Celebrate good times, the weight is GONE

Well, 16lbs of it at least. I got on the scale this morning, and taaaa DAAAAA I was 16lbs lighter than when I first started tracking it 6 or so months ago. It is very gratifying. The "new" treadmill is helping in this effort, as are the daily dog walks that we are still getting in while the weather is nice and the light is still, well, light.

In other news I have to replace my associate director in my office because my current dude thinks he would rather work on the lending side of the student loan business. I don't know if he has been reading the papers or not, but that side is in turmoil. At least here he has job security, but it is his call, so bygones. I have been interviewing for his replacement, and we made an offer yesterday. We shall see what the new dude says. I do work at a small private college, so it is not the big pay day that you might find in the non-educational work world.

I have had to hire people probaby a dozen times in the same number of years between this job and my last one. At my last one we had a huge office, and I had to hire 5 assistant directors at one time. That was fun. But here my staff is small, just three of us. I seem to lose a person every two years or so. It FASCINATES me who applies for a financial aid job. I have had someone who drove a cab and thought because she did her own books that she could do financial aid. Or the recent one whose most recent job was a "sex educator and customer service rep" for Good Vibrations, a local "intimate toy" store. While I will acknowledge that that job probably does prepare you for handling confidential and perhaps sensative situations, it doesn't really make one qualified to do THIS job.

I can teach almost anyone to do this job, but it takes a certain personality to really GET it. You have to like working with people, but also be detail oriented and self directed. You have to be able to keep track of what is on your plate for the day or week while being interrupted 15 times a day by the phone or a walk in. You have to be okay with repeating the same thing over and over and over but not get frustrated by it. It may be old hat to us, but it is new to the student and the family. It takes someone who can be creative within boundaries. We work with a lot of rules and regulations and time lines. We are charged with being good stewards of the institutions resources while being advocates for the students. It is a balancing act.

I hope the guy we offered the job to takes it, but we have a back up candidate if he doesn't. In the meantime, I just ate two homemade clog your heart they are so full of butter sticky buns that the director of student accounts made for our goodbye breakfast for my employee. That earns me extra time on the treadmill I think.