financial aid and rants and raves

Oh shit, we're out of what?!

In writing about financial collapse, I've always held one belief over all others: saving your way through this great reset will be nearly impossible. Bottom line, it isn't practical for anyone but the most hardcore preppers. This doesn't mean I and everyone else couldn't be better prepared. Still, something always goes wrong in a way you couldn't anticipate, and you have the hope someone you know has what you need, be it a consumer good or a service. Nowhere was this more apparent than with paper products and meat.

Although the pandemic started in December, it didn't really hit until mid-March, with New York's cases and deaths exploding through May. As the economy shut down, people were forced to stay and work from home, and suddenly all these biological functions, usually completed at your job with supplies provided by your employer, were now taking place at your home, so a few rolls of toilet paper and paper towels weren't enough. On this topic I consider myself an accidental prepper, since I shop at BJ's and therefore buy in bulk, so we were decently stocked. We did run low from time to time, which for us was a normal supply for most households, but I never felt safe in what we had.

Others were not so lucky; BJ's went weeks without either product, and on the rare days when it did have some, both were sold out within the first two hours of opening. This was with the store rationing the products. Everyone could get one package of each, regardless of size, and it was enforced. I never tried to get around the rule by buying multiple cases in the same day on different transactions, but I doubt it would have worked anyway. You have to scan your membership card, so the store would know if you're buying too many of the limited items. If we were running low, and BJ's was out of what we needed, I fell back on a strategy I learned while looking for gas in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy: go local. The smaller convenience stores almost always had a roll or two, and Foodtown sometimes had some, though not as often. You were limited as to how much you could buy at all stores, but our household of three managed. You also couldn't be picky. The Foodtown brand of either paper was terrible, and people bought them as a last resort, but they were purchased. One day I saw every almost all types of toilet paper gone, save for a huge pile  of Foodtown's generic stock. I had to laugh; evidently people still had some standards. They still sold out by the end of the day, and yes, I went back to check. Of course, I bought a roll for myself and suffered for the sake of the experiment. Why paper products were in such limited supply was evidently due to separate supply chains, one for commercial properties, and one for grocery stores, and no companies pivoted in time to make up for the shortfall. It's a lost opportunity.

Meat was a similar story, but with more urgency. Carolyn works with a sniffer dog, and the puppy has a sensitive stomach, so she has special dog food which is supplemented with boiled chicken breast. It's not really optional, unless we want to buy new carpets every few weeks. In fact, she eats so much more of the latter versus the former that you could switch the two. Here things were more dicey. Again, we never ran out, but it was much closer, and convenience stores usually don't carry raw meat. The answer was to get it whenever we could, regardless of the quality or price, and cross our fingers. I'm concentrating on raw chicken breast, but all meats were in short supply. I'll eat anything, but we had to have chicken breast. If we had a temporary surplus, we threw it in the freezer. We made it through, thankfully. The reduced supply was caused by meat packing plants and slaughterhouses having to shut down because of COVID sweeping through the employees. It took an executive order declaring these facilities as essential to get them back to work.


There are still sporadic shortages of both meat and paper goods, but nothing like April and May, when I trolled through BJ's everyday, trying to find what we needed and get some exercise at the same time. Still, stocking up now is wise, and out attic has plenty of both paper goods as a reserve. These are minor examples, and not having toilet paper or paper towels wouldn't have been an  emergency. Not having chicken breast would have been more serious. How about diapers or baby formula? Baby wipes were also in very short supply. I'm not aware of any medical shortages beyond testing capacity for COVID and the few proven medications used to treat the disease when used off-label. However, major shortages could have occurred, and I, along with most people, would have been caught unprepared.

and I'm still at home.

For someone who's been writing about the end of the world for 15 years, I've been all but mute through this whole pandemic saga. I simply couldn't out into words the fear, sadness, anger, frustration, and all these other negative emotions that overwhelmed me and so many others. As I type this on 06/15/20, we're still knee-deep in the crisis, though things have eased somewhat. Millions are sick; hundreds of thousands have died, and the economy is all but ruined for the next few years - if we're lucky. Basically, we are teetering on the edge of complete collapse, and I'm not even discussing the civil unrest going on right now due to the tragic death of a black man in Minneapolis.

