Stupid policies revisited...

So it turns out that I did indeed get health insurance coverage... from my union. I suppose that makes sense but why in the hell do the administrators of this system not know that and mistakenly scare the hell out of their GAs? Seems sort of back-assward to me. However, on a different note... I am no longer a GA. Which means I'm free and it also means I now no longer have health insurance... again. So it goes.

Stupid policies: continuing the annoyance of university series.

I'll use just this one example that is very representative and also very contemporary to my current situation.

I work at a university where I am also a student. It's always been mandatory that students have health insurance. You have to sign a special waiver in fact to opt out of the university plan that is automatically charged to your student account.

Over the last year I've worked as a graduate assistant. The experience and environment has been very educational and valuable to me in so many ways. Obviously one of those is that my tuition is waived as part of the deal. I also earn decent money for the time I put in and the experience is going to be invaluable when I leave to seek a job in the Real World. So one would think that I have basic health insurance too since I work on campus, take classes at a full time load, am in good standing and have my student account in proper order. Well you would be wrong. And why is this? It's because of a stupid policy. i.e.

If a student takes only online classes regardless of their program status (on campus or online are your options, and I have always been an on campus student) they magically become ineligible for the health plan.

So the rub here is that since starting graduate school I have taken all online classes. Now, I'm still an on campus student I just happen to be taking my class selection in the online format. I discovered that this is a much easier way to learn this sort of material for me anyway because I could set my own pace and not be saddled to a physical meeting twice a week (per class). In total I could spend 6 extra hours a week on campus sitting in lectures. That's quite a time savings to me and also in the fact that in drastically simplifies my travel arrangements.

So basically I work on campus as a GA (which I would have to assume is the sort of position a truly online student could not hold much less perform as one has to physically go in to work), I am listed as an on campus student in my program, and this status has never been changed. The only thing that is different is the "flavor" of the classes I am taking.

I talked with the provost's secretary about this matter after being informed about the problem at the GA orientation where only then did they warn us that taking online classes exclusively would result in the system dropping you from the health plan. The provost's secretary said that they had had in depth consideration of the criteria and requirements for students to be enrolled in student health plans and that that was the best way they could work it. One of the semi-irrational specific reason/scenarios was that an out of state citizen without insurance and a costly preexisting condition could enroll at the university and soak our health plan for their medical bills. My response to that was, "okay, but I work on campus. I'm physically here 4 out of 7 days. I live 20 minutes from campus by bus, and that has been exactly the case for the preceding 4 years. Isn't there some other consideration outside of simply online or on campus?" Her answer: NOPE.

So that gets a gigantic WTF people. I have also been informed that there is no way to change it or make a special case for me. Part of me wonders if I shouldn't take this to my union (yeah, I'm techinically in a union but I don't have health insurance. What. The. Fuck.)

And that's just one little stupid policy story. There are sadly many more. Perhaps some day I will write of them too. Cheers for now folks. Watch out for those bureaucrats.

Million Dollar Ideas

For starters don't even bother going to watch "Jobs" the Steve Jobs movie; it's awful enough for me to actually say so on the internet on a blog that one person has actually subscribed to (I can't blame the rest of you, what's it been, a year... two... a long damn time.) It reads as if the editor and director sat up in the editing booth with a bag each of acid and meth and just had a blast. Too bad the result is a steaming pile of disjointed plots, half finished stories and poor acting. Woz was believable though.

At any rate the portrait that was so sloppily painted with fingers and mud makes Jobs out to be a thieving, conniving, hypocritical, womanizing dead-beat dad. Okay, all of that is true. However, the way that the story is told just makes me want to slap the director. Also, way too much free hand camera work(I'm not usually one to get sick from jerky camera motion but this got pretty bad and for long scenes.)

All of that is just prelude to the topic at hand. 

I maintain a text file that operates as an archive of all my "million dollar" ideas. A more successful contemporary would refer to this as "brain crack", sort of. It's sort of a to-do list and it's sort of a holy-shit-that-would-be-awesome list and it's also something I less frequently than I should update with, well... million dollar ideas. It just occurred to me that this is a double meaning I had not thought of nor intended but is apt all the same. Some of the ideas are worth a million dollars BUT a lot of them are ideas that would cost a million dollars. Which is a much more succinct way of saying what I was going to try to say anyway. Essentially, if I had a million dollars I could probably do something spectacular. Even a spectacular failure is still spectacular! In any case I do not have a million dollars. Nowhere near it in fact. (Always taking donations...) But the ideas do give me some hope that some day maybe I could get lucky and one of them take off or be attainable (and profitable). That is the problem though. First one has to start on the project. Merely having the idea is not enough. This blog is a meandering and probably misguided attempt to enact one of those million dollar ideas. But I have far more "ideas" than time (or money) and I do seem to have some trouble with motivation some times. So basically I'm whining that I was "unfortunate" enough to have to work at a regular job. But idealistic me still wants for a world where maybe just an idea can profoundly change the course of one life or all of ours. Sure I could turn to crowdsourcing or kick-starting for a few of these ideas. But the downside is that I as an individual cannot deal with the fallout of a failure. So as a "little" guy or somebody that just doesn't have enough "fuck you" money to just tinker all day I'm stuck with a nice big bag of brain crack. These addicting little gems that would be great if only...

How does this tie in to the prelude? Very loosely if at all. Jobs seems to have just been in the right circle with the right idea at the right time which is great to a degree. And basically I wish I could pull that off one day too. I just hope I can manage to not piss off everybody around me in the process. In the mean time let's hear it for the big bag of brain crack. If somebody leaves a comment I will post one of my real million dollar ideas in the next post. I'm not kidding, just set it free on the internet... See you around friends.