What Happened?

Writing used to be therauputic. It was a way to share myself with myself (and perhaps a dozen or so readers). Lately, I've been completely radio silenced. What happened? When I hit road blocks in business school, writing for 20 minutes cleared my mind enough to tackle the next big project. I attempted that at work once and when I hit "post," I received some sort of failure notification. My company doesn't allow you to post to blogs. I suppose I can't blame them. Work time is for work, right? Not to mention, there's fear that I'm posting sensitive company information. I'd like to think that most people are good natured and hearted, yet with scandel after scandel, it's hard to believe that.

 

Work is overly slow these days. I finished my morning responsibilities at 11:30a today and now I'm waiting for a 3p meeting. Yes, literally, waiting. Tomorrow, this place will likely be a ghost town. If it were up to me I'd skip the entire day completely. However, instead I have a 30 minute meeting at 8a, which will be my first and last bit of responsibility before the holiday weekend. Still contemplating if it is ok to simply leave when I'm done. Hmmm.

 

In good news, I received my market location 2 weeks ago. In February 2011, I'm officially moving to CHICAGO!! I couldn't be more excited and I wish February were tomorrow. Though I know now that it's Thanksgiving, the time between now and February is going to absolutely fly. The boy and I have trips planned for the holidays to see both of our families. I'm also looking forward to catching up with some friends along the way. My first trial run in Chicago will be right before Christmas for a market visit. Hopefully it's not too cold then! 

 

I can't promise more musings, but I'm definitely going to try. Happy Thanksgiving! Gobble Gobble!  

World Series

It's Monday night and I'm halfway glued to my TV, hoping the SF Giants can clinch the title. Mom, dad, brother and brother's GF attended Game 1 in San Francisco. Brother + 1 attended Game 2 as well. Giants fever has hit almost every Facebook status message I read during the nights they're playing and sometimes, the days they are not. I can almost tell what happened in the games based on the name updates... Sanchez, Cody Ross, Uribe, Buster Posey and the list goes on. More photos and tag lines of "Fear the Beard" arrive daily. It makes me miss home.

I'm not sure the Bay Area will ever not be home. I guess sometimes I'm just waiting for that day. Will I ever stop telling people I'm from SF? Living in Louisville, I often receive a slightly odd look, asking how did you end up here?! These days, I don't even know.

I await anxiously to find out where my next residence will be. In the last two years I've lived in Charlottesville, Atlanta, Louisville and even Stockholm, Sweden for a couple months. Friday, I will know where I move in February 2011. I'm excited and scared. The anxiety has seeped into my dreams as I cross my fingers for Chicago and try to remember that everything happens for a reason. Those dreams can turn to nightmares, so anything I can do to not focus on the next move is good as it hopefully leads to better sleep.

Therefore, bottom of the 7th, Giants lead 3-1. Let's go SF!

I Want A Real Job

Turns out you can't post to blogger from work. Doh! I suppose that shouldn't surprise me given the restricted level of  internet access. Needless to say, I wrote a great post and had the entire thing disappear when I clicked post. Now I know.

You may be wondering how I have time to post during work hours. It's simple, I'm receiving an unmatched education around health and insurance, however the pace is definitely not that of Darden. This week has averaged two or three meetings per day, approximately an hour each. That's a lot of empty hours to fill.

I have no responsibility and no deliverables until February. All I have to do is learn the business, understand how areas connect and be able to speak fluidly about everything. Being new to the industry, I couldn't ask for a better setup. It just needs to be faster for the sake of my sanity. I crave intensity, which I've learned leads to better  personal time management. Currently, I have too much free time during the day where I just have to literally be present. My colleague and I joke that we would like real jobs. We know their on the horizon, but we're getting cabin fever.

