It’s enough already with sitting in these classrooms and being a student… I need a break!

As you might imagine, though, my situation brings a bit of a twist that my colleagues do not have to consider. In my case, I can fulfill my professional development requirements by taking classes at the college where I’m a part-time adjunct professor. It’s a good situation for everyone involved. On the one hand, my company gets to have me improve my professional skill set by taking graduate-level courses in a subject matter that is related to our profession. On the other hand, I don’t just audit the courses. Instead, since the tuition and fees for the courses is in remission for me (i.e. I can take the courses for free), I’ve actually enrolled in different graduate-level programs and received new academic credentials from taking these classes. For example, even though I already have a master’s degree from a top tier university, I utilized the tuition remission program at my local college to earn a cost-free Public Relations Specialist Certificate in 2010 (more commonly known as a graduate certificate). I’m currently enrolled in another program that is cost-free for me where I’ll earn a Post-Master’s Certificate in Curriculum Studies in May.

My company gets my professional development needs attended to at no cost to them, I maximize the benefits that the tuition remission program grants me by enrolling in graduate-level programs and earning additional academic credentials, and everyone goes home happy at the end of the day without spending a dime.

Well, maybe everyone doesn’t go home happy at the end of the day…

Remember that in addition to teaching at the local college, I work a full-time day job that I love. I’ve written in other blog entries that I own and operate two small businesses, too. And I’ve also written about how I instruct courses for an all-online college and I spend whatever free time I can muster by volunteering for my church via the Knights of Columbus and for my fraternity as a local alumni advisor and a national program instructor. Suffice to say – I’m a pretty busy guy. And I’m not writing this in act of self-pity or in an attempt to generate your sympathy for my nonexistent personal time. Not at all! Instead, I’m writing this to lay the foundation for the realization that I came to the other day which prompted me to write this entry in the first place.

And that realization is that with all of the obligations I have in my life I think I need to put at least one of them on hold for a little while. And without question the one constantly frustrating and time consuming activity that bungles me up is taking these graduate level courses to fulfill my professional development obligations for my job. It’s not that I don’t want to increase my professional knowledge or that I’m frustrated because I have to take professional development courses. On the contrary, actually – I do want to learn more and be a better professional in my industry! My issue, however, is the method by which I’ve been engaging in that professional development. Utilizing the graduate courses is a great way to save my company money and a great way for me to maximize the ability to earn cost-free academic credentials. The drawback, though, is that the rigor necessary to properly complete a graduate-level course is much more strenuous than simply attending a one or two day seminar to fulfill my professional development goals. Graduate courses require the completion of homework, writing extensive papers in an academic format, preparing group projects with individuals who are unaware of the obligations on my time, doing research in areas that can begin to border on irrelevant for my profession, etc. And they also require a weekly time commitment to sit in a classroom and engage my instructor and classmates as a good student.

Being a student is a lot of work!

So I think that when the current program that I’m enrolled in is completed this coming May, it will probably be time for me to take a break from being a student. I’m sure that it won’t be a long break because I get the itch to learn almost as soon as I’m not enrolled in any programs. Plus, I don’t like leaving loose ends behind and both the graduate certificate and the post-master’s certificate could be viewed as stepping stones to additional master’s degrees (I’ll have completed half of the credits required in both the Master of the Arts of Education and Master of the Arts in Communication programs). Being 15 credits away from a second and potentially third master’s degree is something that I’m sure will eventually drive me back into the classroom, but my more immediate need is to provide a small bit of relief in those obligations that require a heavy time commitment.

Once I complete the current program, I’ll probably begin to plot out a course of action of the future. I’ll likely begin unwinding myself from some other volunteer commitments that I’m involved in that aren’t noted above. And I’ve been meaning to reduce my overall working schedule (not at my day job, but rather with the part-time teaching), too. And, of course, finding some housing and health stability in my life are both big goals that I need to achieve much sooner rather than later. After I at least have a road map to success in some of these areas, then I think it’ll be a good time to start considering getting back into the classroom as a student (and let’s be honest, getting a doctorate is going to have to be on my agenda at some point in the future). In the meantime, though, I’ll be fulfilling my professional development requirements for my office at one and two day seminars!

Just $22 thousand left to go...

If you want to call it a secret, then that’s the big “secret” to paying off debt. Productivity today equals a paycheck tomorrow and a paycheck tomorrow equals a loan payment the following day and a loan payment the following day equals getting out of debt. Period.