Setting aside the horrific death of George Floyd, since that deserves its own post, the world really isn't ending, but dramatically changing due to circumstance that would have been impossible to predict, other than another epidemic was statically inevitable. President Trump disbanding the pandemic response team obviously didn't help our..., well..., response.

Still, I believe my lack of writing is my own shame. On at least one level, I was absolutely correct, and on another mostly correct, but on so many others, I was not. I have been preparing for the end of the world, or at least I flattered myself by thing that I was, spending all this time and money studying, gaining skills, gathering documents, ad nauseam, and all my efforts amounted to almost nothing. I was safe enough where I lived, and my job continues to exist, so we're not in any immediate danger of homelessness. None of us have gotten sick; there is plenty of food in the fridge; we have kept our jobs even as our income is down, but we did not thrive, especially in the beginning. This could be seen as being successful in my preparations, but it didn't feel that way. Carolyn and I are very lucky in that she has a position in an essential industry, and I can work from home, and that the lockdown began in the slowest time of year for me, but none of that was designed to survive a disaster. When the pandemic started, I was as hopeless as everyone else, prepping be damned.

Nowhere was this more clear than with the death of my mother. Although tragic, her passing was not a surprise -  her health was poor and she fell out of her bed some months prior, breaking her hip. We knew what was coming. Still, I was unable to visit her at the end because of COVID-19, and Karl and I have not been able to have a proper funeral over two months later. We may not be able to have one until there's some sort of vaccine, and if we're very lucky, that might be November or December. I'm also quite worried about my dad in Germany. If he dies in the near future, I may not even be able to enter the country to help with the burial.

All of these circumstances made me realize a flaw in the logic of so many in the survivalist/prepper/expat/FIRE communities. As dire as our predictions usually are, most of us assume, to one degree or another, the existence of the system, however one defines it. Furthermore, it is required for all but the most extreme members of these groups, and the vast majority have plans and expectations based on what the system provides, myself absolutely included. In March and April, it seemed those visions of the future were gone forever.

Life will go on, in whatever form it takes. For those of us who survive more or less in tact, we will have much work to do. We'll mourn our dead, and adjust to whatever we define as normal going forward. I'll bury my mom, and soon my dad, if needed, and if I'm allowed. Until then, I will wait, walking next to the river, working from home, and castigating myself for the weakness in my approach. I'll also be posting, since the damn has been broken.

Life on lockdown.

When historians and pundits look back at our current situation, will they look at the loss of life, the political blame game, or the economic damage? I have a feeling it will be the last facet more than the others. The planet is all but shut down, all because of a virus previously known for causing the common cold. The New York City area has been hit especially hard, due to our walking culture and population density. Southern Westchester became an epicenter, with New Rochelle on full lockdown, enforced by the National Guard. The story was published 3 weeks ago and the forced quarantine has been lifted, only to be replaced by a more general shutdown all over the state. Stores are closed; people are either working from home or are laid off, hoping for a lifting of these conditions or unemployment. There's a massive stimulus bill preparing to shower money on businesses and individuals. It won't be enough, unless people are also free to move about, spending and earning as they go.

I share a text chain with Scott and two other guys with a similar political and economic world view, and unless I feel I have something helpful or interesting to say, I usually stay quiet. One of the things I did say, as the four of us were debating stimulus, New York's policy choices, etc. was that money is basically an illusion. It has value because we say it does, and the government enforces that belief with the force of law behind it. I've said much the same on this blog. The economy is not an illusion, but because it uses currency, rather than the direct barter of physical goods and services, it does require some degree of faith. I believe this dollars I'm receiving today will allow me to buy something I need in the future. Right now I can't buy anything beyond food and gas. Even Amazon is delaying shipments on non-essential items, but I haven't been tempted to waste money shopping online anyway.

The crisis is imminent.
Please read part 1 here, part 2 here, and part 3 here.

In the months that have transpired since I started this series, all Hell has broken loose in the form of the common cold. Because of that, what I was going to write in an effort to provide an overview doesn't really matter. There's a nasty bug that needs swatting. Time to move on.

The golden handcuffs are starting to pinch.

