thinkPhD

Work was very tough today as the Company is pushing for good numbers for the end of this period. There have been many emails and orders to get inventory to a certain level. Everyone seems to have just discovered that it is almost December and they are releasing inventory to my group. You see, we are responsible for selling off all the damaged, rejected, obsolete and aged inventory into the seconds market. Now that it is late in the year, the prime group is dumping their problems on us. Back in October, I sent a note to the supply chains advising them that we needed their obsolescence lists within two weeks. Most of the ignored me and now they are pushing their junk to us, telling us to “get rid of this” before the end of the year. However, we have had so much move to my section that my customers are “full.” Plus, at the end of the year, equipment (trucks, railcars) becomes scarce – and expensive. Being “down hill” of all the processes means that we deal with this type of stuff all the time. It is tough and it really taxes my patience. All I did today was fight fires and I am tired, tired, tired. I was not able to spend any time working on my 2008 strategy.

My web host makes a number of open source software and other programs available. I am playing around with Moodle today. I am able to design courses and set them up with quizzes, lectures and other activities. Moodle allows just about anyone to create courses and make them available online. The course I am working on is about APA formatting – something my students seem to need a lot of guidance on. I hope to point them to my site and let them work through some self-guided activities. It seems that I am consistently marking the same errors wrong on student papers – UGH!

I start a new course on Dec 1 – MGT5001 Economics and the Modern Manager. This course is outlined:

Economic concepts for management form the basis for decision-making in the business and industrial environment. Supply and demand, competition, labor and capital markets, as well as economic, social, political, legal, and technical factors influence business and industrial service and profitability.

This course will be a good review for me. I want to brush up on the subject matter for my personal benefit as well as as preparation for my dissertation. In addition, it should give me enough economics credits to teach the subject.

I had hoped to start the course on Jan 1 but I needed to take a course now since I completed the last one in October. I did have an extension on the October course MGT5016 because of some advisor issues. My advisor pointed out that the extensions are not applicable to course start / end dates and to remain continuously enrolled I needed a Dec 1 start date.

The book is Managerial Economics, 8th ed.,  by C.R. Thomas. I was able to find a copy on half.com for less than $25.00. It shipped today and I should be able to start the course on Dec 1 as planned. I want to finish this course early – and hope to get a good bit done over the Christmas holiday.

From time to time I receive spam advertising a fast(er) track to a degree. Today I received one for a doctorate which caught my eye. This one is only $75; or about .02% of my expected cost of a doctorate. I can even pick the degree and the specialization!

There is a catch though; my $75 goes as an offering toward the support of a church somehow affiliated with the school. I suppose this adds validity or is supposed to make me feel as though I am doing something “worthwhile” while obtaining my degree.

I read over their literature and checked out the site. I had GoogleAdSense ads all over it. Seems as though that may be another revenue stream for the organization. After much consideration (NOT!), I have decided to stay the course and continue my education at Northcentral.