Enjablog

I really liked President-elect Obama’s victory speech. And Senator McCain did a stand up job with his speech too (and hearing similar reactions as with Senator Clinton at the Democratic Convention — if he had given speeches like this during the campaign, this probably would’ve been a much tighter race).

But am I the only one who listened to the victory speech and thought of this scene from the Goonies?

America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves - if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made?

This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment.

This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.

And after re-watching that, I can even see corollaries with our current political scene. The parental Republicans see us as childish, naive Democrats. They are faced with a financial crisis. There is one who stands among us ready to lead, to instill hope and confidence to reach for dreams we never thought possible. And if all goes as the Goonies went, by turning our backs on Troy’s bucket, Mikey will save us from financial ruin. Or something.

So, I thought Election Day 2008 ending would leave me with more free time. It probably will… but until everything gets tallied, it looks like I’m just going to keep obsessing. Still watching as results continue to come in for Washington, Oregon, North Carolina, Missouri, and Georgia. Keeping a closer eye on the Senate races that still haven’t been called yet (Alaska — you continue to surprise me. And not so much in the good way.). Finding all kind of exit poll stats to pore over. And, of course, keeping up with the ballot measures for each state.

***********

Dear California,

What’s up with you? I thought you were supposed to be the future of this country. I thought you set the example that the rest of us eventually caught up to.

But, really? You’re going to join Arizona and Florida and write discrimination into your constitution? I can understand them doing that. I wasn’t even surprised when they passed overwhelmingly.

I really thought you’d make it ok. And, in a way, you have. Well, you will.

Good job to all my friends out in California and the many, many volunteers who tried to reject Prop. 8. Thanks to the 61% of the youth vote who voted No on picking a new scapegoat.

CNN’s holographic technology brought us ever closer to the future. And as I’ve been saying more and more often recently: The future is awesome. So, just wait. It’ll be the future soon.

Still Disappointed,
Enjanerd

***********

Dear Colorado and South Dakota,

Thank you.

Hugs and sparkles,
Enjanerd

***********

Dear Michigan,

You are such a goofball. I hope marijuana gets legalized soon so we can tax the bejeezus out of it. But until then, just be responsible. The medical profession has enough issues without more people trying to scam drugs out of it.

Best of luck,
Enjanerd

Man, this is nuts! Last night, ninja canvassing was canceled because they had so many volunteers during the day that they finished all the canvassing already.

Ian and I went out this morning to help out with the Get Out the Vote effort. We received a canvassing packet and by the time we got back, all the remaining packets had been done. Another pair of canvassers returned just as we were heading out to another location and they gave us a packet they gave up on. After finishing that, still no packets.

We headed back to the Alexandria office and they were all abuzz there. Nothing to do yet though. Too many volunteers. Who ever heard of such a thing? They should’ve adopted a highway or something with all their extra volunteers.

So now I’m at home completely obsessed with the talking heads offering no new information. I don’t even want to watch, but I can’t pull myself away. And I’m totally pissed that I have class tonight, which starts right when the first polls close.

Despite my hesitance to talk to strangers and unwillingness to wander around unfamiliar neighborhoods, I did both those things a few weekends ago.

I volunteer to do data entry for the Obama campaign most weekends. But this time, they asked me to stop by one of the canvassing meeting locations to pick up the data to be entered. I requested the location in Ian’s neighborhood, so I would at least know the area and get to see him when I passed through.

Ian signed up to canvass at 3 and 5 and invited me to join him for the 3 o’clock canvass before bringing in the packets at 5. Seemed reasonable enough. He told me he could use the help sorting papers and whatnot, assuring me that I wouldn’t have to talk to people. He would do the interacting. (Why did I believe that..?)

We ended up getting the worst route ever — clusters of houses along 9 different streets. The people we talked to were mostly polite though, which did make things more pleasant.

One woman supporting McCain said that we were the 3rd group to stop by her house that day, so with that much support, Obama better win. Another house, the husband came to the door and let us know they were watching the Ohio State game… and they’re voting for McCain anyway. Followed by the wife, who we actually had on our list, yelling from the other room, “I’M not!”

There were a couple Obama volunteers who came outside to chat for a few minutes. A few people who started pointing out houses on their block and telling us who was voting for whom. There were a few people who, jokingly, asked for childcare services so they could go vote.

All in all, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I was very pleased to hear how many people had already voted. Many of the people we were looking for weren’t home for school or military reasons, but the person at the door assured us that they had already mailed in their absentee ballots.

