This is a good thing – a sane thing, even – and as someone once told me, “They can take everything away from me, but they cannot take my education away.” There’s certainly no denying that.

Because of the pressures so many of us are under, with family, children, work, (and some of us working two or three jobs and/or trying to run our own businesses just to stay afloat….) the idea of completing a degree online can hold enormous appeal because of the flexibility involved. One can study at their own pace, so on and so forth, and do so from home.

Again, this is a good thing. However, I must sound some cautionary notes. Before plunking down thousands of dollars to embark on an online degree, it’s very smart to do quite a bit of research first.

The fact of the matter is that some online degrees, and some online schools, are simply not given much credibility by employers. If you think that you can just breeze through a bachelor’s degree and be guaranteed a job on the other end; better think again. Having said that, I have seen and heard from employers that people who have a traditional bachelor’s degree, and then go on to get an online MASTER’S degree, do tend to have an edge over applicants without the online degree.

Your friendly Ms. Sanity has assembled some links to help you do some research before you buy into one of these schools. Be sane and look before you leap. See what other students are saying about a prospective school, see what their reputation is, or if you’re really brave, you might contact the Human Resources department at a big company and point blank ask them what they think of a certain school.

Obviously, the first thing you will want to look at is whether or not a particular school you are considering is accredited. Don’t even consider a non-accredited school or one where “accreditation is pending.” This could be an extreme waste of your time, money, and energy.

One of the largest sites is “Online degree reviews written by students” located here. This site has first-hand experience summaries written by people who have actually attended particular schools.

A forum where students discuss their online learning programs and schools is located here.

This blog post includes a link to a white paper that looks like a proprietary study (which means take with a grain of salt the results) about the attitudes of hiring managers to online degree recipients. Still, the attitudes seem to be mostly positive. See: http://onlinestudentsurvival.com/2009/01/online-degrees-now-widely-accepted-by-consumers-and-employers/

All in all your best option if it is even remotely possible may be to attend online classes through a traditional brick-and-mortar school in your area. But just like everything else, your needs may vary, and the economic value of your degree may vary as well.

My entire point is very simple: do your homework, before, well, doing your homework. To fall for a glowing sales brochure about an online school is insane. Education is certainly a value in its’ own right, but if you’re going back to school to increase your marketability for jobs, then you had best look before you leap. Do that, and you can no doubt find an online option that will fit your needs, for most professions.

Of course the intelligent people who read this blog probably were already clear that this so-called explanation is utter BS.  Or, as they might say in Britain, total bollocks.  Here’s one study (printed in the reputable PubMed Central and also the British Medical Journal) which shows the above popular misconception for what it is… a lie promulgated by the people who stand to profit by the curent state of affairs. For my non-American buddies who may somehow not know this: the truth really is on the ground here that people, (and not just poverty stricken elderly people or people who have never had a job) often have to make choices such as whether to buy food or refill a prescription. I have been there many times myself. So the next time people trot out that misconception..call a spade a spade. If there were truth to this, drugs would cost the same or nearly the same in all industrialized countries. They don’t. Oh and not only that, drugmakers in other countries are still pulling in handsome profits, even with their lower (much lower) prices.

On a perhaps happier note, Ms. Sanity also just became aware that as I write this, there is under consideration a bill in the US Senate which would make it legal for Americans to “re-import” drugs from Canada by purchasing from Canadian pharmacies over the internet. If this actually happens, this could be a good thing for some Americans, (though our Canadian brethren might not be too happy about it…)

Not surprisingly, the conservative alarmists are, well, alarmed. They’re claiming with straight faces, even, that allowing Americans to “re-import” these drugs, is unsafe.

Yeah, right, spare me. You’ll notice that there aren’t throngs of Canadians and British folk dropping dead left and right from the medication they’re taking…..

Allowing re-importation (which thousands of Americans are doing or trying to do right now anyway) is all well and good, but shouldn’t we freaking fix our own broken so-called system, rather than sponging off of countries such as Canada and the UK who have been taking better care of their citizens healthwise for decades?

Well, at the very least, US citizens should stop telling themselves (and each other) the lie that we pay such exorbitant and usurious prices for medication because we are politely covering the R & D costs for the entire world.

We pay these prices because we want to keep the big US Pharmaceutical companies really, really, really well-to-do.  I shudder to think what those in management at, say Pfizer, are paid for a year of work. (Yes, they save lives, and so on and so forth, but they also end them, thanks to the crazy prices people are asked to pay for the medication here.)

