Abandon Nest

Do you thirst for knowledge? Are you eternally curious and just waiting to learn more about everything that you encounter? I know that I’ve been like that most of my life. In fact, when I started my new job I went about learning every system that I encountered from the bottom up. This was no small task and took a considerable amount of time (some of which was time well spent, I’ll admit.) So why am I pointing this out?

Today I was reading Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think and I came across an interesting quote. He pulls it from a Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet. In the passage, Watson is surprised to learn that Holmes does not know that the Earth rotates around the Sun. Holmes replies:

What the deuce is it to me? You say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or my work.

Interesting? Definitely. So what does this have to do with my absurd amount of training?

I find that looking at my life in general, and my job in particular, that I spend inordinate amounts of time gathering unnecessary information or things that I just plain don’t need to know. For example, I just bought a digital camera and read through the entire manual. Why did I read it all? I only wanted to know how to transfer the pictures and got bogged down in the technical details and jargon. Don’t get me wrong, it was fascinating, but in the end it was also completely unnecessary.

From now on, I’m going to try to eliminate these unnecessary fact-finding missions from my personal and professional life and concentrate on the things I just need to know. Ideally, this will free some time up for me to concentrate on the things that are both useful and fascinating. Have you ever found yourself mired in unnecessary information? What did you find yourself doing to slog through or avoid it?

Technorati Tags: Krug, Knowledge, Sherlock Holmes, Learning

As I mentioned in my conclusion to the Dining for One series, I recently purchased a George Foreman electric grill. I’ve been using it for a couple of days now, and thought I’d give some of my initial impressions. A full review should follow sometime this week.

The George Foreman grill is an interesting piece of cooking equipment. Like anything, it has its pros and cons. Here’s what I’ve seen so far:

Pros:

• Simple to use
• Easy to clean
• Does not cause a mess
• Small and portable

Cons:

• Dries steak out
• Makes food look ugly
• Relatively featureless
• The top of the plastic shell gets real hot (and there’s no warning)

These are the things that I’ve noticed right off the bat. Over the next couple of days I’m going to be using it to cook chicken for fajitas, a boneless skinless chicken breast and sirloin steak that have been marinated, and turkey burgers. After these tests I will have cooked five meals with this little device and should have a better idea of what it can do. Until then, I can only give a reserved recommendation if you can find one of these things cheap. Does anyone already have a George Foreman grill and have any advice/tips?

Technorati Tags: George Foreman, Grill, Kitchen

As a co-op, I didn’t really expect to make that much money this spring and summer. In fact, I set out on this journey with money as the last thing on my mind. I wanted experience, and the more of it the better. Besides, that’s what would look good on my resume, not how much I made an hour.

After beginning work, I started to talk to the other co-ops and interns about how generous the company was with their wages for us. There was general agreement over and over, and then someone spit out a number. When I heard what he was making, I was shocked. It was $2.50 an hour more than me.

Was I worth less than this person? I certainly didn’t think so. We’re the same age and same class standing. He didn’t do more work than I did. What was the difference then? As the conversation continued he made an observation about how the company pays on a class-standing basis. With that piece of information in hand, I decided to investigate.

I called the registrar’s office at my school to confirm the class I was in. I discovered that my 110 credit hours qualified me as a junior, not a sophomore. Armed with an electronic copy of my school transcript, I emailed the co-op coordinator that was in charge of setting up payroll for me. I asked politely if my class standing was the factor that determines payrate, and informed her of my status as a junior. I attached my transcript along with the email.

Moments later, she emailed me back asking when I had become a junior, and why I had listed being a sophomore on my application. I responded that I had become a junior after the quarter I had finished prior to starting at the company and that I had been a sophomore when I filled out the application. Another couple of minutes and I received another email stating that my payrate had changed. In a matter of twenty minutes I had essentially received a $2.50 raise. The best part is I’ll be getting backpay for the period of time since I had started. That amounts to an $800 windfall.

What can you learn from my story? If you’re a co-op/intern, make sure you’re getting paid the same as those around. If you’re not, the company may have inaccurate information about you, and you may be losing out big time. Now, if you’re a full-time employee you’re obviously not going to be able to do this. However, I’ve read over and over again that if you’re with a company and feel that you deserve a raise, you should ask. The worst thing that they can do is say no and then you’re just out the 5 minutes of your life it took to try. I think that this article on asking for a raise is a great read and something that I would follow if doing it for myself.

Has anyone encountered a situation similar to mine? What would you do if you didn’t think you were earning what you’re worth?

Technorati Tags: Salary, Money, On the Job, Worth