For a little over a year now, I have toiled under the oppressive yoke of H&R Block. No, there was never an actual yoke. And they weren’t… actively oppressive. And they did always work with me on my hours so I could attend classes and study for finals. Well, OK, it wasn’t really all that unreasonable in the end. But I toiled, darnit!
But in all seriousness, H&R Block was a black hole in which I risked losing myself. The promotions I would have gotten, had I stayed, would have been along the lines of a manager in a call center, and ten years later I would be making enough money to get by but not as much as I could have been; I also would be absolutely miserable at my job, and wondering why I never got out while I had the chance.
So you can imagine how happy I was to hear a recruiter from State Street utter the words “we have decided to offer you a position.”
Starting March 14th, I’ll be working in the Alternative Investments Taxation department for one of the largest holding company in the world. I’m going to be fairly low on the totem pole, and the work could almost be described as glorified data entry, but it is a job in my field, and the pay is substantially better than what I’m getting now. The pay is also regular, in that I don’t have to get my hours cut at the end of the tax season, or take a mandatory 8 weeks of unpaid leave. This means that, if in a couple of months I feel things are going well and the position is going to work out, I will be in a position to lease an apartment. The threat of being that 30-year old guy who lives with his parents is waning, and the future looks bright.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
I have seen my first play in 2011, and it was about women in corsets having orgasms at the doctor’s office.
In upstate New York in the near the end of the 19th century, humanity was on the brink of the industrial revolution. Edison and Tesla were still competing to see who would pioneer the pending renaissance. And doctors, filled with the kind hubris that comes from being an academic in an age of rapid technological advancement, were biting off substantially more than they could chew.
During this time, as medical science had yet to find its footing and was stumbling in the dark, frequently knocking things over. One of the catch-all diagnoses of the time- one that went less noticed what with all that outrageous lobotomy business looming just a few years down the road- was Hysteria, a condition that afflicted many women of the era. The symptoms were wide-ranging, and could be anything from excitability, depression, irritability, and pretty much any other end of the emotional spectrum. A common treatment for this was to induce a “paroxysm,” a series of convulsions that would allow excess fluid to drain from the womb, and permit the body and mind to regain their crucial balance. It was achieved through vaginal massage, usually administered on a weekly basis.
If the reader were to stop at this moment and scour the internet to appraise the accuracy of the above paragraph, that reader might find that, while generous artistic liberties may have been taken, it bares an unexpected resemblance to the truth.
To wit.
In the Next Room, or “The Vibrator Play,” is a story about a doctor of this time period, and the ministrations he renders upon those in his care. His cold and clinical demeanor run in stark contrast to the intimacy with which such an experience is meant to entail. For Dr. Givings, it is merely a medical procedure like any other. For his patients, it is a bizarre, frightening, painful necessity of which they find they cannot get enough.
The production was a brilliant historical satire. As one of the cast members put it, the play is a “period piece through a contemporary lens.” As ridiculous and outlandish as the proceedings are by modern standards, the setting of the play firmly roots them in their historical setting. It serves to drive home the point that for all the absurdity of it, these were real medical procedures performed on real women (and some men) by real licensed doctors.
The play itself is a sometimes subtle (but mostly not-so subtle) commentary on gender roles and our ability to embrace our sexuality both as individuals and as a society. But more than that, it is freaking hilarious. From the facial expressions to the comical yet disturbingly makes-sense dialogue to the comedy-of-errors through which Mrs. Givings discovers and experiments with the Device while her husband is at the Club, the play had me falling out of my seat laughing pretty much open to close.
The play did set humor aside, if only briefly, to make time for some very genuine commentary about our ability to allow ourselves to remain ignorant of those things with which we are uncomfortable. Sideplots of sexual self-discovery and love triangles abound and they make good use of the time the play spends on them, but most of them are ultimately relegated to an ancillary position, in favor of the comedy that makes the play so great. The second act does focus largely on the dichotomy between Mrs. Givings, who is gradually discovering all the emotions and desires that polite society has forced her to ignore, and Dr. Givings, who is so firmly rooted in reason and logic that he is unable to exhibit the emotion his wife can finally admit she needs. The play finally concludes with a very… progressive scene that has forever changed how I look at Snow Angels.
