Is There Room for Emotions in the Workplace? - Knowledge@Emory

I’d like to get some opinions on this article…because I think that even though women have made great strides in the workplace in the last thirty years, we still have an uphill battle. Sadly, I’ve seen this in my current job and in past jobs…and I expect to encounter it to an even greater degree after I finish…well, my degree.

It has been very easy for me not to take on the “mom” role on the job, because I’m not a mom. Of course, when the author is advising women not take on the “mom” role at work, they’re referring to the nurturing aspect of motherhood.

I was involved in an inter-departmental scuffle one time, and our boss actually told us we were all like her children and we needed to learn how to get along. That would be great, except I couldn’t kick the offending co-worker in the nuts like I could have if he were actually my sibling. Although I have viewed co-workers as petulant children, that’s from the perspective of a responsibility-taking adult, not a mom.

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Yeah, I’m actually writing a blog post…can you believe it? So much for Blog 365! Eh, it was probably a lofty goal to begin with but when school (or more specifically, my Applied Research Methods class) began to sprout fangs and take on a life of its own…there was little I could do except roll over and submit.

Until today.

Today I finished my research proposal and I kid you not, when I declared it 100% complete I looked out the window of my office and the clouds began to part. I actually snickered out loud at this realization.

Anyhoo, it has been an ugly semester but I am just a couple of days away from completion. Sure, I still have my Strategic Marketing final to take but it’s only worth 15% of my final grade, and I have until Friday to take it.

But, I am still here. I briefly thought about putting up a photo of my 36-year old paunchy tummy and letting everyone in on the big secret as to why I’ve been gone for so long since I guess, flowing clothes = baby bump and not bloating, as I’ve been leading myself to believe all these years. Go figure.

Seriously though, I have a ton of things to talk about…Dancing with the Stars, American Idol, The Bachelor: Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious…and what about all those NBC shows we have starting back up this Thursday?

Best of all…did ya’ll hear about the Robin Sparkles b-side ballad? Word.

Sorry to blog and run, but I need to go get my head re-wrapped around the ideas of strategic planning versus strategic thinking. Back soon!

By the by…any advice on the big WordPress 2.5 upgrade? Hey, just because I’ve been living under a rock doesn’t mean my Google Reader feeds don’t work.

Like that? I came up with it last night when I was watching American Idol and telling Capt. UberHusband I thought Faith Hill would be a great choice to cover Journey’s “Faithfully” as a country song.

Speaking of American Idol…how completely annoying were Randy, Paula and Simon last night? I’m all for the frolicky banter between the three of them, but when the camera cuts to Paula almost looking like she’s passing out on Simon’s shoulder…and the three of them bicker…God, it was so annoying. I felt really bad for the ladies last night.

Loved, loved, loved Brooke White’s rendition of “Love is a Battlefield” and, after the whole “Faith-Hilly” thing I was sort of on a roll…recommending Rascal Flatts update the Pat Benatar classic. Who else did I have opinions about…Carly Smithson. Love her accent, loved the song…wasn’t nuts about her rendition. I kind of feel like the AI folks are shoving her down my throat. Same with Syesha Mercado (Capt. UberHusband last night: “She does know she’s singing about being the other woman, right?”) - I’m not nuts about her. Eh.

So for snits and giggles last night, we decided to stick around on Fox and watch The Moment of Truth, especially after the world (apparently) came to an end last week. What a let-down. The questions were so incredibly stupid. Maybe it’s because I’m not $500k in debt and don’t need to go on the show, but come on. CU and I were making up our own questions for the show:

“I think reality shows are incredibly stupid, and extremely exploitative.” That answer is…true.

Of course, I have to get all technical…with the question, “Have you ever been sexually attracted to someone you work with?” I follow up with…”Well, before or after my husband and I met?”

In household news, the new kitchen floor is in and the tile surrounding our fireplace is being hacked out. I was talking to one of my co-workers yesterday and telling her that I never wish for bad things to happen, but if we have to have a water leak in the slab of our house…at least let us get a new kitchen floor out of it. Now that we’re taking a look at everything though, we’ve realized our cabinets look way better…but our appliances have got to go.

Oh, it’s also starting to snow here. Second time this week.

While I have you all here…if any of ya’ll are interested in taking a survey my fine Applied Research Methods class has crafted (it’s lousy…IMO…I’ll tell you that upfront), I would appreciate if you could fill it out on my behalf. Apparently we get bonus points if we can recruit the most people. If you’ve made it this far in my post, you have to like me a little…right?

So…here’s the link. When asked at the end who sent you to the survey, I’m S. Lynch. None of your personal info is captured, and if you shoot me an email at snarkwifedotcomATgmail.com to let me know you filled it out…I’ll let you know when the results are finalized and pass them along.

Okay, that is all. Back to work.

According to my handy-dandy countdown calendar over there in the right sidebar, I am now officially 50% done with the Spring semester!

I still have quite a bit of work ahead of me, but it’s nice to be on the downslope.

This is an actual email thread between my debate teammates…guess which one I am!

On Feb 18, 2008 3:50 PM, Student #1 wrote:

Looks like we have 4 points to refute this week.

Some of these are going to be hard to disprove. Shall we just split them up & each post individually sometime before end of day tomorrow? The first two are sort of the same, so I think that can be lumped in as one. #3 seems hardest & 4 seems easiest, but I will take any of them - let me know how you want to divide.

On Feb 18, 2008 5:00 PM, Student #2 wrote:

I’ll take #3 - it actually doesn’t seem too bad if you look at it in context to the actual debate resolution, which states the cameras would be used in a systematic random sampling schedule. Their argument assumes you’d be able to pull up a video for anyone, at any time, in any situation. That’s not quite how it would be working.

I’ll have my rebuttal up by tomorrow night.

On Feb 18, 2008 7:21 PM, Student #3 wrote:

I will take which ever one is left over. I really do not have a preference.

