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JerseySmarts.com

Finally Some Oversight at NJHESAA

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Ever since I started paying back my student loans some 20 months ago, I’ve been complaining about how inept and downright rude the people at the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority are on the telephone. Not only do they treat you like you are trying to get away with something, but they fail to understand the basic fundamental purpose of their organization – to provide low-cost student loans to New Jersey residents so they may earn a higher education degree.

Well, it looks like these folks are finally going to get what’s coming to them. The Asbury Park Press reported the other day that an independent monitor will begin looking at the NJHESAA as a part of the national student loan scandal that is unfolding. Good.

I don’t know all of the nitty gritty details of what’s going on at NJHESAA and I really don’t want to know them right now. I’m glad that this organization is being monitored and that new borrowers will think twice about whether or not this is the proper vehicle for their higher education financing needs. If I could go back in time and NOT take a NJHESAA loan, I would do that in a heartbeat. I’d rather have a loan from a large traditional financing institution that sees me as nothing more than a profit on their books than deal with the arrogant, demeaning people at NJHESAA.

And they charge me too much for my loan. Thanks to Dave for sending me this link a few weeks ago.

There Better Not Be A Bailout…

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With all of this talk about the subprime mortgage market meltdown, I hope that this country doesn’t forget about the student loan scandals that are silently rocking higher education. Just as people were duped into loans that were bad for them, many students were duped into consolidating with organizations that provided a kickback to schools that referred a certain number of students.

If America wants to remain a country balanced between capitalism and socialism, then we cannot forget student loans. In other words, if this is a country where the free market can create situations where private organizations trick borrowers into signing mortgages that are inherently bad for the borrower and if this is a country where the people demand our government fix this “injustice,” then this also needs to be a country that does the same with ALL forms of financial contracts. That would include student loans.

Providing a bailout for the unfortunate masses who were tricked into signing these subprime mortgages means that we need to provide a bailout for those students who were tricked into consolidating with companies that had profit motives over the best repayment option for the student.

Contemplating a New Business Venture

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Over the last few weeks I’ve been thinking about opening up another small business. For those of you that don’t know, I am the owner of Usable Web Solutions, LLC which primarily is focused on providing an affordable online presence to small businesses and nonprofits. My mindset was that I really like putting together simple, yet usable websites so why not get paid for it?

Now I’m thinking about putting together a small grant-writing firm that would specialize in writing grants for small and upstart businesses. In my previous job I had success writing grants for specialized designations by public bodies and in the mean time I’ve had some success writing smaller grants for specific programs. When one sits down and really looks at the breadth of grant opportunities that are available to small businesses and nonprofits, it can be mind-boggling.

Another idea that has been going around my head is whether or not to open up a small business and nonprofit consulting firm. This would combine both the website business and the grant writing as well as add a leadership and organizational management component. The biggest problem (as always) is that it is hard to put the right amount of time into such an endeavor when I spend 10 hours per day away from my home office (2 hours driving and 8 at the office). The second biggest “issue” is that I do not want to goof up the position that my website company is in. Usable Web Solutions, LLC has a great client base and I am not willing to compromise this in any way.

But opening up a small grant writing firm? I think I could do that…and enjoy it!

Top Executives Move On To New Opportunities

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About a week ago I celebrated my 18 month anniversary being employed by my company. If you read the post on Joe’s Journal, then you know that I wound up celebrating in rare form. And while that journal entry is more a display of a minor annoyance, there are other things going on that warrant an employee’s attention.

Sometime in January our Chief Operating Officer decided to move on to another job. She found a good job that is closer to home and – more importantly – closer to her family. As a working Mom, she needs to be close to home base. While we were all sad to see her go, it was a logical decision and she will be missed. Her last day was two weeks ago.

During her last week at the office, our Executive Director/President also announced his resignation citing that he was extremely proud of the organization and that it was time for him to move on to a new endeavor. No one is sure if he has a concrete job locked down somewhere else (he’s been at the company for the better part of the last decade). I know that he’s smart enough to make a ton of money with a financial consulting firm, if he decides to open one. We’re not entirely sure when he’s going to move on, but we know that each day that goes by we are closer to having no leadership in the office.