I don’t have the stomach to look up their salaries right now, though I’m sure the information is available. If one of you trusty readers wants to do so and report back, by all means…feel free.

The Bankers are Not Your Friends

I don’t know that much about Senator Dick Durbin, (though I am glancing over his voting record as I write this) but I did run across this interesting little quote from him today.

Durbin is a Democratic Senator from IL, and apparently he said recently:

“And the banks – hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created – are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.”

Senator Dick Durbin

How interesting.  I suppose it’s hardly surprising,  since even after the freaking financial meltdown, the banks are still “where the money is…” but it sure seems to me that essentially the banking boys ought to be personae non grata on Capitol Hill, since by nearly all accounts, they directly caused this crap.

Looking at Durbin’s evaluation by special interest groups (courtesy of “Project Vote Smart,”) in 2008 the National Tax Limitation Committee gave Senator Durbin a grade of F in its special report. Hmm, I can venture an educated guess that the National Tax Limitation Committee is a conservative leaning organization in large part centered around keeping the collective wealth of this nation in the pockets it currently resides in. (That is, under the control quite literally of far less than 1% of the population.)

So, if that organization thinks Durbin is no good, my guess is, that he probably has a good head on his shoulders.

At any rate, the quote from Durbin ought to be thought provoking, and since he’s been “On the Hill” since 1996, I would think that he knows what he’s talking about.

The bankers were not the “friends” of this country in 2003, or 2007, or in 1999, when they successfully got the Glass-Steagall act of 1933 repealed under the Clinton Administration…which led directly–if convolutedly–to the current financial meltdown.

They certainly are not the friends of this country (or for that matter, of the world) today.

Oh, yeah, wait. They do make huge campaign contributions.  That’s why they’re still listened to, I suppose. Never mind, my bad. That makes it all right then…

Use that brain, it's there for a reason

Having grown up in the USA, and been educated here, obviously nearly all of my experience is with American culture. Simply because of pure dumb luck, I was exposed through my work to some well-educated Americans who understood the importance of critical thinking, at the ripe old age of about 32, and who made a point to stimulate “critical thinking” in all their employees.

I had been exposed to the idea of critical thinking briefly early in my education and again in college, but most of my work experience from early adulthood on was entirely based on hierarchy and critical thinking was NOT encouraged.  I still remember my shock when I was asked for my opinion at this critical thinking job.  It seems to me this lack of critical thinking is endemic in the US and it’s one of the many things that MUST change if we are going to improve our standing and our culture; economically, spiritually, and in every other way. I spoke to my mother recently and she mentioned that at her church they had an “organ fund” (for a new musical instrument) which was invested in the stock market and which, like every other stock market holding, had lost 50% of its value in the past few weeks. Fifty percent! She was shocked that nobody other than herself and her husband even questioned why this money was still in the stock market… and that nobody seemed to be able to think through why this was not a good idea… not to mention the fact that fundraising for an organ in this time when people are losing jobs left and right and struggling with how they might feed their children…. might be seen as less than desirable by the community.

We struggled trying to understand why these (she assured me very intelligent and well educated people…) were seemingly unable to think critically about the situation.  She said she would not donate even $5.00 to something that wasn’t being managed in a sensible fashion. I don’t blame her. But others in the church had donated $10,000 toward the fund. Our best guess is that people didn’t want to think about the church’s money because it might make them have to think about how they were stewarding their own resources.

Folks it is way past time for America to put her critical thinking cap on. We have got to stop and think about things, be they pleasant or unpleasant, and form considered (and critical) opinions.

It’s long past time to keep taking cues from what the culture throws out (e.g. Greed is Good! Fame Is Desirable! and so on….) and to see if those values and cues are in line with what we really, down deep, otherwise think. The future of the country and society depends on it.

For more on that last bit see this most excellent article on “Things You Think Will Make You Happy But Really Won’t.” (NSFW, and not safe for people who are offended by profanity, but on the other hand, if you are “offended by profanity,” perhaps you should start right there, and critically examine why you are offended by it and what that really means!)

Critical thinking really is the key to a better tomorrow.  It’s the path to sanity.