JOTD:
What’s red and smells like blue paint?
Red paint!

Happy Halloween!

I started my morning off with a nice little treat for myself:

It turns out absentee-in-person voting is just like early voting, but with more paperwork. I thought it would be like absentee voting, but with less postage. Got to use the voting machines like usual and still get a sticker!

LOTD: Implicit Association Test

Linked this a while back, but they have a new test just for the election! Plus, I retook the male/female science test and am now neutral. I definitely have my coworkers to thank for that, as well as the many competent female engineers I have befriended over the past few years.

I don’t know what is with my office building, but they have these large air fresheners in each bathroom. Most days, it’s some benign scent like citrus or lavendar. But then. There are days like today. Where they replace that scent with old lady smell.

I don’t know where they get it from or why anyone with a nose would want to be near it. But it’s awful. I’d rather they just left the bathroom smell alone than to mix it with this offensive stench. Ick.

Definitely the most active and engaging out of all the debates. I had concerns that even though the stuff McCain was saying wasn’t completely based on reality/fact, he was being very aggressive and people would portray him as the victor for the night. Fortunately, he fizzled out quickly and spent the last hour huffing and puffing to himself.

Obama, on the other hand, was incredibly calm. I pretend to be a nice person. I don’t make waves and I’m non-confrontational. But when McCain started talking about Obama’s “attacks” [on his health care plan], I was yelling at the TV. I was angry that Obama wasn’t pointing out the death threats and encouragement of the us/them Arab=terrorist divisiveness. And he didn’t mention the fact that McCain has been a keynote speaker for ACORN! (Plus, ACORN wasn’t committing fraud, etc.)

But in the end, two wrongs don’t make a right. He did an amazing job not taking things personally and rightly so. None of this is actually personal. Arguing accusations and pointing out that “he started it” or “what he did was worse” doesn’t help your cause.

So, wow. I was thoroughly impressed.

And great job by Bob Schieffer! He was like a good marriage counselor. Bringing up the uncomfortable topics, allowing each person their chance to respond, kept the debate moving, while reminding the candidates what the original question was to keep them on track. Granted, not necessarily questions the political junkies want to hear, but good for the general population who are seeing all these ads/clips out of context.

Memorable moments:
- McCain’s bug eyes upon hearing small businesses are not fined for failing to provide health care to their employees.
- McCain’s “I’m not Bush” line. I can see what people liked about it. I thought it was too little, too late. But I’m also not a voter he’s going to sway. So, good moment for him.
- “And we find bad teachers another line of work.” (followed by “We need to encourage programs… [where people] can go right to teaching and not have to take these examinations…”)
“I’m sorry… You’re not good at this. Let’s make you a janitor instead.”

Omg! I was trying to make fun of this, but it’s genius! I want to use this philosophy at work. They let people be engineers without certifications. I’ll just start pulling people aside, “I’m sorry. You’re a huge moron. I think you’re more suited for a career as Underwear Inspector #312.”

Annoyances:
- Hatchet/scalpel analogy. Let it die already. It makes no sense! Who uses a hatchet and then a scalpel? I better call up BFF for her professional medical opinion.
- Does McCain not know the difference between autism and Downs?
- Joe the Plumber (winner of the night by a landslide, and I say this grudgingly… what with him not being named Joe, not a licensed plumber, a registered Republican, and delinquent on the taxes that he’s so very concerned about)

“Hey, the file you sent out doesn’t address any of the comments we received.”
“Oh, you’re right. I think that’s because I forgot to save.”
So… you’re going to fix that when..?

I will not do your work for you just because you’re incompetent. Seriously.

I will, however, continue to point out your inadequacies until I lose patience and am forced to kick you in the face. It won’t be my fault though. You made me do it. You should apologize now.

I went in to the Alexandria Obama office last week to help out with a postcard writing event. It was listed as a Women for Obama event, intended to reach undecided women in swing states. They were very specific about getting Virginia postcards to make it clear where we were writing from. I sent Ian out the day before (on his day off) to find some pretty postcards in Old Town for me.

I <3 postcards, so this was very exciting for me. I showed up with extra postcards and stamps to share and plenty of enthusiasm. The two rooms in the office designated for this activity were at capacity. There were people sitting on the floors and taking turns sitting in chairs.

So, after the 2 dozen or so women show up to write to undecided voters in swing states, we received our lists of addresses. All of which were in the swing state of Virginia. Most of whom live in Alexandria. Specifically, Old Town.

