The Economist magazine has their annual “Year of World Events” … in verse!

Ben has finished the wedding page and it looks beautiful. I’m glad that it is up so we can share the day with family and friends.

Today we went around running errands and found that local businesses in small town Spokane cannot do anything that we ask of them.

The wedding announcement order is not in. Did they call and tell us it was backordered? No.

Costco can crop pictures and print them out. Can they crop them so that Ben’s head isn’t cut off? Can they crop them to the size that we want? No. And No.

Mailoxes Etc. has paper to print Christmas letters on. Do they have enough of the kind that we want? Sure. Do they have envelopes? No.

Does the local card store have what we need? No.

Does Post-It Packaging Store have what we need. No.

Do we go home empty handed after an afternoon of disappointment? Yes.

At least my grad school apps are close to being done. I have one more statement of purpose, some recommendation letters to collect, and my resume to print out before they are completely done. Today was a day of bitterness that was only made better by the completion of the wedding website by wonderful Ben.

Thank you Ben, for doing what you said you would do, unlike all the other people in Spokane.

I did it. I really did it. This page is your connection to all things wedding-related for your favorite couple in the Northwest. Go and be informed. Go and be happy. Just go.

Well, finals are officially over and somehow I have survived another semester. I had finals in Shakespeare, Victorian Literature, History of American Art, and a political science Core 350 class. This was also the semester that I had to finalize ideas for my senior project (due at the end of the year) and turn in a thesis and reading list. With the wedding, finals, and grad school applications due, things have been a little busy.

Here is a little general catching up info…

I’m excited to head down to Portland to visit family for Christmas and relax for a bit, but I want to finish all of my grad school applications and get them sent off before I go. I’m applying to MA Gender and Women’s Studies Programs at University of Arizona, Ohio State, and Rutgers, and to a joint English/Women’s Studies MA/PhD program at Penn State. We’ll see what happens.

I’m looking forward to TAing a class over Jan Term called “Female Friendship in Film and Lit” that I helped design with one of my professors. I’ll also be TAing for a Literary Criticism class in the Spring and maybe a Women’s Studies intro course as well. Other than that I’ll be working in a class on essay writing, one on religious themes in modern lit, and, of course, my senior project.

Oh, my beloved senior project. I’ll be working with some french feminist literary theorists on a feminist utopian novel by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The best part is, I don’t know French and I’ve only read a little of Gilman. The dozen or so essays I have read have been interesting and I’ll be delving into the lit crit over break, so if you have any questions about the body/text of Cixous, Irigaray, or Kristeva, wait until Spring to ask me.

OK, I filled out two grad school apps tonight and started on a third and I’m exhausted. I just wanted to catch up a little bit since I know it’s been months. So, hello all… and goodnight.

I finally added my Creative Commons license information to every picture page on anythingbinary.net. I have pasted an excerpt of the html below for your personal enjoyment:

Pictures from Benjamin Winter
These pictures are the property of Benjamin Winter. Any attempt to profit off of my pictures is just mean and dastardly.

As well, I have updated the blog license to say:

Rants
This blog is the creation of Benjamin Winter and other authorized participants with like minds. By posting or commenting on this blog, you are agreeing to Benjamin Winter’s Creative Commons license.

I finally did put my wedding pictures in the Personal section. You can see them directly from here. I will be optimizing the slideshow that I made special for the wedding and post it eventually.

On the job front, I have had some promising leads thrown my way. The day I quit, Dec. 8th, I got a letter from Gonzaga U. about a job that I had applied for way back in June 2004 that was reopened. Karmic, I think. As well, Trevor has passed on my resume to a local bigwig at his work, PC Open, and I await the karmic aftermath of this and other opportunties.

Katie has finished finals finally (say that three times fast) and we are laying low until the Christmas party tonight. We will be traveling down to Portland after that, eventually. What I mean to say is that we are in no hurry to leave and even less to return, so we’ll be moseying down there to see Brenda and Sarah.

Enjoy the picts.