On Feb 18, 2008 8:37 PM, Student #1 wrote:

ok, i’ll take 1 & 2, i guess.

On Feb 18, 2008 10:29 PM, Student #3 wrote:

I’ll have #4 up tonight then.

I honestly have to say, I think women like my teammates are responsible for the so-called “glass ceiling.” Who wants someone in charge who can’t make a freaking decision on which stupid debate point they want to rebut? The hilarious thing? The one I picked wound up being the easiest to pick apart.

Other than Capt. UberHusband’s year in Iraq, I believe there have only been two Sundays in the seven years we’ve been married (and probably the year and a half we dated before that) when I woke up by myself on a Sunday morning. Actually, I take that back. Last year when he went to Paris, he left on Sunday and came back on Friday. So, this would be the only non-deployment Sunday.

CU travels a lot for work now, so it isn’t entirely odd if the alarm goes off at 6 during the week and he’s not here. Weekends though…weekends are a whole different thing. It gets kind of lonely, even if I have already talked to him twice today and exchanged a dozen text messages…LOL.

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Now that my environmental analysis on the hotel industry has been uploaded and officially “delivered” to my Strategic Marketing professor, I can take a bit of a break and reflect on Lost last night. As an unintentional tie-in, the title of last night’s ep, “The Economist,” really threw me for a loop because my Strategic Marketing midterm this week includes questions regarding several articles we’ve read and discussed from…wait for it…The Economist. It’s like no matter how hard I try, I just can’t get away from school - not even for an hour.

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You know, I remember a time when I used to look forward to weekends, because I didn’t (for the most part, usually) have to do any work. Sure I had housework…cleaning, laundry, home improvement, etc. - but that kind of thing can actually be fun because no one is judging your performance. Even just as recently as two years ago, when CU was in Iraq…I’d get up on Saturday mornings and read the paper, drink some coffee, do some laundry…and that was it. If I wanted to go to Michael’s or the mall or just sit around and watch dumb shows on TV, I could…with no guilt. Because, I didn’t have any other responsibilities. Those were good times.

Now though…with school…it’s like my free time has begun to cackle at me: “Adios, Snarkwife…try not to lose your mind over the next two years. And oh by the way, good luck trying to enjoy your weekends. I know you used to enjoy going off and doing fun things with Capt. So-Called-UberHusband, but those days are over, at least temporarily.”

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From: Prof. Marketing
Subject: customer analysis feedback
Date: January 28, 2008 11:34:53 PM CST
To: Stacy

Hi Stacy,

I’ve reviewed your customer analysis and I have to say it is one of the finest I’ve received. Quality of both content and presentation are clear, your observations and integrations are insightful and you’ve exceeded my expectations – much like Ritz-Carlton.

I appreciate the in-depth focus on the emotional elements of the Ritz’s service strategy and the identification of the impact of the “democratization of wealth.”

You earned full credit for this assignment.

Best wishes,
Prof. Marketing

Next step…the competitor analysis!

As I’m sure you haven’t noticed (heh), I’ve been pretty tight-lipped about school so far this semester. This isn’t intentional, it’s just that…wait for it…there isn’t anything to complain about!

By the same token, there hasn’t been a whole heck of a lot to talk about in general. I only have one “group” assignment - for my Market Research class - and that’s a round-robin debate tournament on marketing ethics which lasts about two weeks.

The one fun thing…I’ve managed to pick a subject I can use for both my strategic marketing and market research classes, inspired by last weekend’s visit to the Ritz-Carlton. On the strategy side I have five deliverables over the next ten weeks, encompassing a customer analysis, competitor analysis, market analysis, and environmental analysis - and the Big Kahuna, an industry analysis. Oddly, this sounds exactly like what I did last semester in my marketing management class…and it is, just with the added boost of a strategic approach thrown in for flair.

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Lifted from Why Not - Right?

We’re taking two laptops with us on our Romantic Anniversary Weekend, which in theory would make us uncool lightweight nerds. Unfortunately, just because we’re whisking ourselves away for a couple of days of fun, and I’m taking Monday off from work…that doesn’t mean I can push off school until Tuesday. So, I need a laptop.

My #1 choice is of course, my Mac, but the University of Dallas - in it’s infinite wisdom - has chosen to make some of its online classroom lectures available only in Internet Explorer so we have to take CU’s Iraqtop. Heh. I just made that up. I need to go see if he thinks that’s as funny as I do.

Ugh. Time to start school again…here are the assignments for my Market Research class:

I’m torn between doing my actual research project on wine stores & wine bistros in the northern Collin County area, or celebrity fantasy leagues. Please oh please Business School Gods…don’t let me get stuck with idiot teams this semester. I beg of you. Gracias.

So - as soon as I turn in my team’s simulation write-up in half an hour (there’s a fun story behind that, too), I am officially done with the Fall semester and my Operations Management grade is out of my hands.

I took my final a little while ago and started sweating bullets when about halfway through the exam, I started hitting questions from a chapter which wasn’t in our syllabus. Chapter 14. We covered every chapter in the book but that one. I remember specifically mentioning to CU a couple of days ago that I thought it strange we skipped it but hey, that’s what the professor scheduled.

Needless to say, I panicked…because that’s what I do when I find myself woefully unprepared for something. I was having a tough enough time with the exam (BTW - people who think open book/open notes exams are easy are also on crack) - the last thing I needed was to have to learn about ERP and MRP on the fly.

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Finishing up my class…simulation write-up…final exam…

Back tomorrow…hopefully. Send oogly googly thoughts my way - the midterm was tough and I need to do well on the final to nail an A.

I think I’ve just experienced what “they” like to call sticker shock. You see, I just finished registering for the Spring semester and at the end of the registration process, you’re redirected to the “summary” page where all of your “tuition” and “fees” and “credits based on the current value of either your arm or leg, whichever you chose to sacrifice to get a graduate degree” are displayed. It was a big number. Scary big. I knew what it was going to be, but it didn’t seem quite so…big…until it was sitting in front of me with a big University of Dallas emblem attached.

