Post Grad: Job Search Week 1

My mood today is weird.  I feel the need to vent about my frustrations with the week, and I'm also hopeful about what the future holds.  So it leaves me feeling somewhat bi-polar in my attitudes.  My resolution today is that I'm going to take the day to reflect, I'm not going to talk to anyone about hiring me, or send out any more resumes, or cover letters.  It's all about me today, maybe I can find a sense of balance in doing so!

I read What Color is Your Parachute? A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers 2012 by Richard Bolles this week.  It's pretty awesome, has a ton of helpful advice, even if it is something I've heard before.  The thing that I liked most about it is that it has this neat little exercise that is soooo similar to Gail's HTGaJ class, but it has you put all your strengths and preferences in a flower design (I love flowers).  So I've been working on my flower exercise.  Gail's class is more geared toward finding your professional brand; not necessarily what you like to do, but what you're good at, then the rest of the time is spent learning the ins-and-outs of interviewing and professional writing.  I like this because it focuses on both your internal and external strengths.  After some reflection, I have decided that I want to pursue a career in non-profit management (not sure what type of management yet). I know I want to work with people. I know I want to plan, so maybe back to my project planning idea or project management for non-profit.  I'm sure as I finish my flower I'll know for sure!

I've been taking the advice that so many have given me, and started truly utilizing social media outlets. I really dug in and figured out how to effectively use Twitter.  Even if it does no good as far as searching for jobs right now, I feel that I'm making some valuable contacts with people in the Non-Profit sector.  This will be highly useful later in my career if I do ultimately decide to go that route.

I applied for several jobs with the University.  All of which can be considered along the lines of helping people. My favorite pick, and also the one I'm least likely to get (I think) is a position for Community Liaison through the Ingenuity Center.  In a nutshell, it involves working directly with the community to educate them on the importance of family and the reduction of abuse.  If I conveyed my summary of the work I've done with R.P. correctly, I might have a shot.  In all, including the jobs I applied for with the university, I probably made contact with and/or sent a resume to about 20 different employers.

I'm really excited about Rising Phoenix.  I wish I could do that for the rest of my life, but it doesn't pay.  On Tuesday, my co-chair, who was supposed to attend the House Meeting at the Crisis Center quit two hours before she was supposed to be there.  I feel relieved about her quitting, she was highly unproductive, and caused conflict about every decision that I made for the project.  At the same time, I feel sorry that she quit.  I know that deep down this project is important to her.  She says that it's my fault that she quit, that I'm too controlling; Dr. Wooldridge says that she's only being defensive.  I take that personally.  It is my last intention to control everything in the project, I just want to make sure it's successful.  Since I took over as chair at basically the last possible minute before we got going in December, I feel like I needed to push a little harder.  If I had taken over as lead back in September, it would not be so crucial that I check and double check everything.  I'm not saying this to make myself feel better, I just need to say it.

Christmas - Pagan or Religious?

Christmas Part 1

This Christmas has been something different all around.  For the first time, I've started to consider (thanks Brian. . .) whether the religious holiday we have all been brought up to celebrate is really what we think it is at all.  The long story short: Christmas eve morning, Brian and I were discussing several things in the Bible.  He stated that he watched a documentary once that showed Christmas as being invented by the Romans (it was actually the Winter Solstice) and the day of Christmas actually falls on the 25th because that was the last day of the Winter Solstice.  During the Winter Solstice, people were permitted to commit any mortal sin they wished to, and on the 25th they had to remember Christ who died for their sins and repent.  I agree that Christmas today is not what it was meant to be originally, but really?  Am I supposed to believe that we are not supposed to celebrate the birth of Christ at all? 

The debate found its way to Facebook, where two other friends joined in.  My brother's high school English Teacher brought up the point (with a source, of course!) that according to "The Man Who Invented Christmas" by Chip Wood (I'm sure that's a made up name, by the way),  Christmas was made to be a "big deal" (more or less) by Charles Dickens who wrote A Christmas Carol. Before 1843, Christmas wasn't really a holiday.  After self-publishing the book, it was adapted to a play - and the rest is history!  Everyone knows the story, and it's been remade year after year.  I even participated in the play when I was in 6th grade.  (Not a main role, of course.)

About the same time, a friend from my Lon Morris College Days (Meghan) said: "It's not the fact that it's pagan, it's the fact that the early Christians adopted a lot of pagan traditions a). because that was all they knew and b). because they wanted people to convert. The date December 25th was actually the birthday of the god Mithras, who was the god of Mithraism, a competing monotheistic religion during the same time as early Christianity. The actual date of Jesus Christ's birthday has been known to be in the summer time. Therefore the Christians adopted the December 25th date to try and outshine Mithraism. Certainly the tradition of decorating a tree is pagan."