In upstate New York in the near the end of the 19th century, humanity was on the brink of the industrial revolution. Edison and Tesla were still competing to see who would pioneer the pending renaissance. And doctors, filled with the kind hubris that comes from being an academic in an age of rapid technological advancement, were biting off substantially more than they could chew.
During this time, as medical science had yet to find its footing and was stumbling in the dark, frequently knocking things over. One of the catch-all diagnoses of the time- one that went less noticed what with all that outrageous lobotomy business looming just a few years down the road- was Hysteria, a condition that afflicted many women of the era. The symptoms were wide-ranging, and could be anything from excitability, depression, irritability, and pretty much any other end of the emotional spectrum. A common treatment for this was to induce a “paroxysm,” a series of convulsions that would allow excess fluid to drain from the womb, and permit the body and mind to regain their crucial balance. It was achieved through vaginal massage, usually administered on a weekly basis.
If the reader were to stop at this moment and scour the internet to appraise the accuracy of the above paragraph, that reader might find that, while generous artistic liberties may have been taken, it bares an unexpected resemblance to the truth.
To wit.
In the Next Room, or “The Vibrator Play,” is a story about a doctor of this time period, and the ministrations he renders upon those in his care. His cold and clinical demeanor run in stark contrast to the intimacy with which such an experience is meant to entail. For Dr. Givings, it is merely a medical procedure like any other. For his patients, it is a bizarre, frightening, painful necessity of which they find they cannot get enough.
The production was a brilliant historical satire. As one of the cast members put it, the play is a “period piece through a contemporary lens.” As ridiculous and outlandish as the proceedings are by modern standards, the setting of the play firmly roots them in their historical setting. It serves to drive home the point that for all the absurdity of it, these were real medical procedures performed on real women (and some men) by real licensed doctors.
The play itself is a sometimes subtle (but mostly not-so subtle) commentary on gender roles and our ability to embrace our sexuality both as individuals and as a society. But more than that, it is freaking hilarious. From the facial expressions to the comical yet disturbingly makes-sense dialogue to the comedy-of-errors through which Mrs. Givings discovers and experiments with the Device while her husband is at the Club, the play had me falling out of my seat laughing pretty much open to close.
The play did set humor aside, if only briefly, to make time for some very genuine commentary about our ability to allow ourselves to remain ignorant of those things with which we are uncomfortable. Sideplots of sexual self-discovery and love triangles abound and they make good use of the time the play spends on them, but most of them are ultimately relegated to an ancillary position, in favor of the comedy that makes the play so great. The second act does focus largely on the dichotomy between Mrs. Givings, who is gradually discovering all the emotions and desires that polite society has forced her to ignore, and Dr. Givings, who is so firmly rooted in reason and logic that he is unable to exhibit the emotion his wife can finally admit she needs. The play finally concludes with a very… progressive scene that has forever changed how I look at Snow Angels.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
In Retrospect...
Best movie of 2010: The classic mistake is to give the most credit to the most recent awesome thing one has seen, but I will brave that mistake by saying that True Grit, while ultimately a straightforward and forgettable movie, had some of the most engaging performances I’ve seen all year.
Worst movie of 2010: Robo-Geisha, hands down. This is a movie that can only be enjoyed alongside good liquor and better friends.
Best video game of 2010: I’m going with Amnesia: The Dark Descent. This is a game that literally made me want to stop playing because I was getting scared. Whether that makes it “good” is a matter of opinion, but either way some artistic credit is due.
Worst video game of 2010: Dante’s Inferno. This game is about a former Templar running through hell fighting physical manifestations of various sins he committed during what he believed was a righteous crusade. The developers managed to make that into a boring, mundane experience.