Nevertheless, with nearly two full additional semesters under my belt and some renewed perspective and awareness, I am very happy I decided to go back and finish my MBA. I haven’t really been involved in the nuts-’n-bolts aspect of application development in a few years, and my focus has really shifted to more of a product development/management role…so it would appear I have a career shift looming in the next year or so. Makes sense - I’m about on track…mid-30s.

This shift was confirmed - and encouraged - by the fact that not one co-worker or manager-esque person participated in my 360-degree assessment which, although isn’t required by my program, is “highly encouraged.” Found this out today. When questioned as to their lack of participation, the #1 reason was out of my co-workers was…wait for it…”I forgot.” Ever get that feeling you’re not being supported? Yeah, me too.

One of my loyal readers…Leslee…used to be my supervisor when I was first dipping my feet into the pool of Real World Employment. Leslee, tell everyone what a great employee I am, and what an inspiration I was to have around. {wink}

By the by…did you all see Dilbert today? Heh.

Ha…the Registration Gods must have heard my complaining…they just canceled my Digital Marketing Strategies class.

My Marketing Management class officially comes to an end today…finally. Our marketing plan deliverable came in on time last weekend and we again scored an A…full credit - 100/100 points…although our professor was less drippy with the praise than last time. I’ve discovered that when it comes to school, I’ve reverted back to how I viewed school before beginning my undergrad degree…as an evil entity to overpower and destroy. Failure is not an option and if you’re on my team, you’d better be on board with that philosophy or I may be forced to overpower and destroy you.

Here’s the problem with that strategy though…it defeats the purpose of school which is…as CU has to constantly remind me…to learn. Wait, you mean I’m not supposed to come out of these 12-week classes prepared to run a market research company? I’m not going to be handed a production facility next month when Ops Management comes to an end? Well shucky darn, that changes everything!

School is weird for me, because although I may not be terribly competitive with others, I’m incredibly competitive with myself. I also have astronomically high performance standards for both myself and those around me…so you can imagine the percentage of time I find myself disappointed. Greater than fifty. But, I’m working on that. Having high performance standards is one thing, but having unrealistic goals of perfection is quite another.

Now, I’m focusing on the last four weeks of my Ops Management class…and scheduling for next semester. Looks like I’ll be taking Digital Marketing Strategies, Global Business and…in a week-long mega-intensive intermester class in April…ta da…Financial Management. I’ve been dreading Financial Management…my only hope is to get it all out of the way in a week. Seems like a good use of PTO time, right?

Listening to: I Drove All Night - Cyndi Lauper

It’s just another Fall weekend afternoon here at Casa de Snark. I’m sitting here at my new and improved laptop (Leopard is quite cool, kind of like having a new computer) switching back and forth between responding to my marketing class’s online “discussion forum” (the topic this week: pick a Hummer commercial and talk about the MarCom objectives, and what Cialdini influences are used…oh boy) and hitting the “Update” button on our Ops Management simulation. I swear, this simulation is like crack cocaine…only less…illegal. The last time I was this obsessed with hitting an update button, I was trying to win a copy of Office ‘04 on eBay.

Did I mention my team was in first place? That’s right, we’re ahead of every other team by a cool $41k.

Today is one of those days I just love. I can look out my office window and watch the leaves falling, and see the sun lower in the sky today than it was…well, at this time yesterday. It’s not quite sweater weather here in north Texas yet, but that’s fine by me. This is that fantastically wonderful time of year in Texas when it’s not too hot, but not too cold…all you need is a light jacket…in the evening.

How have all of your weekends been? I’m about to head out to return some shoes to DSW, some jammies to Gap Body and the have dinner with her. Funny, the last time I saw her was on my birthday last year. Can’t believe it’s been a year, especially since our Hawaiian vacations in September were so close to overlapping.

Then…it’s back home to watch The Amazing Race. Holy crap, I can’t even contain my excitement!

Holy moly, what a day. I was up bright and early at 6:30 AM for my SEVEN AY-EM TEAM MEETING to finalize our marketing plan. That’s right folks, the insanity which was my suite of group projects for Marketing Management is complete. No more flaky team members…well, these specific flaky team members, anyway.

After that, I had ANOTHER team meeting at 9, this time with my Ops Management simulation group. Here’s our assignment - needless to say, when we all got on our call we were equally clueless, because although we’ve covered most of this in our course, our instructor didn’t give us much in the way of direction. When faced with that sort of thing, what does Snarkwife do? Why, she corners Finance Major Capt. UberHusband and gets him to help set her in the right direction so she in turn can help set the rest of her team in the right direction.

The fab part? We’re ahead! We’re ahead! We’re ahead! We’ve made the most money so far, which apparently, is what The Goal really is.

As if my day couldn’t get any more exciting, after spending four hours analyzing and setting up the World’s Scariest Spreadsheet for the simulation, I attempted to install Mac OS X Leopard. I haven’t mentioned my struggles with this so far, because I was hoping they wouldn’t ever make for a good story. Nice effort on my part. Anyhoo, I pre-ordered Leopard and it arrived on October 26. Wanting to back everything up and have some space left over for the future, that weekend CU and I headed to Fry’s and decided to try one of those slick network-connected external drives, so we could share everything amongst all our PCs. Well, the wireless connection between the HD and my laptop was wonky at best, so that HD went back. Last week, CU bought another one - this time one that actually connects to my laptop. With all of my critical documents backed up, I proceeded to try to install Leopard.

What a fiasco. After three failed installation attempts (with three different error messages, no less) and 3 1/2 hours of my life I’ll never get back, the friendly Apple support tech suggested I make an appointment to visit a Genius at our local Apple Store, because it sounded like I may have gotten a dud disk. Nope. Turns out my three failed installation attempts hosed up my hard drive, so I had to do a full erase of my laptop hard drive. Gee, I thought with the Mac OS, I wouldn’t have to do that sort of thing anymore. Anyhoo, I performed some expanded backups and successfully installed Leopard tonight. It’s pretty cool so far…will have to see how it looks in the light of day. So many things look way hotter at night than they do the next day.