These might be the good guys... I intend to find out

I’ve been thinking about customer service a lot lately. As someone who does/has done a lot of work and a lot of selling online, for many years now, and who also had a  lot of (basically tortured interesting) experience working with the public face to face in retail,  I have a lot of experience with the importance and difficulty in keeping high levels of customer satisfaction.  Yet my recent experiences with one of the biggest companies online not only left a bad taste in my mouth but I realized also gives some important lessons for the smaller guys too, including myself.  In a nutshell: customer goodwill is priceless. To think otherwise is completely insane.

Yes, I’m partly talking about Ebay. After spending literally thousands of dollars with them yearly since 2003, and I’m of course a very small player there, I’ve been watching with morbid fascination as they went public, apparently disregarded everything they were founded on (transparency, open environment, etc.) and policy-changed themselves into literally thousands of people saying “I’m outta here.”

I read a news story this morning, relatively recent, on CNN money here, about the big Bay’s stock tanking big time.

This article says in part:

At about $12 it’s trading barely above a 52-week low of $11 and is down 56% in the past 12 months. Like the rest of the market, the Internet company is essentially back to where it was when economic panic set in last fall.

Well, that’s true, but the problems there have been going on for years, and seller after outraged seller, from little fry like me to sellers who had been spending half a million or more with the formerly-known-as-a-fun-place-to buy-sell-and trade, became vocal in their frustration, tried to make the bay see reason, and finally left in droves.

Now, yours truly has a background in marketing and communications and one of the dearly believed tenets of those fields of course is that “perception is everything.”

For at least the last couple of years, the bay has made policy change after policy change, from the nonsensical to the greed based, and I’ve been watching over in my corner fairly quietly.  (and I began slowing down my listings quite a bit over at least the last two years, largely because of the increases in their cuts, etc. etc.)

Fast forward to the last few days when for some reason, one of my very few remaining listings got pulled due to a policy change in 2008 that I had supposedly violated.  I called to verify that this was indeed the case, and they said it was, and the (rather nice woman) I talked to pointed out that “if I wanted to give ebay feedback that there was now a link where I could do so.” In other words, she at least pretended to care what I had to say.

The thing is this is far too little far too late, and I had seen the heartache and anger of far too many of my fellow sellers who mourned the loss of the company the Omyidars built–for me to be able to believe at this very late date that they really care one whit about what THEIR business decisions (bad ones) are doing to my business. They got big, they got greedy and reckless, and they quit caring about the happiness of their customers (the sellers who pay their fees and generate their traffic–NOT the buyers who spend $100 on the bay a year. They allowed a perception that they don’t care what sellers think to build up over a million little actions over time. (And believe me this is not just my perception.)

So let it be a lesson to us all. Once a negative perception has taken hold about a company, there is an exponential effect and a snowball effect and it’s very difficult to change course. Maybe impossible.

No the customer is NOT always right, but it’s critical (and simple common sense)  that all of us doing business know where our bread is buttered, and whether you’re a large player like the bay or a small player like me, perception might not be everything, but there is no substitute for excellent customer service and for genuine concern about the way your customers perceive your service and your business.

It’s also clearly important to know, and address, the way that customers are talking about you and your business, as well.

At this point, even if the bay sent me three dozen roses this morning and refunded 50% of all the money that I’ve ever spent with them (yeah, right!) I would still be somewhat to very skeptical as to whether or not their organizational culture had changed enough to *really* give a toss about what their sellers think and feel about doing business with them. The perception out here is that bad.  And that’s sad.

So, in a process that started for us and our business a while back, which due to time constraints, etc. has been rather casual and listless on my part… is now going to ramp up, with regard to finding someplace else to spend my online auction efforts. There are several likely contenders including Delcampe which I know little about but whose rep on the street (so to speak) is FAR more positive than that of Ebay. If they give me even a tiny reason to believe that they may care two hoots about my comfort level then maybe I’ll start spending all my money with THEM. (We sell antiques and collectibles among other things.)

Let it be a lesson to all of us. There really isn’t a business or operation that is so big that they no longer have to offer value (and appreciation!) to the customer.

I don’t have any hope for the Bay, from where I sit it would take a full stop and reversal of the majority of the policy changes that they’ve made in the last few years coupled with VERY public apologies for the way they’ve treated their SELLERS. I’m not holding my breath.  Facebook did that very thing in 24 hours re: their TOS.

Ah well, it’s their loss. It’s not the loss of my business that’s too bad for them, It’s me times the thousands of people who have gone elsewhere.

Live and learn.