Best personal accomplishment of 2010: This is, happily, a difficult decision. I lost 30 lbs in the span of 4 months. I finished my Master’s degree. I passed my REG exam. I’m going to write off the degree, because most of the work for that was done in the previous year. I’m also going to write off the lost weight, because in the end I didn’t expend a lot of effort on it- turns out all I really had to do was stop horking down every edible object I laid eyes on. That leaves, once again, the most recent awesome thing of the year, which would be my passing of the REG exam
Worst personal failing of 2010: In the weeks following my return from Europe, I let myself slip into a bit of an apathetic slump. I wouldn’t call it a profound depression so much as a period during which I just wasn’t very aggressive in achieving my personal goals. If I had put the same effort into my life during July and August that I did in the last quarter of the year, it’s quite possible I’d be halfway to my CPA exam.
Best day of 2010: Bodrum. Beaches. Fruity drinks. Sun. For an entire day, I didn’t desire a single thing that wasn’t all around me.
Worst day of 2010: The day I took my REG exam. I took the exam on the last day of the year that it was being offered, and if I had missed it, I would have had to start studying all over again for the 2011 version, which would have contained an entirely different set of tax rules; naturally, things went wrong and when I got to the center they didn’t have me properly scheduled. I actually did miss my scheduled exam, but after the most frantic hour of the year I managed to suss things out with the good folks at NASBA, and they penciled me in for later during that same day. On top of the horrific nervousness that naturally accompanies an endeavor like this, I can easily say that this was the most nerve-wracking day of the year. It still didn’t stop me from passing.
Worst movie of 2010: Robo-Geisha, hands down. This is a movie that can only be enjoyed alongside good liquor and better friends.
Best video game of 2010: I’m going with Amnesia: The Dark Descent. This is a game that literally made me want to stop playing because I was getting scared. Whether that makes it “good” is a matter of opinion, but either way some artistic credit is due.
Worst video game of 2010: Dante’s Inferno. This game is about a former Templar running through hell fighting physical manifestations of various sins he committed during what he believed was a righteous crusade. The developers managed to make that into a boring, mundane experience.
Best personal accomplishment of 2010: This is, happily, a difficult decision. I lost 30 lbs in the span of 4 months. I finished my Master’s degree. I passed my REG exam. I’m going to write off the degree, because most of the work for that was done in the previous year. I’m also going to write off the lost weight, because in the end I didn’t expend a lot of effort on it- turns out all I really had to do was stop horking down every edible object I laid eyes on. That leaves, once again, the most recent awesome thing of the year, which would be my passing of the REG exam
Worst personal failing of 2010: In the weeks following my return from Europe, I let myself slip into a bit of an apathetic slump. I wouldn’t call it a profound depression so much as a period during which I just wasn’t very aggressive in achieving my personal goals. If I had put the same effort into my life during July and August that I did in the last quarter of the year, it’s quite possible I’d be halfway to my CPA exam.
Best day of 2010: Bodrum. Beaches. Fruity drinks. Sun. For an entire day, I didn’t desire a single thing that wasn’t all around me.
Worst day of 2010: The day I took my REG exam. I took the exam on the last day of the year that it was being offered, and if I had missed it, I would have had to start studying all over again for the 2011 version, which would have contained an entirely different set of tax rules; naturally, things went wrong and when I got to the center they didn’t have me properly scheduled. I actually did miss my scheduled exam, but after the most frantic hour of the year I managed to suss things out with the good folks at NASBA, and they penciled me in for later during that same day. On top of the horrific nervousness that naturally accompanies an endeavor like this, I can easily say that this was the most nerve-wracking day of the year. It still didn’t stop me from passing.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Happy Holidays
I sit among my gifts for the year, like some gluttonous dragon atop its hoard.