My Marketing class team is now a team of three…the castaway has been voted off the island. I’ll be honest…it wasn’t an easy decision to offload him, but his laundry list of offenses, his lack of remorse or concern regarding the work he blatantly plagiarized and lack of concern about the sling in which he theoretically could have put our collective ass…well, maybe it was an easy decision.

So last night, we had our first post-Tribal Council meeting. I’m not sure if we’re working more collaboratively as a team because our 4th wheel is gone, or if we’re working more collaboratively because coming together multiple times over the past six days to decide his fate bonded all of us.

Tonight’s Thursday, right? Geez, this week is flying by. CU and I are taking Cookie to the vet this afternoon for her quarterly checkup, which consists of x-rays, blood work and a blood pressure check. It’s always fun going to the vet. Whenever Dr. Cinclair speaks, Cookie barks at him. Love that dog.

Well, we received 125 out of a possible 125 points on our industry analysis.

Allow me to share some insights from the glowing review our Marketing professor provided…

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This semester is going to be the death of me, I swear. Last week was pretty much a blur, as things with our project started to unravel because…in a nutshell…there are people on my team for whom this MBA program is last on their list of priorities (okay, maybe not last…maybe one notch above flossing). That’s it in a nutshell. It has taken me a good 36 hours to unwind from Saturday’s stress…and I’m trying to move on…

As an update, the castaway we wanted to throw off our island? Let’s just say Jeff Probst highly recommended we beat the castaway senseless, to make him see the error of his ways. The only problem is, the castaway doesn’t seem to be too interested in making it to the merge (so to speak), much less win a million dollars. So, we’re stuck with him. The irony of this is that while we’re basically forced to keep the guy on our team, keeping him there drives down the morale of the other team members.

Sort of sounds like…the environment of many American businesses.

We had our own tribal council yesterday, and have voted someone off our island.

Sorry, pal. No immunity idol for you.

Industry analysis due Saturday…team member submitted plagiarized work to add to our group doc…slowly losing my mind…good times.

Oh, I taped Kid Nation and watched the first ten minutes of Private Practice last night, then we watched Chuck from Monday night.

I heard tonight’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy was hilariouslyfantasticallyawesome. I can’t wait.

Pushing Daisies was wonderful, but a little…dark…for early prime time, dontcha think?

Since I opted to help CU with the pantry instead of study…my free time today is sucked up by school work.

I’ll be back soon though!

So, have I updated all of you on my marketing class lately? I don’t think so…so here are the highlights in a nutshell.

• One of my teammates sent me an email, telling me she didn’t like my “tone” and I was too “harsh” when I chastised her for completely failing to show up for a scheduled meeting. By the way, she’s the meeting leader.
• It should be permissible to refuse to give someone an MBA because he or she overuses the words AWESOME and HILARIOUS and ends every statement with multiple!!! exclamation!!! marks!!!
• Influence is a wonderful thing…and I’m discovering I have a lot of it.
• When you tell people you want to get an “A” on the project, they assume you’ll do all of the work and they won’t have to do anything except enjoy the ride. Oh, the AWESOME HILARITY when they find out that isn’t the case.
• My quiz wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be - I actually think I overstudied for it. We’ll find out in a couple of days.

One of this week’s “learning objectives” was the concept of social proof. Here’s the Wikipedia definition:

Social proof, also known as informational social influence, is a psychological phenomenon that occurs in ambiguous social situations when people are unable to determine the appropriate mode of behavior. Making the assumption that surrounding people possess more knowledge about the situation, they will deem the behavior of others as appropriate or better informed.

I know for me when I was a little girl, I had training wheels on my bicycle and nothing my parents did could get me to take them off. We moved to another city, and I noticed I was the only 6-year old who had training wheels on her bike. They were off by the end of the day, as I realized it was time for me to be a big kid like all the others.

Another example…several years ago, CU and I were driving down a busy street near our home and saw a dog wandering in the middle of the road. We stopped our car and went to try to get the dog, but everyone kept speeding around us. Eventually, a second car stopped to help. Once that second car stopped, we were amazed at how everyone else fell in line to try to help out this dog.

I asked this question on my class discussion board, but ya’ll are more fun…so, what sorts of examples of social proof have you witnessed - or found yourself part of? I always like to think of being back in high school, when if one friend was mad at you, it wasn’t a big deal. If two were though, all of a sudden the whole gang joined in and didn’t talk to you for two days.

Don’t worry…I’ll eventually get around to blogging about TV last night.

Kawela Bay

Originally uploaded by snarkwife

We’re not coming back…

Don’t be too jealous, though…I have to get on a team chat in 33 minutes for my marketing project. That really bites.

I’m up early again…and ready for the day to begin. You know, I don’t mind waking up at 4 AM if I can stay up until at least 9 PM, and we seem to be doing pretty well staying up that late.

Yesterday was a fantastic day…we did have breakfast at the Hukilau Cafe and were going to go back today, but the owner has family in town so it won’t be open today. That’s okay…I can get by on coffee, a muffin and my leftover scrambled eggs, fried rice and Portuguese sausage from yesterday morning. YUM!

We spent some time at the beach…saw Oceanic Flight 815, had lunch at Cholo’s and then came back to watch the sea turtles feed. I love watching the turtles. Seriously, it’s one of my top three things to do up here.

Oh, as a side note…I will never ever go on vacation when school is in session again. Long story short, half my team went MIA and 3/4 of my team forgot what their responsibilities were with our 1st deliverable…which is due today. Urgh. The last thing I was interested in doing was getting on my cell phone to call people and find out what the Hell was going on. Urgh.

