.vsadc.com. 101 Constitution Avenue NW
5:00 – 5:30 – Bill Knapp – 101 Constitution Avenue NW

Thursday, September 24th
8:15 – 9:30 – Town Hall meeting with Senators Durbin and Burris. Russell Office Building Room 385
Walk to
10:00 – 10:30 – Congressman Paul Ryan – 1113 Longworth
10:30 – 11:00 – Congressman Manzullo – 2228 Rayburn House Office Building
11:30 – 12:00 – Congressman Danny Davis – 2159 Rayburn House Office Building
12:30 – 1:30 – Capitol Tour
OR
1:00 – 1:30 – Lieutenant Colonel Luke Knittig – ActionAid Office – 1420 K Street, 9th Floor – Suite 900
1:30 – 2:00 – Tim Kay – ActionAid Office – 1420 K Street, 9th Floor – Suite 900
2:00 – 2:30 – Dan Mendleson – Avalere Health – ActionAid Office – 1420 K Street, 9th Floor – Suite 900
3:00 – 3:45 – Andrea Wilkinson – Director of Federal Government Affairs-Takeda DC –
725 Ninth Street NW Suite 725 (5th floor)
4:00 – 4:30 – Karen Ignagni – President and CEO America’s Health Insurance Plans –
601 Pennsylvania Ave, NW Suite 500 South Building
5:00 – 5:30 – Billy Tauzin, President and CEO of PhRMA – 950 F Street, NW Suite 300
OR
5:00 – 5:30 – Environmental Protection Agency – Mollie Lemon, Stratospheric Protection Division – 1301 Constitution Ave. NW EPA West Building

Friday, September 25th

9:30 – 10:00 – Kristen Hedrow – MPH, Assistant Director of Regulatory Affairs and Quality
Improvement Programs of the American College of Surgeons – ActionAid Office
10:30 – 11:00 – Paula Cruickshank – Washington News Bureau Chief – ActionAid Office
2 – 3pm – Peter O’Driscoll – Executive Director, ActionAid – ActionAid Office
3 – 3:30 – Grover Norquist and Hal Morse – ActionAid Office
3:30pm-5pm – Wrap-up/Conclusions

Schooling

(Don’t faint; I’m posting again. I’ve been struck with a desire to write stuff, and I have time and ability to indulge it.)

This year, I’m taking 2 classes each term (we have 4 terms in a normal year, plus a 5th accelerated term that is optional in the summer), as follows:

• Term 1: Economics for Managers, Business Government & Democracy (1st half of term), Survey Methods (2nd half of term)
• Term 2: Financial Management, Innovation & Risk
• Term 3: Marketing, Project Management (online)
• Term 4: Global Business & Cultural Diversity, Negotiations & Conflict Management

I’m enjoying the curriculum for Economics, but I’m not enjoying the class itself. The instructor is a nice guy and very reasonable and friendly, but he doesn’t seem to prepare much for our class (he’s mentioned a few times that he teaches at several colleges in the area and gets confused as to which class he’s in at any given moment). So, he’ll get a problem wrong on the board sometimes and have to correct himself, or he’ll explain a concept using terms that aren’t used in our book, confusing the vast majority of the class that don’t know that he’s just using alternate terminology for the same concepts. I’m lucky in that I listen to Planet Money, an NPR show that is available freely via podcast feed (easy to find on iTunes, Zune, or your aggregator of choice). Planet Money keeps me knowledgeable and current, and they do a GREAT job of breaking down economic concepts in simple terms. I highly recommend it.