I am now the happy owner of a Nook color, as well as the full 2-movie set of Red Cliff, the chemistry drink set from Think Geek, a decadently soft new robe, and a wireless keyboard and mouse. This all is to say nothing of the veritable bonanza that has been generously sent to me through Steam. Dead Rising 2 and Meatboy are particularly interesting, and this "Disciples" thing seems to have some promise as well. I hope to repay such generosity in person next week.
Here's hoping that all of you spent the day making happy memories with your loved ones.
Happy Holidays,
Ben
addendum: The best gift, by far, was a little device which I will nickname "The Theo." It is a keychain with an alarm on it, that I can activate to find my keys when I lose them.
I am now the happy owner of a Nook color, as well as the full 2-movie set of Red Cliff, the chemistry drink set from Think Geek, a decadently soft new robe, and a wireless keyboard and mouse. This all is to say nothing of the veritable bonanza that has been generously sent to me through Steam. Dead Rising 2 and Meatboy are particularly interesting, and this "Disciples" thing seems to have some promise as well. I hope to repay such generosity in person next week.
Here's hoping that all of you spent the day making happy memories with your loved ones.
Happy Holidays,
Ben
addendum: The best gift, by far, was a little device which I will nickname "The Theo." It is a keychain with an alarm on it, that I can activate to find my keys when I lose them.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Happy Holidays and stuff
Oh! Hey there! Didn’t think anyone was still around. Don’t mind me, I just came to pick up some stuff- what? You want a post? I dunno, I haven’t really done that sort of thing in a while…
What do you mean don’t be like that? Oh fine, here’s your stupid post:
As those of you perusing that book of faces are already aware, the results of my first CPA exam are in substantially sooner than I had expected them to be, and they are happy results indeed. It is a solidly passing score, and I am now one step closer to my certification. With any luck, I’ll have it finished before September of next year.
I have a new job, which is in fact the same new job I had back in September; it’s more of a lateral move, really, but it means I’ll get to keep working. I’m beginning to look more seriously for new employment, but in the meantime I am maintaining a positive cash flow.
Sadly, that flow will be stemmed somewhat for the month of December, as in addition to my Christmas shopping I got slapped with a speeding ticket last night. An 18-wheeler on my right began to drift into my lane, I got a little freaked out and floored it to get myself out of his blind spot, and just so happened to be passing through an officer’s radar at the time. He didn’t buy enough of that (entirely true) story to tear up the ticket, so now I have to go to traffic court and cough up $200. The ticket was just for $80, but the city of Mission lets you pay some extra fines and have your speeding ticket marked down to a non-moving violation, and the potential hike in insurance premiums makes this the cheaper option in the long run.
Christmas is coming up fast, and I’m happy to say that my shopping is all done for this season. I’ve already begun to receive some of the oh-so-very-kind gifts from my friends in St Louis, for which I’d like to take a moment to say “thank you.” I was really curious about Super Meat Boy, and Burnout has been an “almost-bought-it” of mine for some time now. Happy Holidays to all, and I hope we all get some of our most-wanted this year.
Some more good news: I will definitely be in town for the New Year’s party. I’m still not sure about where I’m staying (hint hint wink wink nudge nudge) but if no other options present themselves, I think a hotel might be in my budget this year.
I’m looking forward to seeing everyone in St Louis again. In the meantime, enjoy the Holidays!
What do you mean don’t be like that? Oh fine, here’s your stupid post:
As those of you perusing that book of faces are already aware, the results of my first CPA exam are in substantially sooner than I had expected them to be, and they are happy results indeed. It is a solidly passing score, and I am now one step closer to my certification. With any luck, I’ll have it finished before September of next year.
I have a new job, which is in fact the same new job I had back in September; it’s more of a lateral move, really, but it means I’ll get to keep working. I’m beginning to look more seriously for new employment, but in the meantime I am maintaining a positive cash flow.
