Vocab for 2/6/10

Succep Backward

n. The moment in which one seems to achieve a modicum of success only to realize that it is, in fact, a movement in the reverse direction of the intended endpoint.

e.g. The fact that the experiment worked is a real succep backwards for my dissertation.

Unions? I'll pass thanks...

So a while back (last summer) the University of California issued a plan to deal with California's increasing budget crisis. Everyone (except those funded completely by grants or essential services) would be receiving a pay cut and furlough days to help save money. Our center had been approved through the University as an essential service and as far as we knew, would not be receiving pay cuts. Which is good right? Yeah sure until this week. Yesterday we got a letter from HR stating that the Clerical Union that happens to negotiate our contracts as preschool teachers had negotiated with UC to have pay cuts and temporary layoff days for everyone except those that worked in the hospitals. Ummm....that's not cool. The University said we didn't have to have a pay cut because there's really no way for all of us to take a day off. If someone is gone, they have to be replaced. The state of California says so. So in the end it won't save anybody any money, the employees lose money and the University ends up paying as much if not more to fill the gaps left by people on temporary layoffs.
So since I abhor unions and all that they are currently "doing" for people, I wrote them a nice little email today about how much I appreciated what they've done for me. See I regularly receive email updates on negotiations and such from the union, just so I know what is going on. The problem is they haven't sent any emails since December and suddenly we're hit with this letter yesterday. See, I told them that I wanted the same exemption that the University had already granted us. Funny thing is, 45 minutes after I sent my email, UCSD CUE represented employees all received an email from the Union about how departments had issued these notices before both sides had agreed to them and that they would be meeting next week to negotiate details. Really? How did that happen? And magically, you figure this out when someone calls you out on it. Well we'll see next week if I get any news as far as 'negotiations' go. And meanwhile, whether my pay is cut or not, I am truly grateful that I do have a job and even though it doesn't pay exceptionally well (Chris makes more than me as a grad student) it is a job and it does help pay the bills. And by the way, I could do without being represented by a union. Just sayin.

Vocabulary (aka WotW)

We (the staff) feel it is necessary to rename the Word of the Week posts to "Vocabulary" due to the frequency of new words needing to be dissemniated.

So without further ado...

Motivisery

n. The drive, by force of misery, to get things done. Often associated with a feeling of, "either do this or suffer more." May often be found in electronic mail format or public reprimand from superiors. Also associated with dread and helplessness. A common trait amongst people who are trying to get a dreaded thing out of the way.

e.g. Man that e-mail from my boss really gave me the motivisery to finish that experiment so I can graduate.

1 down, 3 left to go

So I finished a successful run on the microscope so that means I only have one of those left to do and then 2 gels and we're looking at the end of the road. Now we know that my boss will have something else to say on the matter but you know you gotta take what you can get. The first of the final three manuscripts went to him (the boss) this morning and that means yours truly is looking at maybe a month or two left and hopefully only a couple weeks of benchwork left. So the prospect of getting out before the end of spring is starting to look more like a reality. Man wouldn't that be sweet. I do know that I will have to stall as I am slated to go to DC for AACR and Lish has already bought her tix to join... looks like I get to stall.

Word of the Week, II

This one is more of a portmanteau:

Explagotiate

v. The act of simultaneously explaining why and negotiating a new end point simultaneously.

e.g. I need to explagotiate to my boss the new deadline for my manuscript.

Can also be used in the noun sense to indicate the act of - such as: We're going through explagotiations to determine how many more weeks I need to be here.

Chris

Word of the Week

Job Prowling

v- the description of looking for a job without actually job hunting. That is to say that you are "window-shopping" jobs.

e.g. I'm job prowling till I can meet with my boss and set a timetable for escape.

Chris

Rain- Day 5

So according to the best guesses San Diego (downtown area only) has around 4-5 inches of rain since Monday. Topping off the awesomeness is that we had hail, lightning and thunder, yeah right here near the beach. It's been awesome. And yes, we're currently building our ark, as per instruction, just in case.

In the mean time we've been told that it's gonna be this way all winter, due to some crazy weather pattern.

I'm no meteorologist, so please, allow the following video to help you better understand this weather.