Update: ... Blogger saves things automatically, here is the original post

The education I am receiving regarding healthcare and insurance is likely unmatched. While I may never claim to know more in any one area than some of the tenured veterans, I will be able to talk fluidly on how different parts of the business interact. I can say now, much more than I ever said during my interviews. In the beginning, health insurance was simply a card you took out of your wallet when you visited the doctor, who would eventually bill you for some unknown amount. Turns out it is not as gray as it seems when you know what questions to ask.

The pace of this education is definitely not that of Darden. While I suppose I don't need another couple years of such intensity, there was something about that intensity that I loved. I was much more diligent when it came to managing my time. Now, I just pray that my time is filled. This week has been incredibly slow. Typically 2-3 meetings a day, at a max of an hour each. What do you do with all that free time?

It's ironic how my free time at the end of my job prior to business school was a blessing. Of course, we also didn't have restricted internet access, so browsing was easier. Now, I crave speed, intensity, or simply a schedule busier than the one I have. It's hard when you're essentially working on someone's else time. In fact, a lot of someone elses. I have started creating a contact sheet of all the people I've met over the last five months. The tally is roughly 150. That's a lot of people! Yet, every day my colleague and I joke, we want a real job. It's been a long time since I've hard any responsibility or needed to work on a real deliverable. I get more excited about figuring out the best way to develop a website for my mother's wine group than anything here at the office.

I know the education will be worth it, I just want it to be faster. (And I'd like to be told where I'm moving in February...supposed to be informed during October. Two weeks left.)

Insurance, What A Strange Business?

Most widget makers have the luxury of knowing their cost prior to setting their price. When they set their price, they include a profit margin. And from there, the widget maker can try to understand how many widgets he must sell in order to cover costs and make an overall profit.

The insurance business is different. Specifically, health insurance is very different. Most fully-insured large employer groups look to receive a renewal price 2-3 months prior to their renewal date. If claims are used as a basis for that renewal price, credible claims must be posted approximately 90 days prior to their use. So if you want a price for a Jan 1 renewal in September, the claims that are being used are from June of the previous year to May of this year. The renewal price is a guaranteed monthly premium for an entire twelve months quoted. How is an insurance carrier supposed to know how much a member is going to incur in claims 15 months from the day of their pricing? They estimate. Additionally, if a member uses a lot of doctor's services in the first six months, the carrier can't reprice the premium for the second six months. It's definitely a risky business and an odd one when you realize that insurance companies essentially find out their costs many months after they set their price.

I must admit, prior to leaving business school, I had never thought about this when I received medical cards. Also, here's a good quick description of how health insurance works, past the pricing aspect.

Plugged In

It's the age of 24/7 connection. These days, my phone can do just about everything that I do on my personal computer. We omit personal phone calls in exchange for text messages. The virtual world now allows hundreds of thousands of people to choose where they want to live without worrying about where they work. Technology is moving faster and everything seems instantaneously obsolete, yet there are moments when I wonder if we're moving forward or backward.

Sometimes I wonder what human interaction will look like when I have kids. My mom used to believe that when she drove my brother and I to school, that was her time to interact and teach us values. We couldn't jump out of the car, so she had a captive audience. These days, mom is on the phone and baby has a TV to keep entertained. What happened?

I found myself contemplating the virtual landscape the other day at work. Technology has helped companies that are spread across the states and world interact. However, has "efficient" technology led to its own inefficiencies? An email exchange that could be solved with a 60 second phone call will go on for days because no one wants to pick up the phone. E-learning activities are the fancy word for go 'learn'. Yet some people learn from reading, writing or a mixture of both. Retention of information is often not easy unless you apply it. Answering 20 questions at the end of an e-learning course does not prove that you learned the material, simply that your short term memory is good enough to recall it.

Webinars, while undoubtedly helpful, will never beat a live meeting. I think I fade faster in the virtual world than I do in a live presentation. It's hard to read your audience in the virtual world and thus it becomes so much more important that people speak up. Further, I think conversations need to be stronger in the virtual world as to not duplicate work. What are your assumptions? What EXACTLY is your end goal or desire? Sometimes, I don't think the asker even knows. In face to face meetings it seems much easier to define. Perhaps that's because for that second, there really is a captitive audience. And in today's plugged in world, everyone always seems to be multi-tasking, which, in my opinion, is an oxymoron. You're simply saying that not one item or person is getting your undivided attention. Just a different way to look at it.