Fortunately, this all went down right before my spa appointment and surprisingly, I was able to wind down enough to enjoy the experience. I really enjoy spa-ing. Want to know my favorite part? It wasn’t the sound of the waves crashing or the warmth of the sun streaming into the outdoor cabana. It wasn’t even the chilled orange water, although that was great. The steam room was blissful, but not my favorite part. Oh, no. My favorite part was when I had to sign a waiver, and initial the form indicating (among other things) my understanding that “Spa Luana does not provide massages of a sexual nature.” Really? Well geez, the why was I paying them all that money?

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Well folks, I have a project team. It was a little iffy there for awhile, as Mr. Three Sisters emailed me yesterday afternoon to let me know he had joined forces with another person the night before, and that person committed both of them to another team yesterday morning.

So I’m thinking to myself…”You joined my team Monday night, and this person committed you to a team on Tuesday morning…so you’re backing out of my team?” Whatever. Good riddance. We picked up a couple of guys (both refugees from my Org Behavior class) and have since decided we need a team-building exercise to help us recover from our team-building exercise. I really thought this process would be easier than it turned out to be…which is funny because I tend to lean more to the side of over-complicating, not over-simplifying things.

Guess what I learned today? You know how annoyed you get when you buy something and then a week later, a “new and improved” version comes out? There’s an actual term for that…”Applenomics” or for the uninitiated, “Microsofticity.” Kidding. It’s “planned obsolescence.” I is edumacated.

In life, we must have balance. Having said that, when I am almost bursting with joy at the potential of a situation…reality will inevitably step in and say, “Snarkwife, you knew it wasn’t going to be that easy, right?”

With my newfound confidence yesterday morning, I set out to build a team. I found a couple of people with whom I’d like to work and immediately shot off emails to them. I likened this to a virtual playground, where you start picking teams for dodgeball and eventually, the “losers” are left standing around awkwardly without anywhere to go until someone takes pity on them…well, because they have to. You’re left wondering why those people didn’t think you were good enough…or smart enough.

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It’s that time again, when the local kiddos head back to school. CU has been saying things like, “Neener neener, they all have to go back to school…hahahahaHAHAHAHA” for the past week and yesterday I finally had to confront him with, “HEY…*I* have to go back to school too, so quit with the cackling.”

That’s right…my 6-week break from school was, as always, way too short. My marketing management class started over the weekend, and I’m doing the online thing again. I’m taking another course…ops management…but it doesn’t start for another four weeks. I’m itchy to take an actual in-person course, but with our vacation coming up and my mom being here around that time, it just wasn’t the right time to need to physically be somewhere for a lecture during the week. So, I’ll venture down that path next semester.

So far, the class seems like it will be better organized than my last one. First off, my instructor is actually a professor…and the department chair. His syllabus was clear and easy to understand…and it sounds like he actually gives a rip about our learning experience. After last semester and the Org Behavior Instructor From Hell, this has been a breath of fresh air so far. He even said wrote at the very top of the syllabus:

ALWAYS SAY THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS FIRST:

I’m glad you are here. I recognize that in taking this course you are investing your time and money. I will do my best to make it up-to-date, relevant, and interesting to help you get the most out of the course.

Oh, marketing professor. Tell me where you are going, and I will follow.

I don’t think I mentioned what my workload was like last semester. In addition to required threaded discussion “participation” (which is required of every online class, and isn’t a big deal to me), we had weekly 4-5 page essays, a 10-15 page team case analysis and a 20-25 page individual case analysis. Of course, we also had our assigned reading. It was a lot of work.

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Do you ever have those times when you wish you could play the tit-for-tat game, and actually have it come out in your favor?

My Org Behavior class ended nearly two weeks ago, and grades were due into the Student Records office last Friday…August 3. Grades were to be published online this past Monday and needless to say, I was excited because I’m dying to know how I did both on my individual project and overall in the class.

Monday comes and goes…no grades have been posted. Yesterday, the emails start coming in from fellow classmates, all wondering if we’ve heard from our instructor or seen anything remotely resembling a grade. No one had, so we all start emailing and calling Student Records, wondering what’s up.

Apparently, our instructor just blew off the grade submission deadline. One unhelpful representative had the gall to tell me it was my responsibility to follow up with the instructor because even though there’s a deadline, instructors don’t always meet it. So, I did. Here was her reply:

I will try to get them out to everyone before too long. Final grades should be uploaded into Banner in the next few days.

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CU and I decided to flip over to CNBC last night at 8 PM to watch the Fast Money MBA Challenge, which pitts MBA students from “top business schools according to the 2007 U.S. News & World Report Top Business Schools ranking” (which incredibly, doesn’t include mine) against each other for cash! prizes!

I suspect they chose these particular schools not because of some arbitrary ranking, but because each team member will need their 1/4 of the $200k cash! prize! to pay off their student loans post-graduation. Actually, now that I think about it…that will probably only cover part of it.

All I can say is…what can you say about a show which starts off with the question, “Toucan Sam is the mascot for what product?” Doesn’t that seem a bit more suited for Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? And yes, I got that one right.

The part of the show that tripped me up was the one I like to call “Name That Stock Symbol!” Unfortunately, I heard “Name That Airline Code!” and, despite living in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and hearing the acronym AMR about 8 trazillion times a day, I still blurted out “AMERICAN AIRLINES!” when the host asked which company AA was. Turns out, it’s Alcoa. Go figure. Another symbol, I could swear was the airport code for New Orleans. You see, in my little world…sometimes I make up my own game show if the one I’m watching doesn’t suit my brain pattern at any given time. You know how it is.

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I swear, it is just like that around here…I either post six times a day for a week, or you don’t hear from me at all for five days. I’m all discombobulated and in absolutely no set routine whatsoever, which usually gets me into trouble or at the very least, makes me unproductive. I’m working on that. I blame this “in between” time between school terms.