No big surprise here, folks. For me, the concept of getting up off my butt and doing something has taken the form of working at a popular online university as an instructor. The secondary income that I earn from this job is a nice boost to my overall monthly cash flow and it has helped to fund a great deal of my student loan payments over the last two years. And I know some idiot is probably out there reading this right now thinking, “Well, you have an advantage because you have that second job and I can’t find any job in the first place!” Bullshit! I work a 40+ hour work week with no less than a minimum of 10 hours commuting each week – and that’s just at my day job. So I don’t want to hear any crap about having any advantages because I found a good second job. If anything, my life is more strenuous than the person who is, let’s be honest, optionally-unemployed because I have several different workplace management structures that I have to perform within.

Since we’re telling secrets, I think the unemployed masses should know that one of the secrets to finding a job is getting over yourself. Sure, you shouldn’t take a job that pays below minimum wage if you’ve earned yourself a doctorate, but at the same time you shouldn’t reject an entry-level job with a modest salary either because you have a bachelor’s degree and you think that makes you worth more on the market. Newsflash: it doesn’t make you worth any more on the market in this economy! All your degree gives you is access to applying for jobs that high school graduates are not able to apply for – that’s it. And that’s not a big advantage in this economy so get over yourselves and take that entry-level job. Didn’t your professors ever teach you to “get in” at a company and then begin to find ways to climb the internal corporate ladder? It can be done, folks. You just have to get up off your butts and do it!

Stick around for more student loan news coming up in the next few weeks. Several milestones are sitting on the horizon including the aforementioned payment where I hit a remaining balance of $21 thousand. Again, this will signify an incredible $100,000 in student loan principal repayment. The next milestone after that is just a thousand bucks away when I hit $20 thousand left outstanding and then smash through that number to get into the teens.

It’s pretty amazing to think that this aggressive repayment plan really took its infancy just under three years ago in December 2009. Time flies, huh?

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. Since I started repaying my student loans in July 2006, I’ve repaid a total of $99 thousand in principal to various lenders including the federal Perkins loan program, the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority, and CitiBank. I currently owe $22 thousand in principal to the United States Department of Education’s federal Direct Loans program. This loan is serviced by the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority. To date, I’ve repaid over $35 thousand in interest to these lenders. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

Isn’t that the truth? How often have you spent a good portion of your day fixing the mistakes of someone else? Lord knows I’ve done that more than once in my professional life!

I’ve been running around like a crazy person since last weekend. In fact, when I look back at my schedule, I’m amazed at how fast the week flew away. I spent last Sunday at my Grandmother’s husband’s wake, last Monday at home in Tinton Falls where I researched and wrote a twelve page paper before heading to the class that I’m taking at night, Tuesday and Wednesday catching up on a variety of work building up at my office, Thursday and Friday at the New Jersey Charter Schools Association’s annual conference (which was AWESOME – stay tuned for more posts about the conference), and yesterday up in New Brunswick having dinner and good times with my coworkers.

I would be remiss if I didn’t briefly mention an odd coincidence during dinner last night. I was in the middle of telling a story to my coworkers when I noticed a familiar face out of the corner of my eye. Turns out that my doctor was at the same bar/restaurant – Old Man Rafferty’s – that my coworkers and I were at! And what’s even weirder is that of the six of us who went out for dinner, two of us use this doctor as our general practitioner! We didn’t draw the doctor’s attention because I was eating fettuccine alfredo and my coworker was drinking a beer – both of which our doctor told us we shouldn’t be doing (we each have different health issues – long story). But it was definitely weird to see our doctor hanging out with his buddies when we were all about 40 minutes from our home area.

Maybe it was God trying to send us both a message about doing what our doctor tells us to do!

Anyway, my happy announcement today is that my latest student loan payment check has been processed by the people at the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority. Thus, my overall student loan debt has fallen from $90 thousand to $89 thousand. If you ask me, that’s a pretty happy announcement – especially since it means that I’m getting closer to the next milestone in my student loan repayment plan.

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. I currently owe $89 thousand, which breaks down to $34 thousand owed to the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority and $55 thousand owed to the United States Department of Education. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

And I’ve never had a problem with them, until this past weekend…here’s the story.