My other issue with the Economics class is that LFGSM decided to merge what used to be 2 classes into 1 class during the summer break. So, this used to be a 5-week class in MicroEcon and a 5-week class in MacroEcon. They decided after last year that it made more sense to teach them cohesively as one class. Problem is, they didn’t spend enough time revising the syllabus, so it’s VERY apparent that they just merged the two syllabuses’ grading. The result was that, in the version published to us, over 60% of the grade is group work. That’s against LFGSM policy, and, more importantly, it’s against *my* policy. It pisses me off that my work on a group project has, on more than one occasion, pulled up another student by a full letter grade. LFGSM offers no recourse for a group member that is slacking. On one hand, I appreciate that group projects approximate real-life project teams. However, in real life project teams, if you slack off, there are consequences from your management. In this approximation, the “management” is LFGSM, and they do *nothing* to penalize slackers. It has been a frequent complaint by many people at the Class Rep meetings. Suggestions to fix it have included implementing a 360 feedback program (with built-in process for handling both the highest and lowest rated students), providing the instructor the flexibility to adjust a person’s group grade if it’s clear that the person did not contribute adequately, and advising instructors to consider participation in the group project as part of the participation component of the overall class grade. (Currently, participation almost assuredly equals attendance, despite every instructor claiming it doesn’t.) Anyways, I complained to the appropriate channels about the grading scheme being against policy, and they’re working on fixing it…but the other big problem is that this class has two fairly large group projects (a result of the combination of the two classes), whereas most classes tend to have one individual project and one group project. Which means, in a term where I was already going to be overloaded, I’m more overloaded than will be normal going forward. Meh.

As for the Business, Government, & Democracy class, it’s a mixed bag. The class is a half credit, but it costs nearly as much as a full credit. There was one lecture session early in the term, and there’s a class trip to DC coming up next week. During the trip, we’ll be meeting with staffers and congresspeople and lobbyists…and talking to them about how business and government interact. So, that seems like loads of fun. But, here’s the downside: I really don’t get what I’m paying for. So far, it feels like this class could have been independent study with an equal level of success. The students are tasked with setting up all the meetings for the trip. The one lecture class was almost entirely spent discussing logistics of the trip. So, we’re getting almost no benefit from the instructor. It feels like it could have been run for a much lower budget by letting students schedule their own travel arrangements and DC meetings, at their leisure in the “acceptable” time period. The two papers that are assigned in the class could have been graded by peer review with a dean or assistant dean’s oversight. What’s more, the papers are basically just something for them to grade us on, as the real class content is this trip that’s coming up. It may be that the instructor starts shining during this trip…I hope so, because otherwise, I’ll be unimpressed with what is a really cool and innovative class concept. But, the fun part is that I got to write a briefing paper on an issue of importance to me. I chose the legalization of online poker, and as for my meeting, I’m setting it up with the Poker Players’ Alliance, an action group formed to combat the UIGEA (the midnight rider legislation that effectively prevents Americans from playing online poker for money, though it doesn’t ban it outright). Also, I arranged my flight to spend a little more time in the DC area for touristing and for visiting with friends in that area. Yay!

Bloody hell!

For once, I am SO happy that I procrastinate.

I have a final tomorrow (in session 9/10 of Strategic Thinking). I made flash cards (at incredibly helpful site CoboCards) for all of the key areas that I needed to be able to rattle off. For example, how should you advance your position as a runner-up in your industry? (Buy up smaller competitors, move into new regions or segments, be first-to-market with a new innovation, find new/unique ways to cut costs) Or, what are the methods advised by Farkas to compete? (do new things in the same ways, do the same things in new ways, or revolutionize your industry) I did a single passthrough of the flash cards but planned to really buckle down today. I mean, the test is going to be applying all of these methods, but I felt I needed to be able to rattle them off in order to make sure my answers were complete.

This morning, I check my e-mail, and the instructor has sent out a cheat sheet that we’ll be allowed to use during the final…a cheat sheet that covers 90% of what’s in my flash cards. If I had studied this stuff yesterday instead of planning to study it today, I’d be SO pissed.

As is, I’m now taking today as a fun day. B* is coming over. We’re going to play games. So there!

Self-Aggrandization as an Art Form

I have a bronchial infection. I’m on amoxicillin, loratadine (Claritin) with pseudoephedrine (the stuff you have to show ID to get over the counter), and naproxen (Aleve). Yet, I am the pure awesome. Wanna know why?