It is times like these that make employees reevaluate where they are in life and where they are in terms of their occupational situation. For me, the truth is that I began this reevaluation process in earnest sometime last spring. Then for family reasons, I stopped evaluating my employment for the summer and most of the fall. When I had to close a very big deal for our company in November, that pulled me back into the grind and ever since then, I’ve been thinking about this job and my future. The loss of the top leadership at my organization has sort of put this whole thing into hyper-drive.

The truth is that I really hate my commute. I drive an hour to work and an hour back each day (unless I’m working from home). The 100-mile daily commute is really a pain in the ass and for those of you that make this commute or longer, I’m not at a point where I can continue to blow $400 per month on gas so it’s a double whammy. I can’t take mass transit without adding another two hours onto the daily commute (ain’t happening). A few months ago I was really thinking about moving closer to my job, but I don’t really like Trenton area and there isn’t anything exciting going on anywhere between where I live and the office. In terms of getting to and from work, I hate it.

As for the physical place where I work, I really don’t like the building at all. We’re in a building that has got to be over 100 years old. One of our former COO’s tasks was to have the building upgraded. Well, now that she’s gone I’m confident that the building is not changing. Personally, I hate the all-white walls and the almost unmanageable parking situation in our extremely small lot. The crappy carpet and painted-over-panel walls in the offices don’t help either. Let’s just say it’s not a place that I’m comfortable bringing my clients. In terms of the physical space, it’s not a nice looking place to work.

Then there is the staff. The truth is that even though my post about the secretary showed how completely outlandish one member of the staff can be, I really like everyone (including the secretary). The staff at this place is among the best out there, period. They are good people with good hearts and that is important in the grand scheme of things. In terms of the staff, I couldn’t be in a better place!

Of course, one must consider advancement opportunities. Here is where it gets interesting. Is there a great deal of “upward mobility” in my job? No. In an organization with about 10 people, no one is more than one step removed from the top of the heap. It’s weird. The advancement opportunities at my job are more industry-wide advancement opportunities. In other words, an employee is likely never going to be “the boss” at this office, but he may find a new way to finance a particularly complex project that is duplicated by the competitors (which, in this industry, is a good thing). In terms of advancement I have to rate this position as 50/50.

One of the final things I’ve been considering is my remuneration. I get paid a decent salary, but it’s high time that it increased. I’ve only had one automatic “standard of living” raise over the last 18 months and believe me, the cost of living has gone up more than my raise! The problem is that with the top brass at the office leaving, I do not know who to ask for a raise. I was just getting ready to talk to the COO about this, but now she’s gone. Considering that it will take the new Executive Director a few months to really get the feel of the office, I may be out of a raise for a long-time to come and I’m not happy about that at all. In terms of remuneration…18 months ago I would have said that I’m very happy. Today? I’m not and it appears that there is no person to talk to about it. Not good.

All in all, my assessment tells me that I am not in the right employment situation right now. However – after all of the criticism above – I’m awkwardly content at my job. I will probably begin to look for a new place to work in the next few months, but not rigorously. If my company does actually move out of Trenton and into New Brunswick like the rumor has been for months, then I would probably move to that area of the state (or further north) and stick with it. However, I feel like something is missing at my current job and unless I can figure out what it is, then it might be time to move on.

Office Nonsense: What a Waste of Energy

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We all knew it had to happen at some point…well, here we go! My first office aggravation entry! Whoo hoo! Exciting! So, without any further adieu, I present my first awkward situation and the first time that I’ve put myself out there as someone NOT to be wrecklessly and witlessly tread upon in my office.

For the last year and a half, I’ve worked for a SMALL financial institution (less than 15 people). We take in money, send out money, invest money, etc. My role in this company is as a Loan Officer. Folks come to me and ask for loans, I underwrite their request, and hopefully we sign a deal so they can receive financing and my company can earn a few bucks.