As a subscriber, I’m on their e-mail list – which I like because it lets me know what’s going on in the company (I also like this from a shareholder’s point of view, as I own a few thousand shares of Sirius XM). Generally, I get these e-mails and delete them after giving them a brief scan. However, over the past weekend an e-mail came in that had the following image in it:

I took a look at this image and thought to myself, “I have a few bucks laying around, why not get a newer version of the Sportster?” My current model is the Sportster Replay, which is so old that it is no longer in production. Plus, the Replay wasn’t made with the new “universal docking” ability so I can’t buy an at-home radio or at-home kit to play my radio in the house (which is unnecessary anyway, since I have Sirius XM internet radio).

Anyway, I click on the link and go through the process of ordering on Sirius XM‘s website. It was actually an easy process…until I wound up at the payment information. Now, before I go into this part of the process, let’s remember that even though I’m a huge cheerleader for Sirius XM, I’m aware of the fact that they have a problem with revenue and that they need to raise money anyway possible (which is likely why this e-mail was sent in the first place).

I entered my credit card information on the website and I received an error message. The internet said that something was wrong with the information that I entered, so I looked over my credit card information and it was perfect. Hmmm… Time to get on the phone.

There was a surprisingly short wait time before I spoke with a gentleman whose accent made his “assistance” almost useless. However, to his great credit (and to my great desire to buy an upgraded radio), he and I worked with each other somewhat well. I told him my problem…and he immediately went to the script. I could write an entire “Unnecessary Complications” entry (or a series of entries) about how I HATE when the telephone service representatives jump right to the script, but I digress.

The gentleman took my credit card information from me over the phone and tried to process the purchase – he received the same error message. At this point, he said it would be best to try all over again and delete the two previous attempts at purchasing the radio. I agreed – seems logical, right? As the guy is going through the steps of ordering the radio he keeps saying, “Yeah!” and “Okay!” and each time he says this I say, “Okay, did the purchase go through?” And he kept saying, “No.” Seemed a little weird to me that he would be so damn happy on the phone with his exclamations when a frustrated customer is on the line…

We get to the point where I have to give him my credit card information again, which I did. He gets the same error message and says, “Well, I don’t know what the problem is, sir.” At this point I felt like saying to him, “You don’t know what the problem is?! It’s your job to know what the problem is! And if it’s not your job then it’s the job of your superior so put his ass on the phone, damn it!” However, I understand that he’s just a worker bee and that he shouldn’t be verbally destroyed for the sins of his organization. I ask what I should do and he says that I should try the request again tomorrow and maybe use a different card. Fine – it’s an annoying way to end my call, but whatever. Before I hang up, the guy tells me that he’s deleting all of the purchase requests, which I appreciated.

The next morning I wake up and I go through the process of trying to order again. The internet asks me for my credit card information so I try to use a different one. The same error message comes up. I look at my phone and I hear a voice in my head say, “No, damn it!” Instead of making the phone call, I clicked around my online account and found out that while the gentleman on the phone suggested that he deleted my previous attempts at purchasing this radio, all of the purchase attempts were still listed on my account.

At that point, defeated by an inept customer relations department at Sirius XM, I gave up my attempt to buy a new radio. Hey, Sirius XM, listen up! A long-time customer who is currently on a long-time subscription and who is also a shareholder just tried to give you money for a new radio! And your inept website and unhelpful customer relations department failed! I tried to give you money – you NEED money – and you failed!

It’s a good thing that I love the content that Sirius XM provides or I’d cancel in a heartbeat. However, other than the obvious links on this blog, I may not be heralding how great of a radio service this to people that I talk to in my daily life any more. It’s a shame, but I believe that inept service providers have to pay some type of price and Sirius XM is losing my word of mouth advertising from this mess. Way to go.

However, the writer makes an interesting point:

E-mails and text messages and BlackBerrys and all their digital cousins may have given us the illusion of freedom — we tell ourselves that we are unfettered by traditional offices, that we can go anywhere we please — yet in the end they have created a nation of Robert Hylands. We’re never off the clock; that cell phone may ring at dinnertime, that allegedly urgent e-mail may arrive at 11 p.m., that instant message from the regional manager may pop onto the screen when we’re on vacation with our families.

