problem solved
 

is what you will be thinking after you've presented your problem in this thread and i have solved it for you.

Dear Dean R. Koontz,

I work too much and don't earn enough money - how can I get a promotion? I've been made 'Employee of the Month' three times, more often than any of my co-workers, but that doesn't seem to be enough.

Regards,
Mo.

Dear dean_r_koontz,

I would like to go to graduate school this fall, but I am having second thoughts because I will have to take out student loans. What should I do?

Love,
Warsaw

Ms. Koontz,

My flowers won't bloom.

Mr. Pants

dean_r_koontz, i can't feel myself from the waist down.

what are you working with? what does the company you work with do?

what are the job opportunities after you've finished school? how long will it take if you do it without taking student loans?

Mr. Koontz:

I want to accelerate my self paced curriculum but am having difficulty applying myself and getting through the material. I basically have to read and absorb 6 large books of information and regurgitate it back out on a test. While I have always tested well in the past I fear that my brain has turned into a limp noodle due to time away from school (4 years) and rampant recreational drug usage in my formative years.

In addition, time spent at work as well as social pressures and relationships make it difficult to find adequate time for studying. When I do study my mind tends to wander and my focus is severely limited.

As a scholar do you have any tips on how I can focus my energy? I'm thinking about snowing my doc for an adderal rx in the hopes it will increase my output. Do you think this is a wise course of action?

1: i would be very surprised if you're supposed to learn EVERYTHING in 6 large books (i assume they have a minimum of 500 pages). Always look up what is important in the books, ie what might come on the tests. if you attend lectures, use them as a starting point. if you don't, talk to the person who's going to make the test and ask which parts of the books he wants you to know. or do both if you have the possibility. This is more or less always how it works at university here and i doubt that it should work much differently in the us.

2. Did you take the drugs before or after you had your succesful academical stint? what kind of drugs? The lack of attention span and focus might be the breaking point though if you don't find a way to counter it with medication, that i don't know much about.

3. always jetison the least important social relationships. this is just a matter of will power. the people who put that preassure on you are currently leeches that will ultimately take away satisfaction from your life if you don't tell them to leave you alone. later on when you've gotten more power they will come crawling back.

The job outlook is excellent. A recent list of ten careers in high demand included this field. With loans, I can finish in two years. Without loans, probably four to six.

I work at an inbound call-center in customer care, administration and data processing - our biggest client is the Viennese City Government. Every day we get about 10,000 calls from people living in so-called 'Gemeindebauten', huge municipality buildings, usually to provide low-cost public housing. People living there can ask everything they wanna know, report defects, complain about anything and so on.
We also have smaller clients [like a huge wireless internet provider, a 24/7 emergency service, the city's speed train from the center to the airport, stuff for other departments of the municipal authorities etc], but they only take up to another 3000 calls a day.
I started in September of 2006 and have since been 'promoted' twice - after two months to a 2nd level agent, and another four months later to the lower management [I only have to take calls myself if I work graveyard shifts --where I'm completely alone from 10pm to 6am--, I am responsible for a team of 20 2nd level agents and their work, and I sometimes have to do schoolings and training courses]. But ever since it kinda... stagnated.

Please offer your advice.

I am working on a nursing degree through on online university mill. While accredited and transferable there is no individual attention or professor but rather a councilor who is essentially useless. Sadly I am not at all interested in most of the material (mostly pertinent to hospitals) as I plan to use the degree and my Paramedic credentials to work on an aeromedical unit. Your advice is sound in that I should better utilize the practice tests and online forums dedicated to people going through the program.

I started my senior year of high school (98) and continued until 2003. Usage included daily heavy use of marijuana and approximately 100 lsd experiences. In addition there was sporadic usage of rx medications and different designer/club drugs (MDMA, GHB, Ketamine). I think that any damage done can more than likely be attributed to the hallucinogens. Sounds like a cop out but fuck I had a much easier time retaining information in high school as it seldom took more than a single read to retain information.

Solid advice. One of the difficulties I've encountered is that my best friend is going through the same program. While this would seem advantageous we often have a corrupting effect on eachother (fuck studying let's go to the bar etc.) My significant other is a good source of encouragement but can be distracting as we share a common living area. As for the other scum I gotta cut them out.

Thanks for the advice Dean. While these are answers I admittedly should arrive to on my own it is good to hear them from another impartial party. Fuck if I can just get my shit together I can finish within 4-6 months and double my income. FUCK PUT DOWN THE NETPHORIA AND PICK UP A BOOK PATRICK!

if you are sure that you can get a job within the field, handle it emotionally then i think it will be your saviour from the unsatisfying dream world that you're living in. you're not a school guy, you're not a bar guy, you are a working man at heart and that's where you will have use for your willingness to cooperate, take orders and be nice to others. it depends on what kind of work it is you're going to do though of course. I'd say go for loans and get free of the torment. . if you're planning on becoming a high school teacher you're fucked.

dear koontzy,
i still love my ex-boyfriend but i think all this 'break' business is a lie and he doesnt really want to ever get back together with me like he said he would like to do eventually. should i continue waiting and pining or should i meet other people and go on dates and junk? i dont want to go on dates if it's gonna make him not want me even more. or maybe it will make him jealous and he'll come around. what to do. what to do.
all my love,
******

the problem is: what is the next level. Is there a next level for a person with your education? can you compete with the people at that level if it exists and/or are there any openings there?

