Kaplan and the Grapes of Wrath - taking advantage of the labour market

Someone I know is really feeling the economy and is looking for a part time job to bide the time. He aced the GREs, so he thought... I'll be a part-time GRE instructor for Kaplan. After a grueling interview process spaced out over weeks and weeks, he was finally told that he was good to go and simply needed to come in for training.

The next training session, however, was full... so they would be in touch about the one after.

Upon inquiry, they only run training sessions when the need arises, so my friend will be in limbo until they deign to call upon him.

It turns out that Kaplan has high turn-over, so they interview about 300 hundred people for 30 spots and keep 270 as a huge reserve army. Unbeknownst to the interviewee, you will be at the beck and call of Kaplan in order to be a measly part-time GRE instructor. That's some dishonest, Grapes of Wrath bullshit.

It makes me think, that having labour unions is a lesser evil than not having labour unions.

Walk away people, walk away.

Invictus - William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul

Purpose

My friend once worked his ass off for a partner. When he was done presenting the results, the partner turned to him and said, "Wow. Thanks. I really couldn't have done this without you... or someone very much like you." I wonder if that partner even knew my friend's name.

Self improvement .... learn to program

here

Contract of the soul

So my company doesn't do severance packages. It does something called "transition". Which is part of the whole idea that no-one ever gets fired here.

While I was trying to argue with HR about why I should be eligible for "transition" (should this even be an argument?), the HR person told me some tomfoolery about how I wouldnt have to leave the country right after I quit/left. I am on an H1-B visa, as you know

After talking to some past employees and the company lawyer, I finally called the state department, where the woman on the other end of the line informed me of the reality. Yes, I will have to leave the country on my last day with the company, "with the recession, we've seen a lot of these cases. But don't worry, it's usually part of your contract that your company will pay for your ticket home."

When I informed her that I didn't have a contract, she actually apologized to me. She felt sorry for me, for how my company was treating me. I would be treated better if say, I worked cleaning hotel rooms in Florida... how upsetting.

We do not have contracts going into this firm. But we have to sign a lot of stuff when we leave. It's shocking really. I have not even taken a look at the confidentiality agreement yet, but one of the things I have to sign before they will release my hypothetical "transition" package is something that says I was treated fairly.... Not just that I have not been discriminated against... but that the company acted in good faith in all things and was basically awesome....


I'm not sure that is true.

Will I sign?

I do not work for this firm... but all experiences in this industry are similar... see here for an article.

And for your entertainment... a video

Special Airport Screening - gotta love it

On my way to South Carolina for a friend's wedding. Got pulled out of line for special screening. Instead of walking through the metal detectors, I had to go through line number 2, and stand between two 6-foot grey panels with my hands above my head and not so much as a piece of paper in my pockets... gotta love it. Does this really make people safer?

Her Morning Elegance

Discovered on a friend's blog here

It reminds me of so many things... somehow filling the viewer with nostalgia even while delighting with new ideas.

Most of all, it reminds me that when I was younger and I thought of the kind of woman I wanted to be... I wanted to be "lovely".

The loss of intuition

Today I retire this confession:

"I am a judger. I judge people and I am not ashamed. Dont get me wrong... I understand we all have moments of weakness. I just think that expecting less than the best from someone is the worst kind of condescension; a fine line from the tyranny of lowered expectations."

What does it mean to judge anyway? Am I judging when I hold you to my moral standards and find that you excel? Or is it just judging if the outcome is negative? Isn't it "judging" when I simply think I know anything about you at all? How can I possibly know you?

I will instead confess this:

"I didn't know before, and I wouldn't like to admit it, but I am emotional and naive. My intuition has been my guide to-date. Now that I don't trust it anymore, I am lost."

Square Peg, Round Hole - the break with Consulting

So my manager flipped her shit over the passed two weeks and apparently had a couple meetings which will probably result in me being fired earlier than I had hoped... I find out on Monday. They say, that the case I was on was "below my level", so the good work that I did do for 4 months, doesn't count, and for some reason, the opinion of my supervisor (who thought I did great) doesn't count. What apparently does matter, is the dubious last two weeks of the case where I really didn't have much to do at all. All that is left is this crazy manager of mine, who without actually really ever looking at my work and while ignoring the person who does see my work, has decided that I am not up to scratch. But it's not just her, it can't be... someone staffed me in the position where I couldn't win, people refused to listen when my supervisor had a differing opinion, someone decided to have that meeting where neither I nor my supervisor were involved or spoken to, to decide my fate. And my teammates had to be complicit... one fellow is running around showing my work as his - perhaps he will get that early promotion he is gunning for. My consensus reviewer assured me, "your opinion was heard". How is that possible when noone asked me what my opinion was? There is something, wholly inconsistent and deeply disturbing about this whole process.

It begs the question... if they set me up to fail... what did they expect? It posits the answer... they expected me to fail. You can't win if you are constantly asked to change someone's opinion of you.

My consensus reviewer decided to tell me that I had all the qualities to be great at this job, even more so than some people who are great at this job, but something just didnt click... it was like fitting a sqaure peg into a round hole.

After this news, I go back to my desk from which I can see through the glass doors of the adjacent conference room. Inside was my manager and the rest of the team, and projected on the screen was the model I had built to "help" my teammate. In that moment I learnt the definition of so many words... wrath, outrage, insult, frustration...

So, this is not just to rant. But to preserve for posterity. And hopefully warn any of you against the dangers of corporate america and in particular big consulting firms. These are not meritocracies, you will not be judged on the quality of your work, you will be asked to do shitty things for money and the worse thing you can do is not fit in.

Below is pretty much a day in the life.

