A final note to economics

The one important thing i'll take away from managerial economics is this.

Marginal Revenue = Marginal Costs

I just saved you $2,000 and 10 weeks of your time.

26. May 2008 23:53 by Administrator | Comments (0) | Permalink

It's official. Today is the day that the school has died.

I hate to say it but I announce I officially quit graduate school.

I can’t help but consider the overwhelming cost that would be out of pocket to complete the degrees. I’m looking at another 56,000 to complete another two years of the degree. My current employer doesn’t find any value in continuing education, and puts more emphasis on internal groups/communities than continuing education. For that matter my company doesn’t even count gaining certifications towards my contribution towards the company.

I’ve taken a relatively staunch stance on the subject. The company wants to use my Microsoft certifications towards the Microsoft Gold partnership, yet won’t count them towards my internal contributions for the year. For that matter the company never paid for them in the first place while working there. I don’t think I should be required to provide my ID for association to the company for something the company did not count to my benefit on the review. Perhaps I’m being too hard line on the subject. I’d be open to hear other opinions on the subject.

I have another certification coming soon that I’ve taken on my shoulders. It sometimes feels like all the years I’ve gone to school/college have conditioned me so that learning doesn’t amount to anything until I’ve taken a standardized test to validate my having learned the subject. It’s strange how we can look at our own behavior after such a long period of formal education. I sometimes compare myself with another associate who went an entirely different education route. The contrasts are sharp, but at least we’ve both the bandwidth to understand one another.

The end of school also carries with it a beginning to something new. There has been a new company formed that I’ll be putting my energy into getting off the ground. I’ve devoted all my spare time, my weekends, and anything in-between in order to help. If it takes 100 hours a week I’ll gladly give it up to support the new venture. That is the one good thing I can say I’ve gained from having been a consultant. While working as a consultant you tend to lose focus on exactly what company you’re working for, you can develop an attachment to clients, and it’s too easy to become vested. I can see a lot of older consultants in the field have managed to master the idea that a consultant is just a wrench that works on many different machines. The wrench may belong to many different toolboxes during the period they’re useful, and eventually the consultant knows they are belong to nothing. Silly pun intended.

It should be an eventful summer what with having the client, parent company, and new venture all going together. I’m going to be very tired but I can say I’m energized by the prospects. If it works it works, if it doesn’t work, I can always try again, but either way it will be more income coming in. I think we’ll be able to do a lot of neat new things, no attachments, and there is so much opportunity it’s incredible. I’m looking forward to this new step. I’m a little sad to see school leaving my life, maybe if I get enough money in the future I’ll take a PhD program for fun, but until then I’m walking away with my two degrees.

26. May 2008 23:47 by Rampidbyter | Comments (0) | Permalink

Its begun...

Some of you may know this, and some of you may not. I guess it depends on who actually reads this blog other than me. I tell you, whoever is writing this blog has no concept of proof-reading or verifying the correct use of grammar. I will say in my defense that on my GRE I scored higher than 78% of all graduate students in the writing portion of the test. So of all doctors, lawyers, and English professors I beat the majority of you. We won’t discuss my math score because that has no relevance in my industry of computer technology. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

 

Anyway, I just want to tell you that operation make it happen has happened. In the matter of a month it’s gone into full swing, in two weeks it will be registered in the state, and there is the beginning of a list of people to use the service. In addition there is a full list of potential people whom I’ll be hitting up shortly. It’s fantastic, it’s starting quickly, and hopefully in the next few months it’ll be self-sustaining. I’m excited, heck we’re all excited, and I’m sure this will be a very profitable venture.

 

So cheers pickle it’s begun. To all who thought it couldn’t/wouldn’t happen jog off mates.

15. May 2008 20:58 by Rampidbyter | Comments (0) | Permalink

Week end review.

Thursday was my first day of financial analysis tools a level 700 finance class, and all I can say is wow. I learned so much in the four hour period that my head felt like it would pop. I can now tell you how to calculate future value or present value of money given a period of time, interest rate, and any combination thereof. It was so much information I felt like my head would pop, but I did meet a very nice lady from China who talked to me for a little bit. Pretty nice girl, finishing her masters in statistics, but I won’t hold that against her.