I had class tonight, session 8 of 10 for Strategic Thinking. Every week, we have to do a paper (~4 pages) discussing a strategy recommendation for various companies that we’re introduced to via case studies. For tonight’s class, our assignment was on Enclean circa 1992. They were a horribly dysfunctional company with a huge debt problem and no clear way to turn things around. Our task was to tell the Board of Directors, in speech form, how to turn things around. We were to write the paper as if we were the CEO giving a speech to the board, and we were to prepare to give the speech to the class, though only a few students would actually end up presenting.

I did the paper during the weekend. I got done earlier than planned, and for that and a few other things, I rewarded myself by going to see UP! in 3D. (It was a really good movie, btw. I laughed, I cried…and now I want a grape soda pin!) I felt pretty good about it. I’d done a solid financial analysis, and I had a good plan for the company, though if I’d had my choice, I’d be telling them to harvest and get out.

Then, I got to class tonight. About ten minutes before class, I remember that I might get chosen to present. I had no notes, nothing to talk off of, and I didn’t like the idea of just reading from my paper. For one thing, the instructor wants papers done in 10 point font, single spaced, which means they’re not easy to read or scan for points. This one in particular, because I’d written it in speech form, wasn’t subdivided into topics that would make it easily scannable. So, I quickly, in less than five minutes, did up a powerpoint of my main topics. I pasted in the financial analysis charts I’d done, and the org chart that I’d need to reference as part of my turnaround plan. I know I did it that fast, because I had precisely that much time to do it before class started. It wasn’t fancy. I just used an Office 2007 style that was clean and neat but better than basic.

An hour and a half into class, the instructor asks for volunteers to present. I wanted to volunteer…after all, I’d gone to the trouble to do a PPT! But, I desperately needed to pee. We hadn’t had a break yet, and to keep from coughing, I was drinking constantly…plus the loratadine is a diuretic. So, I hesitated, trying to decided if I could hold it while presenting, particularly if I started having a coughing fit midway through. While I hesitated, another person from class tentatively raised their hand. The instructor welcomed him and explained that he (the instructor) would take notes on the issues, history, and plan on the board, and then invite another 1-2 people to present, continue to take notes on unique points…and then the whole class would discuss if there was anything that hadn’t already been covered.

So, the first person started. And, bless him, the guy had a ton of detail. I’m about to criticise him, but he volunteered, and he had good data and good points, though he got a bit lost in the trees and wasn’t summing up the forest. The instructor diligently wrote some twenty odd points on the board, and you could see that the instructor was thinking the guy had done too much detail, but he didn’t want to embarrass the guy by telling him to sum it up. (He tried to give him this feedback later on, and the guy kind of picked up on it and fixed it.) But, the guy presenting was speaking in a monotone, and he’s got an accent that makes his words blur together. Plus, he clearly hadn’t written his paper in the form of a speech to the board. His paper started with, “The first question is what are the key issues facing the company. The first issue is…”

When it became clear that, five minutes in, the guy still hadn’t tapped into the second or third parts of the assignment, I took my quick pee break. I came back refreshed and ready to present. The class was dying. It was just too much dry content.

So, eventually the guy finished…and like I said, no matter how harsh I’m being, I give him huge credit, because it’s damn hard to get up there first, and I mean, when English is your second or third language, to be able to present in an understandable way at all is fucking huge…to be able to analyse and present a case in it? Hell, I couldn’t do that in French, much less Japanese. And the guy is clearly smart. He’s a data person, though, and like many data people, he goes into details instead of summing it up. (I deal with engineers all the time; I know how this goes.) And once the instructor kind of clued him in that he was going into too much detail, he summed things up and finished up pretty fast…so it’s not like he was just clueless.