I seem to recall that you got together with him before you started to take your medication. Then you initiated the medication process and the relationship stopped. Think about the differences in your personality now and then. what is it that you're not doing now that you did back then that he might be missing. do you want to go back to that? is he trying to make you get off the medication to get the old ****** gonzales back?

he dumped cause i wasnt on the medication and i guess i was a little loca in the cabeza. by the time i started the medication it was too little too late. he said he wanted me to get better and get my stuff together before he would be with me again. im in school. working. have a little routine. am on medication. i dont know what else to do. :[

Yeah, most people in middle/lower management have my education - which currently still is no finished education at all. All of my direct bosses left school early, and, unlike me, don't even think about finishing it.
So I guess higher positions would be accessible to me in theory. At least in a better salary range - none of the 'promotions' came with a raise.

Oh - and the next level would be an essential place in project management, of which I'm already part of but where I don't have much to say.

you're both adults. openly ask him what he thinks you should improve more for him to take you back. if he doesn't want to say, he's probably got ulterior motives (if he truly wanted you to do something for him then an open question should be answered directly). if it turns out that he has ulterior motives, do the jealousy trick to get beyhind the inscrutable facade. No sex, just dating, If this makes him more interested, there is a good chance that he's been torturing you for the power trip. that means he should be dumped on the nearest trash heap.

problem solved!

i'm working a job that i really don't enjoy. my very good friend had to do a lot of maneuvering to get me the job, and i feel a debt to him. it is his company, and we're struggling and all the pressure is on him, and i know that having a good friend there is a big source of support to him. moreso than the actual work i do.

i have been contacted by people from my old company where i enjoyed my job a lot more than this one, and they've told me that the door is open should i ever want to come back.

my boss at my current job is part of the problem, and he is likely to be replaced soon. my friend assures me things will be great once i have this new boss, and promises a raise and more stock, and has real high hopes and wants me to flourish there. he's promised to look out for me and see that i get promotions much more quickly than i could otherwise. he says it'll be huge, that he'll be able to get me into better business schools because of it, if that's what i want to do, or he'll help me develop a network that i can rely on later in life. but i simply don't enjoy it. some days i don't do a single thing, partly because i'm still not fully recovered from being depressed, partly because i can't muster up the will to do the work, it just pains my head and my heart. i haven't got much else going on in my life as a source of enjoyment, so it seems even worse than it is probably. each day i ask myself how much longer i can keep doing it. i think it is unlikely that the new boss will change that significantly.

the company is at a critical point, and if we've got a fighting chance at success, that will be made clear over the next 4 months probably.

if i were to stick around, and if the company succeed, i'd be in a real good position financially and could from that point on only work jobs that i enjoyed. i'd have really held up my end and honored the favors my friend has done to get me the job and help me develop.

if i were to leave now, i would have removed a source of misery from my life, and quite possibly have replaced it with something that'd provide stability and enjoyment, but i'd feel like i f'd over my friend, and i don't know if he'd understand where i'm coming from. i'd be turning my back on all of the gracious things he's offered.

if i were to stick it out for another 4 months (i've been there 5 months already), and if this critical period turned out to be a failure, it'd be a lot more understandable if i were to leave then. i'd have stuck it out, tried it with the new boss, supported my friend, etc. there's no guarantee the open positions at my old company would still be open.

i have a decent idea of what i'll end up doing, but you're an insightful guy and i'd like to hear your perspective, there may be some things i'm not seeing or viewing properly

and a final note, yes, i do try to put it into perspective. my life is not all that hard aside from depression and everyone has problems, with so many that are so much worse than mine

and what does the people in project managment do? do they create strategies for the company and such?

i will not waste my time solving a problem that has already been solved, there are hundreds of people who needs help out there. My guess is that you will leave the company before the 4 months with the motivation that you're not doing anything anyway and that it would be better to have someone motivated to do the job instead of a piece of deadwood in a suit.

We [they] give out direct orders, create duty roasters [they let me do that a lot, since I'm so "good with computers" - assholes] for all 70+ agents, plan and organize trainings/schoolings, evaluate data and statistics, get in contact with business partners and big clients, and we [they] are the buffer between the call-center agents and the middle/high management [quite literally as well - the call-center's on the ground floor, we're on 4th and everything else is on floor 7 and up].

This must be a very coveted position for many people. it's not the grunt work but you don't have to be overtly creative or smart to do the job right AND it means you can tell even more people what to do. In this situation i would recommend social networking because the guys in that position will not listen to reasoning and they will try to shoot you down or steal your ideas (you will not be able to get an edge just by working, they probably work much as well). If you have any brilliant ideas, go with them to people higher up in the hierarchy and they will give you the spot for that.

problem solved.

my problem is the eternal question of whether knowledge or happiness should be the ultimate goal in life

I actually have two or three good ideas to make life at the office a whole lot easier... Thanks, Sir, I'll report back.

well, no one can take away your knowledge. unless they hit you so hard in the head and you turn into a vegetable. but you know what i mean. if you're happy with a person they can easily leave and make you sad. go with knowledge.

.

why didn't you finish school mo

why didn't you finish school like me