Personally, I do not disagree that we definitely have adopted some very materialistic traditions, but the fact remainst that every Christmas morning, my dad would wake my brother and I up, and after all the excitement of opening our presents was over, he would sit us down at the kitchen table and read us the Christmas story straight from the bible.  I think that maybe we should remember Christmas for the real reason for the season, whether we choose to celebrate it in December, or otherwise, and that is that God gave us his son, he was a gift to this world.  My point still remains: yes, the Roman Catholics may have invented Christmas to atone themselves for their dirty-rotten sinning, but remembering that God gave his son is still important.  If we remember that, it doesn't matter what silly pagan traditions we adopt - our hearts are in the right place.  You might call me silly, or ignorant, but I have faith!  And I wont call you silly or ignorant for what you believe in. 

http://www.personalliberty.com/straight-talk/the-man-who-invented-christmas/

http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/mithraism.html
http://www.religioustolerance.org/xmas_tree.htm

Christmas Part 2

On Christmas Day, I ate dinner twice.  Something I don't normally do.  I ate with my family, and then that evening I ate with Brian's family (his dad's side).  He didn't tell me before we went that I was the first girl he'd ever brought to ANY family event, but his uncles told me.  I'm not sure exactly what to think about it, and he claims that he didn't tell me that because he didn't want it to go to my head.  But it did - not in a negative way, but in a "he actually really does care about me, enough to bring me around his family, and even if he doesn't always act like he cares" kind of way. 

People never cease to surprise me.

Thoughts on Apple, Inc.

Steve Jobs stepped down from the position of CEO of Apple this week.  He named his successor as Tim Cook who was presently the COO of Apple; there are mixed feelings as to whether this was a good idea or not.  Jobs is one of the greatest minds of our time, I'm not a fan of Apple products for personal reasons, however I respect the man behind the products.  The question is: will Apple survive without Jobs' new ideas fueling it?

All the people I know that use Apple were always talking about Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs = Apple.  Perhaps that is because I'm a business student, and Apple has been one of the fastest growing companies since I started business school on the technology field.  Since Jobs took over as CEO in '97 there have been many new products that have been developed by Apple.  The iMac, the iPod, the iPhone (HUGE one!), the iPad (another big one..).  Even the MacBook Air was a huge development, at least I thought it was pretty awesome, and even with the position of Apple products in my mind I would probably still buy one.  I realize that Steve Jobs did not single-handedly create all of those products, but he is the face of Apple, anyone else is just not the same.

Thanks Jobs, for your legacy and life's work.

Please note:  I didn't quote specifically any of the above information, however I did read several articles on the subject mostly from the New York Times.

Is the US President overpaid?

The average pay of a CEO in the US is $11 million a year with base salary and other compensation (such as bonuses and stock options, etc.) Keeping this in mind, think about what a CEO has to do: meetings, travel, planning for the future of the company he/she works for, etc.  It's just like a presidency, except people don't generally care about what the CEO of some company has to say.  

Out of 44 presidents, 4 have been assassinated while still in office.  In other words: 1 out of every 11 presidents dies.  There have been 20 known attempted assassinations on US Presidents, bringing the risk of losing your life in the position to nearly half.  On any given day, about half  (usually more) of the people in the country has something negative to say about the way the country is run, and it usually ends up being the president's fault for whatever happens; he is the face of the Federal Government.  

Just like the CEO, the president travels, has meetings, press conferences, and helps plan for the future of our country.  Granted, I do not know any of the supplements to the president's pay, base salary for the US president is only $400,000 a year.  compared to the average $1,093,989 (2011 base salary average) of S&P 500 companies, it's not even half.  

So, with all this information in mind when I read the following:

"Salary of the US President. ..$400,000 Salary of retired US Presidents ...$180,000 Salary of House/Senate...$174,000 Salary of Speaker of the House.. .$223,500 Salary of Majority/Minority Leaders... $193,400 Average Salary of Soldier DEPLOYED IN COMBAT $38,000 I think we found where the cuts should be made! If you agree... repost" 

as a status that is meant to become viral as some sort of protest to how much the President and other "highly-paid" government elected officials make compared to a Soldier, and how they should cut their salary, I tend to disagree.  I do, agree that our soldiers are underpaid, but I do NOT think that the salaries of those in charge are what is causing our debt problem in this country.  Excess spending on unnecessary items country-wide, and unwise choices on the types of products our government chooses to purchase for its personnel are more of a problem in my eyes.  (For example: my brother was partially in charge of reorders on batteries for his cutter in the USCG, and he told me that they would replace the batteries in every flashlight on the boat every month, whether it was used or not.) 

I think before people start screaming for pay cuts for the President and Congress, etc, they should look at where the rest of the  money goes.  The US debt increases at a rate of $50,000 every 2 seconds. I think we've got bigger problems than paying our president $400,000 a year.  

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Sources: 

https://www.opm.gov/oca/compmemo/2008/2008-01-attach1.pdf   Salaries of government personnel. 2008.

http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/  CEO pay-watch. 2011.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/  US Debt clock. 18 July 2011.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_assassination_attempts_and_plots  List of Presidential Assassination Attempts and Successes. 5 July 2011.