Please read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

Meandering down the path from the general to the specific, the last aspect of financial aid to be covered is the college. I've made many predictions throughout this space, but the recurring thread was always this: my salary, vacation, health care, status as a faculty member, etc., are all well beyond what I would get at other schools, and that the school would do everything it could to take away at least some of these things. Theses changes would have to be negotiated, but eventually the college would put its foot down and attain these concessions by setting the teachers, librarians, academic support coordinators, etc. against the counselors. We're a sizable percentage of the bargaining unit, but not so large we can't be outvoted when approving a contract. I also speculated that some of the impetus for this would come from the County, and some would be internal to the school. I further speculated that the college would fight a war of attrition, reducing or eliminating overtime, not replacing people who retire, etc. While my guesses about the school trying taking away all our perks was, for the moment, mostly correct, I was spot on about the attrition. If anything, I was too optimistic.

First, I was wrong about the County spearheading our negotiations. They're involved, of course, but any of the outsized demands are not coming from White Plains. If there's an outside force driving what the college wants, it's from higher up the food chain. I do have suspicions about greater agendas in play, but the County government is now exclusively labor friendly, to the point the tax cap allows. On the other hand, it doesn't seem White Plains is helping us either.

Second, my overall prediction about the college taking away anything was poorly worded. What I should have said is that the college would actually get serious about the union negotiations, and then we would lose these things. Reducing our vacation, getting us to pay for healthcare, etc., have been sought by the college long before I was hired, but the reason I still called them predictions is that the faculty never really took these demands seriously, and I'm not sure the college did either. I was always more leery than my colleagues, but even I wasn't all that concerned. This has changed. Now the linchpin of getting a new contract is the counselors giving up 6 weeks or more of vacation, along with a substantial increase in everyone's contribution to our healthcare. The reasoning behind reducing our vacation is that this is how things worked 45 years ago, and they want that restored. It's nonsense, but that doesn't really matter; when a contract is up for negotiation, everything is on the table. To get these concessions, the administration is dangling a whopping 1% raise as compensation. The increase in our payroll deductions for insurance would be more than the raise, so all of this is a nonstarter. Furthermore, not only aren't there any other bribes for the teachers, the college is also demanding the teachers have more office time, teach more hours, and participate in advising. While I don't believe the demands are mere posturing, the strategy is lacking. We have had contentious negotiations in the past, but never have I seen such animosity. We have given a counter offer, which I wrote, stating that new hires get less vacation, but get more holidays, etc. I didn't actually believe we'd proffer it to the administration's negotiators, but thankfully they reacted as incredulously as we did to their offer. The two sides will joust and feint and meet again and again, both sides conceding small issues so we're seen as bargaining in good faith. Beyond that, we're at a stalemate, and thanks to two strange quirks in the law, my union is very happy about that.

The first reason we don't mind zero progress is the Taylor Act. It's a state law that covers civil servants in New York, most often referenced when public school teachers threaten to strike. Legally they can't, and this law is the reason. While preventing public sector workers from going on strike is probably the most important part of the law, there's another part that is also important: until a new contract is signed, the old one remains in effect. so while we can't take a negative job action, neither can the County. We're quite content to keep getting paid, taking our ample vacation, and paying smaller sums into our health insurance while the two sides butt heads. I may not be getting paid more, but I'm not losing anything either. I remarked to one of my clerks that the last contract we signed may be the last one I see, and that would be true for her union as well.

The second reason we're happy with the standstill is the Janus case. A boon to Republicans who hate civil servants (wait, does that mean I hate myself?), it prevents pubic workers from being required to join the union on any level. Prior to the decision, you would still be required to pay dues via agency fees, even if you didn't want to join the union itself, usually for religious reasons. While many were hoping that Janus would cause the death of public unions, that hasn't quite happened yet. One of the effects it has had is making the union work much harder for marginalized groups within the local. For our last contract, that was the adjunct faculty, who got a sick day, the opportunity to contribute to a retirement plan, etc. Although some of my fellow counselors were annoyed at the focus given to the adjuncts, I understood why the union fought so hard for that group. There's no longer a requirement that the adjuncts join the union, gain very little from their membership, and can't really afford the dues in the first place. We had to give them a reason to support us, and we did.