When the instructor asked for volunteers, I shot my hand up so fast. I mean, it kind of sucks, because in retrospect, it probably looked like I was letting some sucker go first so I could outstage them (spoiler alert! ), but really, honest to god, I just needed to pee, else I would have been just as eager at the get-go.

I tell the instructor I have a powerpoint that I can show if he likes or I’ll just use it as my notes. He says to go for it, so I set up. And I start off by telling the board that we’re in sad shape. I address the class colloquially, I run through my points. I’m succinct, I’m interesting…I make eye contact, I show pretty figures…I’m fucking awesome. I mean, I’m well-known in my class for being a good presenter, a good speaker. But beyond that, I gave good data. And I did it with no real prep short of writing the paper and throwing together a PPT in five minutes. Lo and behold, I even make several points that hadn’t been made yet, so go me. I finish to a round of rousing applause from the class. The instructor decides that’s the last speech, and we have some class discussion about other options, and lots of people bring up good options that haven’t been mentioned yet.

Then, at long last, we get our first and only ten minute break during the class. I’ve already peed, so I just get up and stretch my legs…and I go to the admin desk to pick up next year’s class calendar, so I can plan trips and such around it. On my way to the admin desk, two different people stop me and tell me my speech was brilliant. One person says I should be [my company]’s CEO. (Damn straight. I could turn the company around if they’d let me. Our current CEO is…lacking, and I’ve met the guy. I’ve presented for him. I’ve heard him on calls. He’s just not…he’s not looking ahead, and he’s not taking proactive steps. I’m convinced he’s harvesting the company…but anyways…) After I get the calendar I needed, I walk over to the snack area to get more ice. Three more raving compliments…one of which talking about my preparation by having a PPT (hee!)…and then I go back in the classroom to more compliments.

My head is the size of Canada right about now. It’s visible from space. How are you people still alive? How have you not been crushed by the massiveness of my ego?

PS – We also have been running a simulation game for this class. I had the highest score in the class, and, in further insult to prepared people everywhere, I did it in one run of the sim. My simulated company made a little over a billion dollars in four years, finishing up with around 66% market share. Our instructor, running the same sim, made around 815 mil.

Help me with my MBA

I’m sure this will be far from the last time that I use this blog to help with my MBA projects. For this term, our group project is to present a strategy to help improve business at Regal Cinemas. (Topic chosen by yours truly)

Toward that goal, I thought it’d be good to collect some consumer data. So, I’d really appreciate it if you would not only take the survey linked below but encourage anyone you know to take the survey as well. It’ll be open for the next 2 weeks for responses.

Click here to take the survey (hosted at SurveyMonkey.com)

Also, if you notice any problems with the survey or think of anything I should ask that I’m not asking, let me know.

PS – OMG, watching this survey as people take it is so much fun to me. I had fun putting it together, and I’m loving the data mining. It’s not coming out how I expected in a few categories, but it’s really fun seeing how it does come out. I’ve already written two “advanced” data parsers that are cutting the data in different ways. I’ll make sure to share any interesting insights on here when it’s done.

Potential Silence

I just wanted to generally give a heads’ up that we may go into a period of silence (or very rare posting) on the blog over the next few months. Twitter will probably get updated more often, just because I can update it from more places…and the micro-blogging lends itself to quick moments of news. Also, for anyone who also follows me under my RL name on Facebook, I am barely on there anymore. You’re better off here. There’s too many people on Facebook that I can’t share things with…namely folks from work.

Anyways, I’m working on a work project with huge visibility (I presented directly to our CEO today), and it is a ton of work. I’m also back to doing more sporadic daytrip-style travel. The project I’m on is cool, and I enjoy working on it, but it keeps me busy. I’m working beyond 50 hour weeks these days.

On top of that, the class that I’m in for school this term is very demanding. We have a large amount of reading every week, plus a paper and presentation due every week. Point being, I’m going to be swamped for the next 10 weeks (school term) at least. It’s very likely that I’ll be swamped until fall with work, too. So, if you are not seeing frequent updates here, I’m just bogged down. Check Twitter for the latest in mini-posting, and I’ll post longer things here as I’m able.