Like almost everyone else who works in a professional setting these days, I have a way of accessing my e-mails from my “home office” (which consists of a desk in the corner of my bedroom and two bookshelves on the side of the desk). And the truth is that when I get home from work, aside from my Yahoo and Gmail e-mail accounts, I also open up my work e-mail account. On a typical day, there are two or three e-mails delivered to my work inbox during the hour long commute home. Sometimes those e-mails are urgent, but most of the time they aren’t pressing at all. Yet, I still have to look.

It’s the ease of the access that’s the problem; the fact that you can access this information in the blink of an eye and that, generally, the information contained in the e-mail can be processed quickly. That’s the problem. That’s why I check my work e-mail as soon as I get home and frequently while I’m at home.

The next big problem is the integration of BlackBerry phones and other smart phones into the work day. One of the reasons that I initially purchased my Treo 700p (the “p” stands for “piece of garbage”) was so that I could access my work e-mail from anywhere. However, once I realized that this meant I would always be connected to the office and once I realized that I essentially didn’t need a smart phone because I was never so far away from a computer that I couldn’t check my e-mail, I turned off the internet on my phone. Turning off the internet turns off the ability to be constantly connected.

However, I do find it interesting that with all of the advances in smart phone technology that I’m already planning for my next phone to be a BlackBerry. I’m on the Verizon Wireless network, but I refuse to pay Verizon Wireless for access to the internet when I already pay my cable company for access and when my office has wi-fi access. So I’m waiting for a wi-fi enabled BlackBerry phone to be available on the Verizon Wireless network before I get a new phone. In essence, I’m preparing to be constantly connected to the office when I really don’t want to be. But I digress…

Most of my co-workers are wrapped up into this “always connected” thing, too. It’s not uncommon for an e-mail to be sent after 5:00pm and for a response to come back around 8:30pm. Frankly, I think that it’s nice that some of the lagging issues that we deal with at the office can come to a conclusion after hours – after we’ve all had some time to process different solutions. However, I think we’ve all subconsciously begun to cut back on the amount of after hours work that we’re performing for the company.

And, honestly, cutting back on after hours work is probably the best thing for today’s worker. When you consider all of the stresses that are wrapped into simply having a job there is little reason to want to bring any of that back to your home with you. The home should and can be the refuge – if we let it.

From the BBQ I went directly to my Mom’s house up in Morris County. Soon after arriving at my Mom’s place we headed over to my aunt and uncle’s house for a pre-wedding party for my older cousin, David, who was getting married the next day. This was also a lot of fun as my Grandmother and Aunt were at the party – both of whom I haven’t seen in a few years (probably since my Dad’s funeral almost two years ago).

Like most families, we tend to have an extremely fun time once the drinks start going down and the music gets turned on (and raucously “sung” at high volumes late into the night). And since he’s a dedicated reader of JerseySmarts.com, I’d like to give a shout out to Mike R. Happy?

The next day was my cousin’s wedding and reception, which was some of the most fun that I’ve had in a long, long time. Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook have probably already browsed through the pictures from the wedding, but I also created a Google photo album for those of you who aren’t on Facebook (yet).

I thought the ceremony was very well done. There were about 30 witnesses and I was sitting in the back row with my brothers. The wedding was emotional for my family since David is the first among the cousins to get married – which explained why my Mom, her sisters (including the groom’s Mom), and my Grandmother were in tears for a portion of the ceremony. It was a very nice wedding ceremony and I think that the pictures from the church show how it was very well put together.

The reception was also a good time. It’s always fun hanging out with family and friends for a celebration like a wedding. One funny occurrence – as I was walking outside for some fresh air, a kid came up to me and asked me if we knew each other from somewhere. I had no idea (and the memory wasn’t being assisted by the few beers that I had put away). To make a long story short, it turns out that the kid – who was one of the bride’s cousins – had just graduated from The College of New Jersey and is a member of my fraternity. He remembered me from all of the visits that I made to his chapter and the workshops that I put on while I was in charge of New Jersey for the fraternity. Small world, huh?

All in all, it was a great weekend. I hope for the best for my cousin and his wife and I hope that our family can get together more often to hang out and have some fun! Next on the agenda is a BBQ that my older brother’s girlfriend is throwing in a few weeks. I’m looking forward to that!

Then I had to run and do some last minute errands like paying the rent and heading to the bank before I head off to my co-worker’s house for a BBQ today. And what a beautiful day it is for a BBQ! Seriously, the rest of you who aren’t located on the Jersey Shore would be jealous to see how beautiful it is along the coast today.