Sadly, that flow will be stemmed somewhat for the month of December, as in addition to my Christmas shopping I got slapped with a speeding ticket last night. An 18-wheeler on my right began to drift into my lane, I got a little freaked out and floored it to get myself out of his blind spot, and just so happened to be passing through an officer’s radar at the time. He didn’t buy enough of that (entirely true) story to tear up the ticket, so now I have to go to traffic court and cough up $200. The ticket was just for $80, but the city of Mission lets you pay some extra fines and have your speeding ticket marked down to a non-moving violation, and the potential hike in insurance premiums makes this the cheaper option in the long run.
Christmas is coming up fast, and I’m happy to say that my shopping is all done for this season. I’ve already begun to receive some of the oh-so-very-kind gifts from my friends in St Louis, for which I’d like to take a moment to say “thank you.” I was really curious about Super Meat Boy, and Burnout has been an “almost-bought-it” of mine for some time now. Happy Holidays to all, and I hope we all get some of our most-wanted this year.
Some more good news: I will definitely be in town for the New Year’s party. I’m still not sure about where I’m staying (hint hint wink wink nudge nudge) but if no other options present themselves, I think a hotel might be in my budget this year.
I’m looking forward to seeing everyone in St Louis again. In the meantime, enjoy the Holidays!
Saturday, October 23, 2010
New Job Update
So I've been on my new job for a couple weeks now. All in all, I'd say it's going well. I spend a good portion of my time putting out fires so that people with bigger hats than me can do more important stuff, but I can honestly say that this has been a truly educational experience.
Since I started this job, I have conducted interviews, contributed towards hiring decisions, had a little (more than I'd like) experience with the process of talking to an employee who is not performing and may need to be let go in the near future. I've had the chance to view the workplace environment from another perspective, and on a professional level I think that's going be a valuable thing. It's also nice that when I see inherent flaws in the way we do things, I am occasionally in a position to simply fix them, rather than complaining about it to somebody else.
I think one of the things I like most is that, apparently, I'm very very good at this job. My two bosses keep pulling me aside and telling me what a fantastic job I've been doing, and how much they appreciate all my hard work. I expect it's mostly just ego-stroking to keep morale up, but it's still nice to be praised once in a while.
The job has its drawbacks, however. I freuently feel like a glorified babysitter, running from one employee to the next to fix a computer problem or help them understand an issue. This becomes less of a problem the longer a particular person has been on the job, but with a constant influx of new employees (despite the fact that the job ends in three months, we're still trying to get ourselves fully staffed) there's an equally constant stream of questions to answer and issues to deal with. I often find that I've gone out of my way to draw up a schedule or improve the process, only to find that somewhere further up the chain the entire thing has been redone and the fruits of my labors go straight into a bin. The hours are inconsistent, and more than once I've found myself working until 11 PM one night only to be back at 9 AM the next day. But these are mundane problems that come with the territory, and they are hardly amount to anything more than an annoyance.
All in all, the job has been good to me. It's a step towards what I really want for myself, and I'm glad to have taken it.
Since I started this job, I have conducted interviews, contributed towards hiring decisions, had a little (more than I'd like) experience with the process of talking to an employee who is not performing and may need to be let go in the near future. I've had the chance to view the workplace environment from another perspective, and on a professional level I think that's going be a valuable thing. It's also nice that when I see inherent flaws in the way we do things, I am occasionally in a position to simply fix them, rather than complaining about it to somebody else.
I think one of the things I like most is that, apparently, I'm very very good at this job. My two bosses keep pulling me aside and telling me what a fantastic job I've been doing, and how much they appreciate all my hard work. I expect it's mostly just ego-stroking to keep morale up, but it's still nice to be praised once in a while.
The job has its drawbacks, however. I freuently feel like a glorified babysitter, running from one employee to the next to fix a computer problem or help them understand an issue. This becomes less of a problem the longer a particular person has been on the job, but with a constant influx of new employees (despite the fact that the job ends in three months, we're still trying to get ourselves fully staffed) there's an equally constant stream of questions to answer and issues to deal with. I often find that I've gone out of my way to draw up a schedule or improve the process, only to find that somewhere further up the chain the entire thing has been redone and the fruits of my labors go straight into a bin. The hours are inconsistent, and more than once I've found myself working until 11 PM one night only to be back at 9 AM the next day. But these are mundane problems that come with the territory, and they are hardly amount to anything more than an annoyance.