The Waiting Game

In the middle of June, six of my coworkers in the Commercial Sales training program received word of their soon-to-be new homes. My finance counterpart and I sat back as they received relocation checks, locked in housing, packed their things and said goodbye to Louisville! This was their time to make a new home!

RS and I always knew that the waiting game for us would be longer. At first, we were told November, which in June seemed so far away that it wasn't worth worrying. In July, we were told October, but still three months can seem like a lifetime after business school. I lived in Atlanta and Stockholm for three months each. Just enough time to settle in to a routine, yet not long enough for it to feel like home. Since starting our finance assimilation, every time we meet a new person, they ask where we are moving. The answer of TBD is getting old.

This past Monday, the October deadline was reiterated. So now, I sit and wonder. Will I make it to Chicago where my better half resides? Or will this be the start of a series of tough decisions to come in the future?

The waiting game, while exciting at times, has gotten the best of me over the last three years. You wait to hear from business schools, and then you wait to start once you accept. Next, you start interview season, only to wait to hear if you're on the interview list, whether you make it to second round or finally receive an internship offer. At the end of an internship, some people even have to wait to see if they are extended a full-time offer. Even if they are, many still recruit, repeating the interview process. While I wouldn't trade any of these experiences for the world, I'm ready to plan my next move, which is hopefully to a place I can truly make home.

I suppose the good news I've become very patient and with all this moving, I have become the opposite of a pack-rat, constantly purging the items I own.

The Darden Connection

Darden was one of the best decisions I ever made. I continuously say that and I think with each time, I mean it more. When I first started my position, I received a welcome email from a guy named Charles. I'm not sure how he knew I had joined the organization and I didn't bother to ask. He set up lunch a group of us including an intern and other alumni. Needless to say, I missed that lunch as Lotus Notes, our email system, doesn't include an automatic calendar reminder. You have to manually check a box to get a reminder, which I still forget to do. After missing that meeting, he was incredibly understanding. Then I traveled for a couple months off and on. Finally, two weeks ago I reached out to setup a new lunch meeting.

Charles graciously accepted and after a couple confusing exchanges, we missed yet another lunch. Today was the day that we were going to get this right. Sure enough, I waited by the lunch trays. Noon came and went, but about ten minutes after, he showed up. We grabbed our respective meals and found a place to eat. As most people do, he asked me how I picked Darden, having been from San Francisco. I explained to him that the Darden networking reception sold me. When looking at business schools, I suppose everyone has to consider HBS. It's known as a gold standard. The HBS reception was a mock case with roughly five alumni in attendance. I spent more time discussing the GMAT and tips with college kids than speaking to anyone about the school. Darden was different. The head of admissions spoke for five minutes and told us if we wanted to know anything about the school, talk to them, pointing to the alumni. She explained that they were the appropriate people to answer my questions. I spoke with people from the class of 1984, 1993 as well as some recent graduates. I was grilled by the head of Alumni Relations. Every person I met had their hand on their business card and wanted to know what they could do for the school. They wanted to give back. There was something about that interaction that simply stuck. HBS may be able to run circles around Darden in terms of network size, except the large class size doesn't give you the bond and connection Darden does.

Charles, who graduated almost 10 years ago and has had a very successful career, thanked me. He thanked me for reminding him why he loved Darden so much. There's nothing better than the Darden connection. When I mentioned the name of a coworker in my organization, Charles said he knows him well. I proceeded to tell him that he reminds me of Elliott Weiss, a Darden professor who wears a bowtie every day. This guy wears a bowtie daily. I guess that also speaks to the tenure of Darden's professors.