To everyone who is waiting for wedding announcements, they are coming. We are doing them ourselves and are waiting on an order of paper. It’s been hanging over my head for a while and driving me crazy, so please know that they are coming soon. Thanks for your patience and check out the website for pictures of the wedding.

I quit. I did it on Wednesday. I told PB that they could keep my job for someone else who has no scruples. This is how it happened:

I spoke with my supervisor and asked her if I was in line to get health benefits on Jan. 15th, the end of my 90 day probation. I also asked her if it mattered that I wasn’t achieving my stated goals of a 60% save rate over a month’s time as well as other stats. She said, yes it did and I wouldn’t be hired on permanently unless my stats got to the minimum. I knew, at that moment, that I was never going to get a monthly save rate of 60%, certainly with all my issues about how the retention department functioned, so I quit, right then and there.

My time is limited here in Spokane and I need to find a job that doesn’t make me want to scream with frustration. Retention sales is difficult, certainly, and I’m not a great salesman, so the job was a bad match overall. My overall frustration stemmed from blatant omissions of facts when speaking to customers. For example, a customer calls up near the end of their three month free trial with their postage meter and wants to cancel it. I successfully sell them on its benefits and drop their proposed monthly price from $19.75 to $12.99. They say, ok, I’ll keep it a little while longer and I process a save on their account. What they don’t know is that as soon as they download postage and pass that 15 day grace period after the 90 days, they are in a one year rental agreement with PB. They cancel anytime within that one year and they get billed at the original price for the remaining months left plus a $50 restocking fee. Their trial is 05/01/04 to 08/01/04. They are in that agreement until 08/01/2005. Now, they are notified of this over the phone by the telemarketer when they give their credit card number AND in written form when the meter comes to their door. I have no problem holding people to this commitment when it is justified, but I witnessed many times people being held to commitments who had never downloaded any postage, which is the manual acceptance of the agreement. It is my firm belief that to keep goodwill in the marketplace, PB should have evaluated specific instances and cancelled their rental agreements with grace. It isn’t like they aren’t making hand over fist with the price of ink cartridges for the E7xx, which are designed to waste ink in the testing process. The absurdity that I found myself engaging in when on the phone at PB extended to the offer of a 50% off coupon for ink. People would call up and complain that the ink was expensive, which it is, and they run out too fast, which they do. Our answer is to tell the customer to do a “zero-dollar indicia” on a scrap paper every day to waste less ink. I’m surprised that no one laughed at me when I suggested it. The point of the meter is convenience ( stop going to the post office, spend more time at home rather than sending mail, be more efficient at work) and now we’re telling them that this convenience needs to be spoon-fed every day or it will cost more money.

Sigh.

There were lots of things wrong at PB, but I have to say that the benefits of PB employees are fantastic. I would have more stellar things to say, but I didn’t officially get them, so I can’t. Either way, I have a new-found sympathy for telemarketers and other sales people and hope that I can remember this feeling in the far future and extend them a little grace for once.

Katie and I got married yesterday! We had a small ceremony at the courthouse downtown where Judge Patti Walker presided over our civil ceremony and then we went back to our apartment and had dinner with our immediate families. I had created a small slideshow of Katie and I and that was great. Katie and I also put together our own personal vows to really explain how we feel and those left everyone filled with joy. The meal was catered by Katie’s mom, Brenda, and everyone laughed and talked into the night.

Now, the aftermath of this celebration: I am sitting in my living room with bedsheets stapled to the walls and an 8 foot table in my 7 foot hallway. The party was loud and memorable and my fatigue today reflects that. I deem it a success and Katie agrees . Pictures and a general page in homage to our union will be up later today or tomorrow depending on how fast I code. I wish I could have invited everyone I know to this dinner, but instead, we will have three receptions in our honor: Portland, Los Angeles, and Spokane will all host one at different times. The Portland one will be first, sometime in late January, with Spokane following in May and LA to be determined. Thanks to you all who came, you know who you are, and look for updates on reception information because everyone is invited to those.