I wouldn’t complain about getting postcards from someone though, even if they were local. So, if nothing else, I hope the recipients at least appreciated the prettiness of the postcards we sent. :)

Come on Focus Group! What was up with last night?

“I was disappointed in their responses. I didn’t hear anything new.”
“Both candidates were just using talking points.”
“After watching this debate, I’m still not convinced either candidate has a plan.”

Uh, if they said anything new, they’d be flip-flopping and people would complain that they didn’t know what their plan was. And, yeah, they’re politicians. They’re going to steer their answers to some practiced speech they’ve used before.

No plan? No plan??

Go visit both candidates’ websites. Listen to what they’re saying. They’re not going to detail out their plan during the debate because then you’ll be bored by that. But they give generalities and you can get the specifics from their websites.

Both candidates have plans. You just have to decide which one you agree with more.

I’m disappointed with last night’s Focus Group.

But the dial group! Ohio undecided voters — Wow. Those women were maxing out their dials, like, every third time Obama spoke. The men came close a few times, but those women. There was one point where they had completely maxed out the entire length of the screen!

As far as the debate went, I really don’t like the Town Hall style. McCain made me uncomfortable with how close he was standing to people. Kinda creeped me out. I guess I just really like my personal space and need other people to have theirs too.

Also, I don’t know if I’m slow, but Ian and I figured out the whole sharpie thing with McCain. I don’t think he could read his own handwriting without glasses/squinting if he used a pen. He has to use a fat marker so he can read his notes. We did notice that he came prepared this time though. He brought a spare marker in case the old, used one wore out.

I thought Tom Brokaw did a good job. Some of the analysts (last night’s winner: Castellanos; CNN got rid of Rollins and Rosen from last week though) didn’t like him, but I thought he did a good job trying to stick to rules that no one else wanted to abide by. Both candidates made themselves sound bad because of this too. Obama for asking permission to respond, and McCain sounded childish, “Well, if he gets that, I want that too.”

And the hole in the back wall! I thought it was just for the camera to look at Tom Brokaw; Ian and I kept looking at it when the camera panned past it. Thank goodness for that flub at the end where they showed the teleprompter. It explained why the hole was so big.

From our heckling last night, after finding out that Michelle Obama was planted in the audience:

Tom: And now we have an audience question from Michelle O. of Illinois.
Michelle: Whose socks are these on the bathroom floor?
Tom: Senator McCain? Your response?
McCain: *pointing* That guy’s.
Obama: Now wait just a minute. There’s enough blame to go around here. But this isn’t a time to be asking, “Whose socks are these?” We don’t have times to be pointing fingers. We need to ask ourselves, “Who will help pick these socks up?”

VTGuy: There was a change to the weights.
Me: What weights?
VTGuy: The loads.
Me: Which loading condition?
VTGuy: Whichever one Boss Jr was working on. We updated a spreadsheet.

Me: VTGuy said you guys were working on a load condition and there was a change.
Boss Jr: Yeah, but I think it was minor. You should make a note to fold it into the next go-round.
Me: What condition is this for?
Boss Jr: The one you’re working on, but don’t worry about it now.
Me: I’m working on 3 different conditions. All defined by you.
Boss Jr: Oh, the one that VTGuy was working on.

Why won’t anyone offer me the information they intend for me to have??

These people are so useless.

Last night’s debate, in my opinion, had an obvious winner: CNN.

Their technology is far superior to what the other networks demonstrated. Their HD broadcast had 6 analysts who were scoring the debate real-time, as well as independents in Ohio with dials who could react throughout the debate.

I love watching independents react. Last week’s debate, they reacted positively every time someone spoke. Last night, they were divided on the graph as men and women. At one point, the men went back in time and reacted very negatively. The women reacted positively as stereotypically expected — personal stories, things that would cause empathy or other strong emotions, etc.

And then the analysts! Last week, Begala was asleep for the first half hour, but totally came back and had a score close to the rest of the analysts.

Rosen and Rollins were the token extremists. Their scoring was clearly partisan, sometimes giving their candidate more points than the other analysts combined. Last night, Rosen was keeping up and was pretty even with Rollins… until about 10 o’clock. At which point, Rollins fell asleep on the plus button for Palin and gave her 10 points all at once, even though she had stopped talking. This was obviously a mistake, because soon after that, he reduced that to only a 9-point increase.

