Mon, 24 Jul 2006 08:13:39 EST -- My Intellectual Journey
Today i decided to do something i vowed never to do again, to rejoin academia...

By principle i am against this, at least in this fine country, because i know that inevitably it will lead to mistakes in paperwork, more money i don't have being spent and an overall feeling of lacking when i complete and realise that i feel exactly the same as when i started, maybe a little more tired and a little older. All in all mo' qualifications equal mo' problems. When you finally decide to apply for a job with higher qualifications, you will be told that you are overqualified or that due to an effort to maximise organisational output you are not acceptable for the position. What am i trying to say here? you cost them too much to employ you, when they can employ someone who is less qualified, and less experienced, purely on the basis that they cost much less per hour... so thats all fine, i understand this, and i know that i am setting myself up for a possible fall... but i am going to go for it. maybe not today, but in the next couple years.

This decision has taken alot of thought, mainly due to the fact that i have experienced some of the worst organizational messes that i have ever heard of, let alone seen with my own eyes before... I do realise that at some point we all need to forget our prejudices to certain situations and take that blind leap and hope for the best. And so i have decided to do just that.

Hopefully i will not end up one of those washed up, broke, overqualified people who end up living in dorms for professionals, and that my contribution to the scientific community will not go un-noticed and end up filed away in the dingy depths of the university library. Instead i hope that my contribution makes this world a better place to live in. And that my research can help to shape the business community into a more ethical, caring and community orientated entity. Big dreams, i know, but if you don;t have them, they can never come true.

So i will wait to hear back from my friends at Oxford University, and i will let you know of any progress that is made.
Fri, 14 Jul 2006 08:18:06 EST -- The act of one, the distress of another.
I'm not taking sides, but i am not a huge supporter of the 'view caller-id and hang up if you don't feel like talking' technique.

Those who know me can surely imagine that this technique is used on me regularly, and i have in the meantime become numb to it, but i have to agree with someone when they say they are bothered by it.

Why have a phone if you are going to not answer it when someone calls? If you are busy, in a meeting of a business or 'personal nature' then fine, but otherwise, answer it and be polite, then discretely hang up. and if someone calls from an unknown number a few minutes later or a little less time than that... who do you think its going to be...?

so i guess i am taking sides, but only in respect to the technique afforementioned.
Tue, 11 Jul 2006 08:41:09 EST -- Hypocrisy
At work i guess you expect a certain level of hypocrisy, however there are times when it just gets to be too much to handle. I have never been one to follow orders well, and i have never been one to keep quiet when being criticised in a hypocratic manner, and that makes the work environment a difficult place for me to be. Here's an example of the hypocrisy i face on a daily basis.

I just got back from vacation, i have been taking it easy for 2 weeks while my office has been continuing on its quest for riches and bad business tactics. I return from vacation with a warm welcome from my manager, who seems unusually friendly and happy to see me. Soon i will come to find out that this is because my help is needed to play secretary for a week to help catch up on the things that have fallen behind schedule. In all honesty i really don;t have a problem with that, as long as the work i am given is in some way constructive to my career even if the connection is a loose one. Lets just say for the sake of argument that the work i was given is in no way constructive to my career. So i start working on what i was given, and get asked by someone else to do another piece of work and i was also told that i have to give a presentation on some work i had done before i went on vacation. All of this stuff needs to be done on Friday, and my personal priority is placed on the presentation i have to give. however, this is seen differently by my manager. surprise, surprise, the priority given by my manager is the work they have given me instead of preparing a presenation for some company big-wigs which could potentially make me look very foolish if i have nothing done for it when friday rolls along. so i digress....

i continue to work on everything as my manager continually piles more and more work on my desk, and volunteers my services to perform 'tasks' to more and more people in the office. at this point there is little chance i will finish the things that i have been given today let alone the presentation etc...

at this point i start to raise awareness of the pile of work which is quickly turning into a mountain to my manager, and the response i get is a lecture about how the team works, and how everyone is busy and that i will need to pull my act together and work for the team to get the job done, and then i ma lectured about how much work is sitting on her desk and how much she has to have done by today and that is the reason that i am working on all the stuff that i am, becuase i am 'helping' to lighten the load... so i kept my mouth shut.

and as paul harvey put it so well, so many times, its time for... the rest of the story.

i have been continuously working for 2 days without a break becuase i endeavour to keep up my part as a team player. my manager, has logged about 2 hours at her desk, and just returned from a 1.5 hour lunch break.... need i say more.

i just wonder when i can start lecturing about work ethic....
Tue, 27 Jun 2006 18:06:21 EST -- Why do Americans have feet?
I ask the question: Why do Americans have feet? A strange question at first glance, but really and truly it seems like they are a useless appendage for most people... Of course i mean no offense to anyone by this question, i am just genuinely curious why people in the USA would prefer to drive from their home to their mailbox, or to the chinese take-out thats 50 yards away, or to the store that is say 100 yards away for some toilet paper... I'm surprised that people in the USA haven't all evolved into 5.3L v-8 turbo charged machines that consume unleaded or diesel instead of fruit, vegetables and/or your choice of meat. I'll leave that with you, anyone else notice this?

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