Speaking of school…remember my team project? Well, we got an 89 on it…with the “peer evaluation,” my individual grade was bumped up to a 90. Funny thing…the vast majority of our points were taken off for lack of analysis and lack of tie-in to the course material. Gee, I predicted that one, didn’t I? The good news is this grade came out a few days before my individual project was due, so CU and I went over that 22-page behemoth with a fine-tooth comb before turning it in our last night in Wilmington. Still waiting for the grade on that one…stay tuned.

On the television front, we’ve recently gotten ourselves hooked on Weeds. Along the lines of Entourage last summer, we decided to see what all the hoopla was about. Turns out, it’s the wonderfully edgy humor and grown-up content you’d expect from pay cable. Aww, a drug dealer with a heart of suburban mom gold. Aww. Weeds is everything Desperate Housewives could have been, had it not been on ABC…on Sunday night. The best part? Denny Duquette as Nancy Pantsy’s recently departed husband. Rrrrow. The worst part? Netflix needs to take these DVDs out of rotation, because they’re all scratched up and skippy. Nothing makes my brain twitch faster than a stuttery DVD viewing.

On the home front, we’re renovating our laundry room and our pantry…and will begin the daunting task of restaining all of our cabinets when we get back from Hawaii. That’s right…the kitchen renovation begins in September. We should call TLC or HGTV…they’d love to hang out with us for three months while we put all those ducks in a row.

What are all of you watching this summer? I’d love to hear everyone’s opinions on Big Love and Entourage. Which is better, The Singing Bee or So You Think You Can Karaoke Like A Fifth Grader/Who’s Missing Line Is It Anyway? Did you hear Michael was coming back to Lost? I think Brenda’s pregnant on The Closer.

10. The proliferation of the internet. How did I make it through the early 90s without it?
9. No wine coolers within a mile and a half
8. Better guy in my bed
7. My car has all its original hubcaps
6. No need to sell books back at the end of the term to pay my electric bill
5. I’ll probably use this degree (See: “What are you going to do with a Poli Sci degree?”)
4. I can afford to drink two glasses of wine during asinine project team conference calls
3. I don’t have to write my papers on this thing.
2. Less poufy hair this time around

And, the #1 way my MBA experience is different than my undergrad…

No microfiche!

I don’t really have a boss in my job. I used to, but in the last year or so I’ve sort of become my own self-directed work team, for lack of a better term.

As part of my graduate management program at the University of Dallas, I am participating in a management development exercise. The exercise is a 360-Degree Assessment designed to give me feedback on my leadership, management, and team skills.

In the 360-Degree Assessment, I complete a survey on myself, and individuals that are familiar with my management style also fill out a survey on me. In this process, typically a boss and three or more coworkers are invited to complete a survey.

The survey input is summarized, and I receive a report on how my results compare to a “norm” group of managers from a variety organizations. I will see how my boss described my management behavior, and I will see how my direct reports and coworkers described my management behavior, provided at least three individuals from each group submit a survey.

I’m sure most of you are familiar with this. I haven’t done one in years as the organizations I’ve worked for in the last 7 years or so didn’t employ this as a performance review process, but I was excited at getting some feedback. I haven’t had any formal feedback since I started this job over three years ago. I think at one point I was told as long as they kept me on the payroll I was doing a good job, but that wasn’t in writing.

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So, here’s how far in advance Capt. UberHusband and I plan our vacations: last year, I bought our plane tickets for our 9/06 trip five months before he even got home from Iraq. This year, we bought them…in February, I think.

Why you might ask, do we buy our tickets so early? Well, we generally either buy coach tickets and then use our miles to upgrade, or use our miles outright to get first class seats. Because seats are limited for us bottom-feeders who laugh in the face of paying full price to fly in a premium cabin, we have to have our act together very early in the process.

Anyway, we planned our trip before I made the big decision to go back to school. Now we know to schedule our vacations during my breaks, but we were sort of stuck when it came to Hawaii this year. I don’t know about you, but I’m not particularly amped to get on a plane and fly 3500 miles to a tropical paradise for a week of fun, sun, drinks, fresh fish and…studying. Ugh. There’s something about toting textbooks to the beach that reminds me a little too much of my undergrad days. Then again, if I was able to actually get a degree from U.C. Santa Barbara with the beach only ten minutes away for four years, maybe it won’t be that bad.

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In case you’ve been wondering where I’ve been, I realize I’ve turned into “that girl”…you know, the one who gets who she thinks has a really cool new boyfriend and then cuts off virtually all contact with her friends.

Except, with me, I got four really uncool boyfriends and have had to hang out with them for the past month. Let me introduce you to them.

First, we have The One Who Sucks Up To Me. This guy was over-enthusiastically enthusiastic about pretty much every idea I had, every plan I proposed and every email I sent out. While the flattery was nice at first, eventually it got…a little…creepy.

I also spent time with The Totally Inattentive One Who Said About Ten Words Our Entire Relationship. I’m still trying to remember what his name was.

Most of you ladies out there will be familiar with #3, The One Who Shows Up Only When It’s Convenient For Him, Showing Zero Concern For Your Needs. He’ll pop in and make some sort of profound statement and the next thing you know, he’s gone.

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Ah yes, it’s that magical seventh week of the term…when you’re worn out by Org Behavior terms and your co-workers want to strangle you for trying to use them as guinea pigs for your Critical Incident Case assignment…but you still have a good five weeks left of the class. Bleh.

The fourth season premiere of Entourage was last night, and I had read ahead of time that it wouldn’t be “the standard” episode but instead, a mockumentary-like insight of the Medellin production process. I still thought it was a great episode - same trademark humor, and Drama even got his cameo appearance in the film (”I don’t make movies.” - Billy Walsh).

And, Mrs. Ari now has top billing! Yay! Adios, Debi Mazar!

I swear, it’s starting to look like October around here…something new to watch every night! Tonight we have the season premiere of The Closer, a new ep of Big Love…and we (or, I) still have Bridezillas and Army Wives from last night.

Considering I am such a creature of habit, imagine my confusion when I flipped over to TNT at 9 a.m. to have my daily dose of ER and Judging Amy in the background and instead, was jolted by a marathon of The Closer.