By the end of the night, Rollins definitely had the win for the most total points on his scorecard, awarding Palin 4 times as many points as other analysts and twice what he awarded Biden.

QOTD: “Did Rollins just have a thumbgasm?”

I’m not quite sure how to address this without sounding ungrateful and greedy. And maybe it’s because I am being ungrateful and greedy. But.

I requested a mid-year review with Boss to see about getting a raise after earning my PE, working absurdly long hours because no one else was able to do this specific work, and basically having my job responsibilities change without being told.

It was a lengthy, awkward meeting. There was an airing of grievances — I don’t work enough hours; I didn’t catch a mistake that one of my coworkers made which never came to me for review. And it became clear to me that Boss didn’t actually know about 25% of the things I do (including automating 3 of my coworkers’ duties so they could be freed to do other work. What? Did he think they got really efficient all of a sudden? And didn’t he tell me to work with them..?).

So in the end, he said that he would go to upper management for me and recommend that I get a raise.

Now, I know the economy is bad. And I know I didn’t go to them with a specific numerical demand or offer in hand.

But I’m incredibly disappointed by the raise that I received and, honestly, a little insulted by it. I’m pretty sure my facial expression revealed my opinion of it because Boss did ask me if that was ok. And I hesitated, being unprepared to hear right then, and even more unprepared for something that wasn’t even on the radar in my expectation range.

This is the lowest raise I’ve received in 4 years.

I sound greedy now, don’t I?

I discussed with Boss at my review at the beginning of this year whether mid-year reviews/raises are an option. Specifically, with regard to getting my PE and Masters. He said yes. It’s not typical, but in exceptional cases like that, I should be compensated for my increased value to the company.

I don’t feel like they are compensating me a proportional amount to the increase in my value to them.

Now, I’m trying to see how, monetarily this is actually better than waiting until next spring and getting a larger raise. Because if I didn’t ask for anything now, it seems like my advances should make it worth more than a typical raise then. And this was, at best, typical.

And now my annual review cycle has been moved to this new date and I am not to expect a raise in the spring. This doesn’t add up for me.

I should also mention that when I walked into that meeting, his first issue was that I not have an expectation of doing this often. He doesn’t want me coming in every 6 months asking for another raise.

Trust me. I won’t.

LOTD: How much are you worth?

I came across an article on the Psychology of voting that cited a study that was done a few years ago:
“Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments.” (PDF of original paper)

I think I’ve seen references to this in passing before, but I decided to look it up today and read the actual paper. It was marginally reassuring to me that the concluding remarks in their paper expressed similar apprehensions as I experienced when reading their results:

In sum, we present this article as an exploration into why people tend to hold overly optimistic and miscalibrated views about themselves. We propose that those with limited knowledge in a domain suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach mistaken conclusions and make regrettable errors, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Although we feel we have done a competent job in making a strong case for this analysis, studying it empirically, and drawing out relevant implications, our thesis leaves us with one haunting worry that we cannot vanquish. That worry is that this article may contain faulty logic, methodological errors, or poor communication. Let us assure our readers that to the extent this article is imperfect, it is not a sin we have committed knowingly.

This also brings to mind the confidence that many people have in job hiring processes and their personal judgment when it comes to interviews. I have witnessed the failures in this process enough times to recognize that I certainly don’t trust my own judgment, much less that of others. While I recognize that it is a necessary part of the process to meet and interact with a potential hire in order to finalize the decision, I find it rare that interviewers put in the effort to learn anything new about a candidate aside from what they might have learned from a sheet of paper or a brief phone or email interview. And yet, most interviewers believe that they are a good judge of character and that meeting this person will make all the difference.

Right.

Try telling them otherwise.

But really… After an interview, ask yourself:
- What have you learned about this person that you didn’t already know before?
- How does this person stand out from the average population?
- Do you ask standard questions when you interview? What information are you gaining by asking these aside from what the person explicitly wants you to believe?
- Do you have a better idea of how this person thinks, works, etc?
- How does this person’s opinion of him/herself compare to their actual abilities?
- Do you ask for references? Do you contact those references?

I was discussing in passing with Ian the other day how people should have references from ex-bf/gfs when starting new relationships. But isn’t it the responsibility of the person doing the hiring to ask for those references? So, if you’re dating someone and don’t know their friends, history, etc. it’s your responsibility to do your research. It many cases, it’s not in a person’s interest to offer that information up front. So why wouldn’t you ask?