In other news, I got an A in my last class. The perfect 4.0 GPA continues! And, our sign arrived for the Pooh room…click for the picture!

Not quite a dropout, just a drop

My new manager has earned my undying support. She went to HR, Finance, and a number of other teams on my behalf trying to get this school thing resolved. She even found a loophole in the wording of the agreement that she was going to help me slide under if the funding wasn’t found. On Tuesday, she told me that they would most likely be able to cover one class for the term but not two. Today, she confirmed that to be definite.

Now, of the two, I think the Negotiation class would be more useful. But, the Negotiation class is offered several times a year. The Effective Leadership class seems like it will be kind of fun, and it is only offered in the third term, because it’s a core class and that’s when you should be taking it. So, I’m sticking with Leadership for now.

Two of my friends from class were thrilled for me. I do have some really good friends in the class, which makes me happy. One benefit of being Class Rep (kind of like the benefit of being Registrar at a Mensa event) is that everyone knows you.

I’m a Dropout

At work, I got re-org’d into a new department. The new department is actually something of a good move for me, and, from what I’m told, I got selected to be in it….not something where they were like “Oh we can either lay her off or move her, let’s move her here for now.” Knowing what the new group is, it definitely fits my experience and interests, so I can’t say that I’m unhappy about the change. I have a big potential for success in my new group that I didn’t have in my old group. Except…

Budgeting at our company happens in early January. At the time of budgeting, my new department didn’t know they were getting me. So, they did not account for my school expenses in their budget. They are currently over budget by a large figure even without my schooling, and thus, they have no funds to reimburse me for school.

My old department budgeted for the class I just finished, and they *may* have budgeted for the rest of this school year. That part, I don’t know for sure. They’re looking into it. If that is the case, my new department can “borrow” the budget from my old department. If they did not budget for it, or if they are also over budget, I’m SOL for school money.

I’d like to be able to stay in school, and some would look at my finances and say that I can afford it. But, the program I’m in is very much geared toward employer reimbursement. I also think that they’re priced on the assumption that you’re being reimbursed. (I liken it to casino and convention hotel restaurants: they’re priced on the assumption that you’re not actually paying for the meal…that a company or comp is covering you.) There are cheaper programs I could go to, without losing very much in terms of value. The reason I chose this one was, in part, that they *are* set up for reimbursement and thus the overall effect was making my life easier with work. I’m past the deadline for Term 3 scholarships, and I make too much to qualify for financial aid (and even if I did qualify, I’d have guilt in taking it away from someone else).

So, with a 4.0 GPA, I’m about to become a grad school dropout.

What pisses me off about this is not that my company doesn’t have budget. I’d be a real heel if I whined about them not covering my schooling when they’ve laid off thousands of people in the past six months. I expected that, at some point soon, they’d tell me that the company couldn’t do school reimbursements anymore. (Like, I could see them saying that if you’re within a year of graduation, they’ll continue it but otherwise, they’re dropping their funding.) What pisses me off is *how* this is happening. This isn’t some company-wide policy change. This is piss-poor planning, and their piss-poor planning is fucking me over. THAT pisses me off.

BREAKING NEWS: Last night, I wrote an e-mail to the school registrar advising her of the situation and requesting a withdrawal from my Monday night class. LFGSM policy is that they pro-rate the tuition for the first 5 sessions of classes. So, if I went to tonight’s class, I’d owe them $200 in tuition. While I was composing this blog entry, an e-mail came in from the registrar. Having read my e-mail, the registrar has written me back and said that she’ll waive that first $200…basically she told me that, if I want, she’d rather keep me in the program until I know for sure. Only problem is that I have no textbooks, no pre-work completed…argh. So I’m now trying to decide what to do on that front. I think I’d be a fool not to take her up on the offer. It can’t hurt. I’ll just have to scramble this afternoon and evening to be ready.