I remember I read in a book that spouses of deployed soldiers should refrain from doing anything drastic which could be perceived as a change in routine when their soldiers come home…like move the furniture or buy new cars. Switching up my daytime schedule is akin to that, so I’ll be spending the rest of the day dealing with my PTSD. Thanks, TNT.

Goodness, I haven’t had this much of a blogging “dry spell” since Capt. UberHusband left for Iraq. Usually during the summer I blame my less-frequent posting on lousy TV options but this year…eh, just lazy. Not much to talk about.

I’m sure none of you want to listen to me complain about how I’m doing all the work on my Org Behavior team project because the guys (literally, I’m the only chick) are patently clueless. Seriously. 3 out of 4 still don’t understand the point of the project and we’re three weeks in, with two left to go.

Actually, I do have some television to talk about…Big Love returned last Monday after a year-long hiatus. Back when CU returned from Iraq, we bought a new LCD TV for our bedroom and after hooking it up to the cable, found out we somehow were picking up our neighbors’ Comcast On Demand feeds on various channels. In the mornings it was usually Nick Jr. shows or FitTV but after about 9:30 PM…bow chicka bow wow…the “adult” entertainment came on, as well as reruns of Entourage, Big Love and The Sopranos.

Anyhoo, that’s how we discovered Big Love…it’s what the neighbors were watching. After a couple of episodes we were hooked and after we also discovered the brilliance which is Entourage, when we switched to Dish Network, we decided to keep HBO. By the way, whichever neighbor of ours watched the “adult” entertainment…he/she fast-forwarded through all the dialogue. No joke.

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Well kids, we made it back from Chi-town on Sunday afternoon, where we had a wonderful time…click here for photos. Our flight out of DFW was delayed for about an hour and that combined with rush-hour traffic into the city center caused us to get in pretty late. Never fear though, after dinner we were ready to go! To sleep!

Ha. Seriously though, it was a wonderful trip. We made it to the Shedd Aquarium on Friday morning, and shopped…and walked…and shopped…and ate…then ate some more. It rained a good deal of the trip (despite being 88 degrees Thursday afternoon) but from what I understand, it poured rain here at home, too so…six to one, as it were.

Saturday night was the wedding, which was beautiful, if not long…Catholic nuptial masses wear me out. Plus, they always make my wedding feel insignificant…as if our 20 minute “keep it simple, stupid” ceremony wasn’t sufficient. LOL.

We were back for a total of one day before Capt. UberHusband had to turn around and head back up to NYC today. Funny story…he got up (which means, we all got up) at 4:30 a.m. for his 7 a.m. flight…then wound up missing his flight, not being able to get on the next THREE flights, then finally chucking the whole trip. Twelve hours ago I didn’t expect to see him until Thursday night and now, he’ll be back here in about an hour. Poor guy.

In my corner of the world, things are good…school is keeping me pretty busy (busier than I probably should be for one class, good thing I’ll have two next term) and I’ve already gotten into my first “conversation” with the instructor about her ambiguous essay guidelines. If you say, “Since this is a “personal” essay, almost any content is acceptable as long as it is related to the Unit content. There must be an explicit link to the unit content in your essay to receive maximum credit. In other words you need to include the concept from the unit material you are referencing in your essay” and my essay is 100% related to the content, it’s really not cool to mark me down ten points with the vague, “I wish you would have expounded on the topic more.” Urgh.

That’s it from my neck of the woods…is anyone still out there? How were your holiday weekends?

It took a week and a half, but I now have my first classmate I’d like to bitch-slap.

When it comes to school, I’m not very competitive. I truly believe I’m there for the learning experience, and am not the type to randomly jump all over people who disagree with me or put down their ideas in front of others. Really now, that’s just rude.

This week’s Org Behavior unit is on diversity, and how individual differences (age, values, attitudes, motivations, etc.) manifest themselves within our organizations. This woman…we’ll call her “Marge,” relayed a story of her firm and the struggles they experience between the older workers and the younger ones. As a bit of a setup, Marge has already displayed she has overachiever tendencies…and this was before I found out she was a lawyer.

I responded in agreement, as my company also struggles with generational issues amongst the employees. I then shared a specific example, along with why we 30-somethings thought if our 50-something colleagues would just give progress a chance (so to speak), we could replace outdated and clunky proceses with more streamlined processes…and then we could all achieve that coveted work/life balance! I capped off my response with, “Why work 12 hours a day when you can improve a process to reduce your task-mastering to 4 hours a day?”

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The Unit 1 threaded discussion for my Org Behavior class was a virtual meet-and-greet, where we said hello to everyone, explained who we were, where we worked, what we did, why we were getting our MBA…and then we were also supposed to divulge something personal about ourselves.

Do any of you have any idea how hard it was for me to keep my snark under control? How I so badly wanted to introduce myself as Snarkwife, the regional sales manager for a small paper company in Scranton, PA? I enjoy sexually harrassing my receptionist, making stupid jokes and picking up waitresses at hibachi restaurants. I’m getting my MBA because I want to be able to bring my boss, Jan, to class for extra credit just like one of my employees did earlier in the season. Something personal? I love the Awesome Blossom® at Chili’s.

But no, I had to be professional. I even left out the part about how my main hobbies are watching television and drinking wine. Looking back at everyone else’s responses, I really do look like an underachiever. But then again…we ARE in the virtual world. For all I know, these folks are hooking up to the internet from the bathroom of a gas station…or alternating between saying,”MUST CONTROL FIST OF DEATH” and “Corporate Accounts Payable, Nina speaking…just a moment!” while reading about The Beer Game.

I also refrained from posting on our class message board this morning, asking if anyone had seen last night’s episode of Lost, then initiating a conversation about how whether or not demanding someone kill their father in order to be accepted into a new group is truly an effective form of motivation. Likewise, what were Ben’s individual needs? What personal fulfillment did Ben need in order to turn himself over 100% to his team, the Other White Hostiles? Most importantly, why didn’t anyone go back to the van to get the rest of the beer? I mean, really now.

