Wednesday, February 10, 2016
I love podcasts, or...
My so (not) money moment...
Podcasts are a great way to keep up on current events, learn new information, , and I love listening to them while I drive, exercise, or burn through folders at work. An audio library of stories, opinions, facts, and general conversation, you could spend all your waking hours listening and not even come close to barely scratching the surface. My favorites include Bill Simmons, Tim Ferriss, buying and building your own business, etc. One of my particular faves is Farnoosh Torabi's "So Money Podcast," because of the topics covered and the host's skill at presenting them in a cohesive and clear manner. One of her staples is to ask the guest what his or her money mantra is, i.e., what is your overarching philosophy of money. Since the guests are all successful, the answers are generally positive and empowering, though some shade their answers with admonishments or warnings. It took a while for me to answer the question for myself, and in keeping with my own experience and my dealings with older students, my was both negative and dis-empowering: do not believe that you have an unlimited amount of time and opportunity to change course or fix mistakes. Your relevancy in the world around you is finite, and life will eventually move on without you, no matter how competent or dynamic you feel yourself to be. This isn't merely a function of age (thought it's a huge factor), nor is it directly about money, but it applies so well to financial and professional situations it would still be my answer. I'll never be able to fix my retirement in the conventional sense, for one, and that mistake happened when I was 30. It's also applicable now, as I see the changes in my office and know that I've been left behind. Can I adapt? In the short term, yes. The over staffing I described in the last post is an issue, one that will be corrected whether I work here or not. With that comes a change in the division of responsibilities, the uneven distribution of which is one of the reasons I'm feeling so irrelevant right now.
We all had our own roles to play in the office. I am excellent at public speaking, so I went to high schools, civic organizations, etc. Other counselors managed our book voucher program, etc. As rules changed, programs were introduced, and more people were hired, everyone got new responsibilities. The risible Academic Competitiveness Grant (ACG) was my headache, for example. All this reached another level when the college introduced People Soft in 2013, an HR database re-purposed for college administration. It's also unwieldy, mistake-riddled, and difficult to learn. It's worth the expense and trouble in the long-term, but the learning curve in the first 5 years is steep and miserable for the employees. Once those 5 years pass, your productivity skyrockets, which is where we are now. Specific counselors were in charge of working on specific tasks within People Soft, myself included, but others has much larger jobs while I did not. I had my own side job: veteran benefits.
When I first started working here, I was put in charge of the VA benefits, which was a small portion of the job until around 2008, when the Post 9/11 GI Bill was created, putting the GI Bill program on a path to becoming its own office. Until that happened in 2014, I was overwhelmed with work. Effectively, I was working 1.75 jobs at the same time, and I nearly quit several times. Because I had those tasks to complete , other responsibilities, all created by People Soft, were given to other counselors. I still help with VA students occasionally, and I can still certify students if needed, but hopefully it remains outside of my purview. For the moment, it's simply too large for me to do both. However, we haven't changed who does what or who cleans up this problem or services that group. I can count on this getting fixed, giving me more work and more reason for staying employed, but as mentioned, it's stop-gap solution, ignoring the larger issue of automation and structural changes at the school. Strategies to overcome those issues will force me to go back down the rabbit hole I thought I'd escaped. More on that in the next post.
Podcasts are a great way to keep up on current events, learn new information, , and I love listening to them while I drive, exercise, or burn through folders at work. An audio library of stories, opinions, facts, and general conversation, you could spend all your waking hours listening and not even come close to barely scratching the surface. My favorites include Bill Simmons, Tim Ferriss, buying and building your own business, etc. One of my particular faves is Farnoosh Torabi's "So Money Podcast," because of the topics covered and the host's skill at presenting them in a cohesive and clear manner. One of her staples is to ask the guest what his or her money mantra is, i.e., what is your overarching philosophy of money. Since the guests are all successful, the answers are generally positive and empowering, though some shade their answers with admonishments or warnings. It took a while for me to answer the question for myself, and in keeping with my own experience and my dealings with older students, my was both negative and dis-empowering: do not believe that you have an unlimited amount of time and opportunity to change course or fix mistakes. Your relevancy in the world around you is finite, and life will eventually move on without you, no matter how competent or dynamic you feel yourself to be. This isn't merely a function of age (thought it's a huge factor), nor is it directly about money, but it applies so well to financial and professional situations it would still be my answer. I'll never be able to fix my retirement in the conventional sense, for one, and that mistake happened when I was 30. It's also applicable now, as I see the changes in my office and know that I've been left behind. Can I adapt? In the short term, yes. The over staffing I described in the last post is an issue, one that will be corrected whether I work here or not. With that comes a change in the division of responsibilities, the uneven distribution of which is one of the reasons I'm feeling so irrelevant right now.
We all had our own roles to play in the office. I am excellent at public speaking, so I went to high schools, civic organizations, etc. Other counselors managed our book voucher program, etc. As rules changed, programs were introduced, and more people were hired, everyone got new responsibilities. The risible Academic Competitiveness Grant (ACG) was my headache, for example. All this reached another level when the college introduced People Soft in 2013, an HR database re-purposed for college administration. It's also unwieldy, mistake-riddled, and difficult to learn. It's worth the expense and trouble in the long-term, but the learning curve in the first 5 years is steep and miserable for the employees. Once those 5 years pass, your productivity skyrockets, which is where we are now. Specific counselors were in charge of working on specific tasks within People Soft, myself included, but others has much larger jobs while I did not. I had my own side job: veteran benefits.
When I first started working here, I was put in charge of the VA benefits, which was a small portion of the job until around 2008, when the Post 9/11 GI Bill was created, putting the GI Bill program on a path to becoming its own office. Until that happened in 2014, I was overwhelmed with work. Effectively, I was working 1.75 jobs at the same time, and I nearly quit several times. Because I had those tasks to complete , other responsibilities, all created by People Soft, were given to other counselors. I still help with VA students occasionally, and I can still certify students if needed, but hopefully it remains outside of my purview. For the moment, it's simply too large for me to do both. However, we haven't changed who does what or who cleans up this problem or services that group. I can count on this getting fixed, giving me more work and more reason for staying employed, but as mentioned, it's stop-gap solution, ignoring the larger issue of automation and structural changes at the school. Strategies to overcome those issues will force me to go back down the rabbit hole I thought I'd escaped. More on that in the next post.