Once a loan is signed, there is a specific process for the borrower to access money from the company. They submit a request, I put together a few forms, and the forms get sent around for various signatures so the money is approved to go to the borrower. This usually works like clockwork, but my latest set of forms to go around the office didn’t quite work right…

The first person who gets the forms held on to them for a WEEK before passing them to the second person. The second person signed them quickly and passed them down to the Secretary. The Secretary did her part and put them on the financial officer’s desk…where they sat for two days, untouched. In other words, a process that normally takes 2 – 3 days wound up taking 10 days. The borrower started to get angry and I looked like the fool since – to the borrower – I am the public face of the organization.

It gets better.

We tried to send the check overnight and that didn’t work (which is odd – I mean we paid for the overnight service and didn’t get it). So as the public face of the organization to this borrower, I started getting some harsh e-mails and nasty responses on the phone. Nothing I could do – the check was literally in the mail and the process to get it there was out of my hands starting on day one.

After a particularly nasty e-mail/phone call combination, I sent an internal e-mail to the folks involved in getting the check out of our office and in the borrower’s hands. I couched the e-mail as an exasperated plea for help. I wanted to know what I could do to make my particular part of this process better (I figured let me take the “I must be wrong here” route since I knew that in such small organizations, no one ever raises their hand and says, “My fault. Sorry.”). In addition, I reported that our company had lost a measure of our standing with the borrower and I, too, had lost some measure (which is the truth).

The response that I received from this e-mail was way out of left field. I sent out a plea for help to do my job better and the Secretary responded to everyone with a few paragraphs of how this problem was not her fault (which was in bold and italicized). My first reaction was, “Huh? No one is blaming anyone here!”

Included in her response was a criticism of my time at the organization (apparently if you’re not a “lifer” in this place, then you are not allowed to ask how this check-sending system can be better managed). But what was most insulting to me in the Secretary’s e-mail was the final line where she completely rejected my statement that both the company and I had lost a measure of standing with the borrower. How the hell would the Secretary know anything about my borrower other than their name and address? The Secretary wouldn’t know – she made a statement that belittled the year and a half I’ve put into building my relationship with this borrower.

What type of response is this to a plea for help?

I had to take action so I responded to everyone saying simply that the Secretary should not take offense because no one was point a finger at her. I went on to talk about many of my recent dealings with this client and how they were obviously not happy with the product that we were giving them when they can get better deals from our competitors.

And the Secretary’s next response? She didn’t want to talk about this over the e-mail, but in person. So now this dope is getting offended that I dared to respond to her? What the hell is that about? How insecure must a person be in their job to be offended when someone else asks for assistance? In an office with less than 15 people, this type of psychotic, neurotic behavior becomes a glaring issue. Oh, and I won’t go into how pretty much everyone in the office has been telling me to deal gently with the Secretary because she doesn’t do her job well or how they’ve told me that I need to follow-up with her over and over and over again to be sure a task is complete. I don’t have time for that type of inefficiency. We have a process to get money on the street – either it works or it doesn’t.

What is completely mind-boggling to me is that the Secretary was absolutely not wrong in her role in the process! She performed her role as she was supposed to – no problems at all. Yet she gets offended when I ask how I can make my part of the process better?

To add icing to the cake – in a small office, people gossip too much. The week after this happened, I had a few road visits that kept me out of the office for a few days. In this time, the Secretary was sure to gossip with some of the other staff about how I was a rude asshole. I ask for help, she gets offended and defends herself, I tell her no one is blaming her, and I’m an asshole for it. Sounds logical, right?

When I did get back to the office, I had to call her from office to answer a question. She didn’t answer her phone. So I went to her office and asked her and a co-worker some questions and I got the cold shoulder from her and a stare that could have pierced a diamond. What a dopey, stupid response…

There is a lesson learned on my behalf, though. From this point forward, I cannot deal with the insecure people in my office (of which the Secretary may be the only one). They need to be left off of my e-mails and they need to be excluded from my pleas for assistance. I hope that the organization learns something from this, too. I hope that they learn that in a small office setting where resources are scarce, we do not have the ability to keep people on board who are constantly trying to defend the necessity of their presence. In other words, where there’s smoke there’s fire and the Secretary’s vehement defense of her role in the process (when it was never questioned) and her offended response to an ask for help is a blatant and obvious submission of her uselessness in the organization.