United World College

The effectiveness of the United World College sneaks up on you over time. Every conflict, every terrorist attack, every war, every injustice becomes personal... not just because we were taught to be "global citizens", but because we know people in all these places, caught on both side of a war, washed away in that tsunami, crushed in that earthquake...

The other day there was a bombing of a random cafe in India called the German Bakery. I have to wonder, are my freinds ok?

Below is a project that someone below me in school is working on... a small documentary on the groundwater in Delhi. Not revolutionizing the world in the traditional sense, but changing the way we think about the world may be just as powerful...

http://www.groundwaterup.com/

The Mad Cow - Hormones and the mind

You've heard the old joke... Why do they call PMS, "PMS"... because "Mad Cow Disease" was taken.

Without going into details of the ebb and flow of my hormones, I have come to realize that once a month every month I come to the realization that I am unattractive. After I finally noticed that I have this same thought every 28 days, I have learnt to laugh at myself and think "this too will pass". However, even armed with this self-knowledge I cannot prevent the thought from popping into my head. And between the moment of that thought and the moment of realization, I am often truly saddened.

We all, in some way witness the link between chemicals and thoughts. I think of the clinically depressed, and I wonder... even knowing that they are depressed, they cannot stop the thoughts from coming. Unlike me, they cannot laugh it off... because it never passes.

Smoking Gun?

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/emschool1.html

How to get a visa

Went home for Xmas and got my H1-B visa. The guy who interviewed me was crazy cute... I wonder how one gets into the foreign service? The window next to him was servicing the other types of visas. There were 20 rejections to every visa granted. People cried. Worse than that the whole process was kind of inhuman - waiting in line in the sun.. being shunted from here to there with no order or explanation. The US embassy in Jamaica really needs to learn how to treat human beings.

I got my visa a week later. It's a simple process if you have a job like mine I guess. It's a simple process if you are educated too and have a history of travelling. Next step... green card?

Anyway, on the way back into the country yesterday the customs officer looked at my documentation, smiled and me and said "welcome home". He was so warm, yet it sent shivers right through me. Is the US my home now, even if it doesn't feel like it is? Is Jamaica my home?

I saved my first million JA this year. I'm thinking of buying an acre of land out in Lucea. Is this a smart business move or just a way to mark my territory?

Morbid

I worry now that

every single day dream ends

in some form of death

Inspired

He tapped his bare chest
and the sound... it echoed in
every part of me

Health

Sick as a dog right now. I conducted a phone interview with a nurse at my GPs office. A couple of hours later I was picking up my prescription at the pharmacy near work. I am glad I got the antibiotics... But two things make me uneasy:

1. While I did briefly speak face to face with someone behind the desk at the labs, I never saw the nurse

2. How much is this going to cost me?

Recruiting and Social Capital

So here I am on the other side of recruiting.... playing my part in the interview process for the firm on my old campus. I feel luckier than ever now that I actually see the randomness that goes into whether you get an interview or not....

And just in case you were wondering... knowing someone on the inside does help (social capital at it's best/worst) and groups tend to unconsciously replicate themselves... that's why it's so hard to introduce diversity into the corporate world.

Theresa Ines tonight at the Beehive

O sonho é
Pra cada mulher
O que se faz
O que se quer
E vai
Vai seguindo como dá
Junta tudo o que se tem
E espera um novo alguém

All women
Have the same dream
To be true
To our heart's desires
And keep moving
The way we can
Gathering all we have learned
To share with someone new

Sounds familiar. Sounds like it could be true, but is it?

Are you Happy? Sad? Jealous?

This last week's economist ran an ad that started "Are you Happy? Sad? Jealous?; Understanding the importance of your emotions in 24 lectures from an award winning professor." It's an odd little course you can order from Dr Robert C Solomon and the write-up goes on to claim that,

"By probing these thinkers and presenting his own views, The Passions: Philosophy and the Intelligence of Emotions will lead you to a remarkable conclusion: Emotions have intelligence and provide personal strategies that are vitally important to our everyday lives of perceiving, evaluating, appraising, understanding, and acting in the world."

Maybe it was reading those words, or the hours of what I now realize was subconscious agonizing that finally put a light bulb over my head. Either way, something became clear yesterday when a work colleague gave me some mixed news. She told me, that she had a clandestine wedding - she got married after 5 months of dating some guy - and that she was quitting the job next month because "consulting was just not for her." Putting aside the fact that she is probably not telling me the whole story, the news washed over me in waves of unfamiliar emotions. I felt ... cold shock, followed by a brief dip into sadness and then a brightening, clear, honest jealousy.

That's right, jealousy... and it felt so good because with it came realization... no, I do not want to be married right now, but I do want to be free of this job. It has nothing to do with my ability to get the job done. No one at this point could possibly accuse me of laziness. It's not even that I am not cut out for the work force. I simply derive very little pleasure from the work I do and the people I work for. In fact, now that I am admitting things to myself, I think it has been making me a little unhappy. I have made a terrible mistake. I have made an even bigger mistake letting the job get in the way of me preparing for my future and doing the things that make me happy.

Don't worry. I am not quitting and I am not going to stop working hard. I just feel light and clear. Now I know why I have been feeling a bit off. It is resolved in my mind and now I can emotionally de-invest and reapply myself to the things in my life, present and future.

Enjoy the Arrested development reference while I try and sort out my life

Copley Square, Boston

My crappy blackberry camera doesn't do this justice. I was walking to the T past Copley Square yesterday and looked up. This is one of my favourite buldings in Boston... it is completely reflective. On a clear day, it shines bright blue and looks almost metallic. On a day like this it mimics the cloud-cover and blends into the sky...