zzzzap.

I spent some quality time the other day looking over the Wikipedia articles concerning the Milgram experiment and the Stanford prison experiment. I had a head full of noise about it while reading, but I'll give you a few thoughts instead of some diatribe:

1.) How prescient were these two experiments, but also how timeless. Obviously we're still not heeding them, as smart as we are, and, doomed, repeat these mistakes. Also, while the Milgram experiment can probably be justified to be done again at some point, the Stanford one probably wouldn't, especially considering the lack of oversight and controls in the experiment. I think it would be a good one to evolve and have controls and rules that mirror that of our prison system, rather than just general captivity anarchy--though Abu Ghirab was a good repeat, I suppose.

2.) I found it very interesting that, in one variation of the Milgram experiment, subjects showed greater conformity to expert instruction in an environment that appeared more reputable or official. In my mind, the implications there are immense. Extrapolate, and talk amongst yourselves.

3.) Zzzzzzap. "Question Authority."

--cursed me when I proved to him--

tangents, ho!

Today was not the most appealing day, in many ways. While temperate, it was humid and stuffy there was salisbury steak offered at lunch--a meal that at both the visually aesthetic and culinary notion levels I quite disagree with--which sent me thinking of where I could find a croissant sandwich, something a little bit missing in the land of artisan breads and chewy french rolls; Office Depot shorted me again; websites didn't work when I wanted them to; traffic was bad; and then there was the latest on the exit project.

I'm incredibly annoyed by the state of this exit project. First, I feel like I'm the only one with initiative. I'm certainly the only one who seems to adhere to the deadlines, or think that agreed upon meeting times mean that we have agreed to schedule those meetings into our days. I will point out the next steps, or request information or feedback, and, yet, I don't hear anything back. Second, I'm tired of my other two classmates' shit. They're headcase Type As without much experience or cred and they don't like each other much. They'll get into these little back-and-forths over e-mail to one another, but not with the group. Just tonight one of them tried to pass the other one on to me, and I have a half a mind to just tell them that this sort of crap at this stage of the project--one week away from presenting--is unacceptable. That coupled with their lack of initiative and output has me, to paraphrase Corky from Waiting for Guffman, tired of them and their ass-faces.

Third, and of greatest offense to all the effort that I've put into this whole master's degree experience, is the criticisms offered by our faculty adviser. I've spent the better part of the last month getting together a very good research section on personality measurements and their correlations to coping with stress. In contrast to the sad sack that was my Paideia 'research paper' at Luther, this is pure gold. Thirteen pages of well-researched and well-written information, very appropriate and useful to the company we're working with. I may sound like I'm tooting my own horn a little--and I am--but certainly compared to the ugliness that are the other sections--I think Ms. Schwartz would rotate her head completely around and projective vomit raw sewage and rats if she read what one of my group mates wrote--it's quality. Our adviser, the global HR expert and business school dean, says that the company isn't interested in all that information, that it needs more charts, graphs, bullet points, and simple language. In essence, that the research should be dumbed down. Okay, so I was hoping for a little recognition, a little "see what Ben did? You other two numbskulls should get on the ball!" or something like that, but the principle still stands: this should not be dumbed down or made into some damn chart with smiles and rainbows and crayon letters. Maybe I'm more about org. psych than HR; the one thing I do know is that while my research dealt with the Five Factor Model--an extensively researched and validated model of personality--our adviser recommended looking into the 'Cross Cultural Adaptability Inventory', which had two articles associated with it in EBSCOhost, one of which had an abstract that said the CCAI was not shown to be valid in its measurements. This is higher learning?

Then again, I get the sense that half of HR is marketing anyway, and those who know what I correlate general marketing or development positions to can picture my just-bit-a-lemon face; those who don't, I consider them to be 'pros'. The one speaker we had during the program that made the most sense--the same one that basically said we weren't going to be making a real difference right out of grad school (and I agree)--had become successful through not only implementing plans to develop and improve employees, but had concise and effective measurements to back it all up. I think 'no duh'; it seems that others want 'oooh, shiny.' So it goes.

That's it; I'm going to go write about football for a minute.

--la dee dah da dee dah dah--

One more time!

Yup. One more silly-hat graduation ceremony under the belt. This time I got a fancy hood! It was a good time; nice to have a bit of recognition.

That said, I still have two weeks of busy work on the final project before I'm completely done. Just two weeks and I can put a big check mark in the 'finish school' box on my to-do list.

I can't wait.

--wizard of--