Anyway, after another grueling 15+ hour day I was unloaded on from my main boss when the clock struck four and I started to head out. Turns out the program he’d told me earlier in the day that ‘he’d like it soon’, well he actually meant the next day by 8am, and I don’t get in till 6:40amish. I have to tell you the program I’ve been revamping (program 2 or 3) was in horrid condition. It was totally linked to older servers with old data tables, and absolutely no comments as to what did what. All the methods, variables, and everything you could possibly imagine was some sort of abbreviation that meant absolutely nothing to me. I had to literally read line by line and refractor everything. So after a full day of working on what I’d assume was months worth of work by this guy I was asked to have it ready the next day by 8am. Sadly that was beyond my means so my main boss was not exactly pleased.

Be sure I’ll expand on my experiences with school in more detail, but for now I’m off to get more work accomplished.

11. January 2008 04:46 by Administrator | Comments (0) | Permalink

Off and running, well that's half true anyways...

Well I started graduate school. Who would have thought? I started graduate school with one heck of a bad week. First my tire blew out on my truck leaving me stuck with trying to change the spare tire. Unfortunately Ford thought it would be a fantastic idea to make getting the full size spare tire off the truck damned near impossible by requiring a spare tire lock key that is inserted through a hole in the bumper with a four foot long crank. Then you have to crank counterclockwise until your arms fall off to drop the spare tire down to where you can even get it. If that seems easy enough, well, if you’re missing the spare tire lock key (due to used truck purchase) you might as well lube your thumb up because you’re going to be thumbing for a ride. I even tried two calls to AAA over a two day period amounted to the first day getting the wrong type of tow truck sent out (I have a 4x4 that requires full flat bed.) Even on the second attempt took over four hours so I just canceled it because the tire stores were all closed. So that left me trying to crank on the spare tire to get it off, but thankfully the braided steel wire would not decent, the cranking amounted to an hour of wasted time, and the only thing left was to get up under there to losen the line up. So I got up under the truck bed with a wrench and started turning on the end of the tire retaining bar. Next thing I know I hear a loud pop and feel a crushing pain on my wrist as the tire litterally drops straight down onto my then rotating wrist. Ouch to say the least. A few choice words later I was able to finally (after three days) change my spare tire. Thank you Ford. So that started my week off with a bang.

The first day started out as such, drive to work, get to my desk at 6:50am, work with no lunch until 3:40pm (usually here till 5pm but left early to scope out the school), drive downtown get there close to or at 5pm. I get out of the truck to find a weird feeling like my undershirt fell down around my waste. I started walking out of the parking garage (cost 7 dollars to park how unbelievable!) and it feels like my shirt is getting bunched up and falling lower. It wasn’t until that point that I realized that it was not my shirt but my underoos! With each step I took the farther they fell. How unlikely is it that your underwear would fell off while you had pants on?! So I’m walking around in a strange new school having no idea where the bathrooms are with what I’d only imagine was a growing band of underwear line growing down around my hips. Women complain about panty lines they should try having this happen to them, but anyway I’m walking around looking for a bathroom and notice a few odd looks my way. It was the most embarrassing thing that could happen barring that the pants entirely should drop, but I sure did make an interesting impression with my hands in my pockets trying to hold my drawers up. Ended up having to make two trips to the bathroom in order to get the situation somewhat manageable by tucking the rim over and around my belt to keep them from dropping again during class.

I think that had to be the best part of the whole experience right there because four hours later I had a new appreciation for how normal people never had to wrap microeconomics in their heads. I’ll expand on that concept a little later on, but for now graduate school is starting off nicely… sarcasm and all.

8. January 2008 21:44 by Administrator | Comments (1) | Permalink

School starts soon...

Anxiety is growing over the upcoming beginning of graduate school. I remember when I first started the bachelors degree about three and a half years ago and how nervous I was. I’m getting that whole nervous feeling all over again except this time I’m getting it mixed with feelings of not wanting to go back. I suppose it’s good in a way that I’m going back because if the feeling is this strong only eight months after graduating, then I can only imagine what it would be like after waiting five years like everyone keeps telling me. Even at work some of the managers warning me against going were saying they too wish they could go back, but don’t seem to have the time.

The problem is I’m taking this program and I’m not really sure whether this is what I want to do. I suppose the discipline that I’m taking gets me geared up for management, but I want to learn how and why electronics work. I have a robot kit that I’ve been playing with, books on embedded programming, and I’ve been in a constant state of study of programming languages. However, I’m going to school to learn business concepts such as economics, finance, and enterprise level information systems. There are 22 classes required for the degree, and while they seem to be informative I just am not interested. I think I’ll give graduate school a chance as I may come around. I hate to start something and not finish it. I started two degrees and carried each through, but this one may be the exception. Time will tell.

1. January 2008 06:56 by Administrator | Comments (0) | Permalink

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