From the BBQ I’ll be heading north to my family’s house in Roxbury so I can see my Grandmother and Aunt who are visiting from Pennsylvania. I haven’t seen them in a while so I look forward to spending some time with them. And the reason that they’re visiting is because my cousin is getting married tomorrow!

So tomorrow I’ll be spending all day doing wedding and family stuff. Looking forward to it. Hey – it’s supposed to be a wonderful weekend in terms of the weather so go out there and enjoy it!

Well, in preparation for the pending snowstorm most of my co-workers and I decided not to go to work today no matter what the weather. This was actually a decent decision since I woke up around 5:30am to check outside and we had about 4 inches of snow and absolutely no trucks on the road clearing for the morning commute. I think that the entire state figured that it needed a snow day and thus the truck drivers were given some extra time to sleep in while the snow accumulated. I should note, though, that as I’m writing this I’m looking outside of my window and the roads are completely cleared in my part of Tinton Falls and there is actually some traffic moving around outside.

The one thing that annoyed the hell out of me this morning was the local college where I teach part-time. I’m signed up for their emergency alert system which is very helpful when the college shuts down due to inclement weather. However, someone must have been going crazy over there this morning because I got two phone calls on my home line, two phone calls on my cell, two text messages, two e-mails on my work e-mail, and two e-mails on my home e-mail. I thought that was a bit overboard for 5:45am so I took myself off of their notification lists.

For those of you who are either off today because of the weather or working from home – enjoy it!

Bruce Springsteen did a great job of opening the show with his 2001 hit, The Rising, and Beyonce tore the house down with her rendition of America the Beautiful. I also enjoyed the Garth Brooks set with American Pie and Shout. Usher did a good job with Shakira and Herbie Hancock and I thought Josh Grobin performed like the vocal master that he has come to be.

The U2 performance, on the other hand, was marred for me by Bono’s ridiculous overselling each and every chorus. Good grief! Have you ever seen the episode of South Park called “Smug Alert!?” This is the one where some folks go around getting hybrid cars and act like their crap doesn’t stink. I think that South Park got that idea off of watching Bono. With the way this guy bops around the stage and makes love to his songs as he sings them you’d think he was single-handedly saving the world with each note! But even Bono couldn’t bring down the high spirits that were running throughout the concert.

Barack Obama’s message during the concert was a good one, too. Before the concert ended, Obama said the following:

I won’t pretend that meeting any one of these challenges will be easy. It will take more than a month or a year, and it will likely take many. Along the way there will be setbacks and false starts and days that test our fundamental resolve as a nation.

That’s right! I’m as happy as the next guy that we have a new President coming in, but I do not look at him as a cure-all for the nation’s problems. Look, people, President-Elect Obama is stepping into the Presidency at a horrendous time in our nation’s history. With two wars abroad and a shaky economy at home – we, as a country, need to roll our sleeves up and start getting to work. But heed Obama’s words above: this will not take a day, a week, a month, or even one year. We have long-term problems that require long-term solutions. I just hope that we don’t see another President destroyed by a media which is fueled by fanatics who want to see results immediately.

While the concert was inspiring I do take issue with the theme of the show being “We Are One.” Actually, let me be more specific. I don’t take issue with that theme, per se, rather I’m disappointed in anyone who is living in this country and did not believe that we were one before Obama won the election. Frankly, anyone who believed that we were a divided country or a country set apart in dozens of fractures either believes the bullshit they see on television or is completely out of touch with the people around them. All anyone ever had to do was talk to a neighbor or a coworker or a classmate to see that we all share the same problems – regardless of race, religion, gender, age, etc.

So while the concert was tremendously uplifting and a great way to kick off the inaugural festivities, I couldn’t help but being disappointed by some of the celebrities and entertainers who sounded as if they were waking up in a brand new America. Maybe Obama has given these people the hope that many of us already had from living in the best country in the history of the world. If that’s the case, then I welcome these people to the reality that we’ve all been living in. However, if they were simultaneously celebrating the arrival of one President and the departure of another, then I think it’s sad that they allowed one man to ruin their view of their nation.

Many of us grew weary of the outgoing administration; but we never stopped loving our country or believing that we were one with our countrymen. Let’s hope that those who are beginning to love their country for the first time or who are reigniting their love of the United States are not so fickle with these emotions now that we are all “one.”