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Once again, for the 32nd consecutive season…the team I want to win The Amazing Race doesn’t win. AARGH! CU and I have been gunning for KandyDust to win since, oh, episode three or four…but victory was not to be theirs last night. I would have preferred Charla and Mirna win if KandyDust wasn’t going to do it…but Eric and Danielle? Really?

As usual, the high point of the episode for me was when they went to Hawaii, because CU and I like to incorporate visiting Amazing Task Locations during our trips there. The only location on Oahu this time though, was the Hamaka Air Hangar, and we went there back in February of ‘05. Who knows, maybe this next trip we’ll helicopter over to Lanai.

In other weekend news…we took Cookie back to the vet on Friday, because we stopped her meds on Wednesday and she coughed all night Thursday. Our vet confirmed what we already knew really, that Cookie’s in the beginning (we hope) stages of heart failure. What this means is we keep her on the meds (enalapril and furosemide), twice a day, for the rest of her life. I am truly amazed at the power of medications - she hasn’t coughed, her heart and breathing rates are where they should be (How did I not know what was “normal” for the first ten years of her life?) and, the best part? She’s back on puppy food. Cookie’s always been skinny but in the last six months or so, she’s gotten downright bony.

What else…school started over the weekend. What they say about online classes is true…you definitely spend more time working on them, if for no other reason than you’re pretty much forced to interact with your fellow classmates via threaded discussions. I probably learned more about my 20 classmates in the last two days than I did about any of my fellow classmates in my undergrad classes.

But, Org Behavior is going to be a kick. I really enjoy analyzing people and their behaviors and discussing what facilitates positive outputs…and God knows I have enough case studies at my company…it’s like Christmas in May!

Listen to me…”facilitates positive outputs.” Sigh. I can’t write things like that without thinking of my high school English teachers, who used to get on me for overuse of “flowery” language.

So kids, did you know you can buy textbooks on the internet? That’s right…you can buy them through authorized sellers at Amazon, and you can get them on eBay.

Me? I actually went to the bookstore (that was a fun half-day trip) and bought my used books there…which was great to give me the “collegiate experience” I remember from yesteryear, but it also set me back an additional hundred bucks.

Lesson learned.

And…the first giggleworthy moment of the Summer term…I received an email yesterday imploring all students to read the University of Dallas academic honesty and ethics policies found online at {link}. I click on the link and…dead link. I think my capstone project should be re-engineering their website.

Okay, this is the real reason I’m going back to school:

And by the by, I received confirmation that all of my classes thus far will be applied to my program…so I will be roughly 1/3 of the way through when I start back up. And, I get $750 off my first class which makes the whole thing sound like a “Buy One, Get One Degree 50% Off” sort of thing…but they’re marketing to downshifters like me.

It’s a brilliant idea…I mean, universities are businesses, too. Why pass up on all that potential revenue (not to mention an increase in their graduate base) by discouraging people from coming back, saying the work they did five, ten years ago doesn’t count anymore, or is now irrelevant? Instead…encourage them, woo them, and welcome them back with open arms and 1.2 free credit hours! They’ll be so excited they’ll never notice the exhorbitant tuition they’re paying and won’t blink when the required texts total $450.

Reposted from last week…had to get my bearings about me before officially throwing this out there…

Have any of you gotten to that point where…you’re getting restless with your life…for the second, or third, time? I suspect this is when a lot of married women decide to have children, but since that isn’t in our Master Plan…I have to look to other things.

Not to turn this into a work rant (because really, how unbelievably dull and uninteresting is that)…but in the last year or so, my job has changed drastically and has devolved into a daily series of tasks which honestly, are completely unrelated to my skill-set…to put it diplomatically.

Having said that, the last time I was restless like this…oh…ten years ago, I started my MBA program back in Sacramento. When I moved to Dallas in ‘98, I switched to the MBA program at UT Dallas…and then decided not to continue when my programming class (required as part of my IT concentration, because all good managers know how to code Hello World! in C++) took place in a classroom without computers. No joke…we had to hand-write the code for Hello World! and turn it in. That wasn’t the sort of non-cutting-edge program I wanted to be involved in, even though I had successfully defeated the Calculus Monster the previous semester and didn’t want that effort to go to waste.

Then, University of Dallas started offering MBA courses at my workplace…and online…so I transferred all of my completed coursework there. After six years at that company and three additional classes (thank you, tuition reimbursement), I quit and went elsewhere and…well…life happened. You know how it is.

I recently joined LinkedIn and reconnected with some colleagues from my past, and am a bit embarrassed at where I am compared to them. I’ve never really been competitive professionally, but when you see contemporaries who have their MBAs now and are working in more substantial jobs than you, you tend to wonder if you’ve gone off-course. Generally, I’ll talk myself out of feeling a bit inferior by declaring how wonderful it is to work from home…and that I have flexibility they don’t…blah, blah. After three years here though, I’m wondering just how wonderful, ultimately, it really is.

Which, reminds me of a quote from When Harry Met Sally…and the sort of funky analogy it represents…

Sally: And Joe and I used to talk about it, and we’d say we were so lucky we have this wonderful relationship, we can have sex on the kitchen floor and not worry about the kids walking in. We can fly off to Rome on a moment’s notice. And then one day I was taking Alice’s little girl for the afternoon because I’d promised to take her to the circus, and we were in the cab playing “I Spy” - I spy a mailbox, I spy a lamp-post - and she looked out the window and she saw this man and this woman with these two little kids. And the man had one of the little kids on his shoulders, and she said, “I spy a family.” And I started to cry. You know, I just started crying. And I went home, and I said, “The thing is, Joe, we never do fly off to Rome on a moment’s notice.
Harry: And the kitchen floor?
Sally: [sadly] Not once. It’s this very cold, hard Mexican ceramic tile.

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