All in all, the job has been good to me. It's a step towards what I really want for myself, and I'm glad to have taken it.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
The Next Step
,
Ben leveled up!
Responsibilities +4
Authority + 7
Wages + 3
Confidence +6
Status +3
Scheduling Flexibility +10
New job Class! Ben is now:
“Lower Management” class!
As of the 4th of October, I am officially promoted. I am leaving my current department and taking a management position for a new project that Block is starting.
I won’t be running the department or anything fancy like that, but I will have a substantially larger amount of responsibility in my new position. My official title is Team Leader, and I will be directly overseeing one of four teams on the project. I will be responsible for making training and quality assurance, scheduling, part of the department’s budget (i.e. making sure we get the job done but don’t spend too much on wages in the process), and I will have some input/responsibility with regards to the department’s interview and hiring process.
The job comes with a nice pay bump, and I will likely have a much more agreeable schedule going forward. In my old job, every other Friday when we closed the payroll system I would have to pull a 12-14 hour shift and then work a full shift the following Saturday. There will be some weekends on the new project, but it will likely be fewer than half and the uber-long shifts I’ve grown accustomed to will probably not be required. Another nice bonus is that I will no longer have to work on Thanksgiving and Christmas, which was more or less a requirement back in the payroll department.
I was notified about this last week, but until yesterday it was somewhat up in the air whether I’d actually get to take the job, because my current department is chronically short of staff and the boss lady wanted to hold on to me for a couple extra weeks. But after a sit-down with said boss-lady I have an official start date, hence this post.
Unfortunately, the project itself will only last for about four months, after which I will, presumably, be returning to the payroll department. Still, with any luck I’ll have one or two portions of the CPA exam behind me by then, and I can either move up to another position within Block or leverage my enhanced credentials to find better work elsewhere.
In the meantime, however, I'm just going to be happy with where I am now. Things are going well.
Ben leveled up!
Responsibilities +4
Authority + 7
Wages + 3
Confidence +6
Status +3
Scheduling Flexibility +10
New job Class! Ben is now:
“Lower Management” class!
As of the 4th of October, I am officially promoted. I am leaving my current department and taking a management position for a new project that Block is starting.
I won’t be running the department or anything fancy like that, but I will have a substantially larger amount of responsibility in my new position. My official title is Team Leader, and I will be directly overseeing one of four teams on the project. I will be responsible for making training and quality assurance, scheduling, part of the department’s budget (i.e. making sure we get the job done but don’t spend too much on wages in the process), and I will have some input/responsibility with regards to the department’s interview and hiring process.
The job comes with a nice pay bump, and I will likely have a much more agreeable schedule going forward. In my old job, every other Friday when we closed the payroll system I would have to pull a 12-14 hour shift and then work a full shift the following Saturday. There will be some weekends on the new project, but it will likely be fewer than half and the uber-long shifts I’ve grown accustomed to will probably not be required. Another nice bonus is that I will no longer have to work on Thanksgiving and Christmas, which was more or less a requirement back in the payroll department.
I was notified about this last week, but until yesterday it was somewhat up in the air whether I’d actually get to take the job, because my current department is chronically short of staff and the boss lady wanted to hold on to me for a couple extra weeks. But after a sit-down with said boss-lady I have an official start date, hence this post.
Unfortunately, the project itself will only last for about four months, after which I will, presumably, be returning to the payroll department. Still, with any luck I’ll have one or two portions of the CPA exam behind me by then, and I can either move up to another position within Block or leverage my enhanced credentials to find better work elsewhere.
In the meantime, however, I'm just going to be happy with where I am now. Things are going well.
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