Just as the union had to give extra attention to the adjuncts, the leadership and negotiating team know that they need to fight for the counselors. The teachers are supporting us at the moment, but we cannot take that for granted.  If  the rest of the unit did betray us and then we all left the union en masse, it would cripple the unit. Moreover, it would still be legally required to defend us, though as our local's president always states at our meetings, the defense doesn't have to be good. News flash: that defense sucks now. The union needs us, and we need the union, but the power balance has shifted. It's not a 50/50 split, but we have an option that we didn't have before.

If nothing good is happening with our union negotiations, nothing bad is happening either, save for a general level of disrespect shown to the counselors. We can handle that, even as we feel insulted. The war of attrition is another matter. Here we have real-world stakes and consequences. First, the overtime was reduced. This began a while ago, and it caused friction amongst the counselors. The extra time is given on the basis of seniority, so the counselors who have been here the longest, and by extension make the most money, snapped up all the available overtime. This was always the policy, but there was enough overtime that everyone could get an extra night. That was no longer the case, and now the available overtime is even further reduced, resulting in even more uneven treatment and resentment.

Next came staggering our shifts, basically eliminating any overtime on campus outside of peak registration. Normally, we're all scheduled from 8-5, and if you worked in the evening, you got paid overtime. Now it's like when I was first hired: on the nights an office is open until 8, you would come to work at 11, get an hour for lunch, then work until the evening. Again, seniority is a factor, and the available slots are 8-5 or 10-7. Those with the most time all chose the 8-5 shift, insuring they get a good parking spot and get out at a decent hour. Our new people, younger and often with young kids, get stuck working late. It's an easier shift for the most part, but disruptive. All of this has caused further resentment in out ranks, and I can't help but wonder if that wasn't by design.

Finally, two major changes have been taking place very recently. One was that retirees were not being replaced at the same rate. If 3 people left, one full time counselor was hired and perhaps an adjunct was given an extra night. Also, each of the extension sites has an academic advisor who is an adjunct, and that means further reduced overtime and fewer new full time, tenure eligible hires. Does this hurt students? Absent any hard data, I'll rely on my intuition and say yes. I do know the academic advisors are very stressed as their caseloads increase and their take-home pay shrinks. The second change was one that shook everyone in the faculty to the core: a counselor didn't get tenure. Though the senior faculty make a big deal out of getting tenure, if only to justify both the stress we had suffered and the process itself, it's generally assumed you'll get it. Until now, the only two counselors who didn't get it either had major personal problems or was caught trolling for hookers in a County car while he was supposed to be at a high school. Never before has a counselor been denied tenure who was good at his job and didn't commit some major sin, like sleeping with a student. This time someone lost his job for purely personal reasons, and we're shocked and furious at all the relevant parties: the president, the dean, the union, even the employee himself for not playing the small political game well enough. If I had known what was happening, I could have stopped it, but I was unaware, so I'm also mad at myself. Until you get tenure, you're at-will, and can be fired without cause. In this case the rationale seems to be that he was inappropriate with students, and he was always considered extremely good looking to the point his looks crested the bell curve of maximum benefit and went hurtling downhill. All the female students wanted him, but there's no evidence he gave into temptation. We wanted to fight, and I told him to fight, but all he got was his salary until August 2020. An 8 month paid vacation is a decent consolation prize, but that's all it is. This was pure bullshit, and there was nothing anyone could do by the time the decision was made.

Ironically, most of these recent negative changes have not affected the financial aid office. Our staffing levels were reduced long ago, and more recently, we only lost a little overtime compared to other offices. We pay the bills, so cutting our budget any further is seen as counter productive. As for the other forms of attrition, we're somewhat immune - for now. It takes around 5 years to be good at this job, though I can help a neophyte become competent in around 2-3. Eventually our overtime and staffing levels will be reduced, but nothing like the academic advisors. I'm also happy to say that the internal strife hasn't hit the financial aid office either. We could be dicks and grab all the extra money for ourselves, but we work too closely together, and I don't believe we're that greedy anyway.

Reading and editing this post, I'm struck that while I say that I'm right about the war of attrition, it hasn't affected my office all that much, at least for now. Parts 1 and 2 are exclusively about financial aid, but this is more workplace observations than anything. It's financial aid because I'm a financial aid counselor. Regardless, it is time for the final entry in this series: tying everything together.