Basic math is apparently not so basic

Yesterday I helped a customer print her paystubs. Once she had the hard copies, she needed further help. The paystubs didn't have her rate of pay. I told her how to calculate it using one week as an example- take her total pay ($260) and then divide it by the number of hours she worked ($26). I was amazed that I had to tell her how to figure it. But it gets better. She could not do this in her head! I told her I could look at it and tell her the answer. She asked what it was, so I told her- $10/hour. We then looked at her 2 other most recent paystubs. It turns out she's been underpaid $1/hour for 2 of the last 3 weeks. I had to do the math on those weeks as well.

Repeat after me "Math is your friend."

Basic math is apparently not so basic.

New work phrase- Do a Frozen

We have started using a new phrase at work- "Do a frozen". Because sometimes,  you really need to "Let it go".

Be wary the advice you receive

Recently Ask A Manager posted an article about government career centers. This was of course of interest to me since I work at such a place.We shall say she was not overly complimentary of them.  Here is what I posted to the comment section

I work at one of these now. Alison is right. You can get a lot of bad advice. I have 10+ years of HR experience from the private sector, and I am horrified by some of the advice I’ve heard other staff give. Why does this happen? A few observations:

1. The pay here is ridiculously low, so you’re not likely to attract/retain high quality talent. 2. Most staff don’t have an HR or management background, so they have no practical experience on which to base their recommendations. It would be like me trying to tell you how to do surgery. It’s not going to end well. 3. We have many long term staff who haven’t job searched themselves in ages. They simply don’t have recent relevant job searching experience.

Of course, we do have some staff who can give you good advice. In addition to myself, I have another coworker who was in HR for years, and another who did a lot of hiring at her recent job. Like advice you get from anyone on any topic, you want to evaluate the credibility of the source. Ask people how long they’ve been in this job, what their background is, etc. If the suggestions don’t jive with other reputable sources, don’t implement them. It’s a shame you have to do this, but it is what it is.

And yes, I miss the private sector. I hope to be back in it soon. 

More work technology woes- update

Today we had an update to our work e-mail woes. We can now send e-mails again. However, we can no longer receive them.

From scratch thin crust pizzas

About a month ago People magazine had this recipe for a homemade thin crust pizza dough. It uses my friend the Kitchen Aid mixer, so no worry about kneading dough. I also had some cake flour on hand from another baking project, so I thought I'd give it a whirl.

I made it yesterday. Behold one of the 4 finished creations:

It was very simple to create, and very tasty. This recipe went in the "to be made again" file.

More work technology woes

I have two e-mail addresses at work. One is run by the state, another is run by the regional office of my division. Yes, it's crazy. Last Thursday we noticed that messages we sent from our regional accounts were not going through. By some trial and error, we discovered we could receive messages in that account, but we can't send. Over a week later, it's still the same. I asked a member of management for an update this Thursday, but basically all I got was "there's a problem with the server." Oh, really? Of course, since we are government, there is no urgency at all to get it fixed. A real business would have been all over this as soon as it happened. Another story of your tax dollars (not) at work.

Easter Baked Treats

For Easter I decided to try two new recipes.

The first was Yellow Cake with Salted Chocolate Ganache. Yellow cake with chocolate icing is my favorite, and as soon as I saw the recipe from Better Homes and Gardens, I was in. The result?

It was delicious! I made only 1 change to the recipe. Based on advice from my baking consultant (aka my mom), I used 2/3 semisweet and 1/3 milk chocolate instead of the dark. As usual, Mom was right.

Speaking of Mom, I was at her house last weekend when I came across a recipe for cranberry biscuits in Joanne Fluke's latest Hannah Swenson novel. I asked Mom if she thought they'd be good for Easter, and she thought they would.

The family consensus was this recipe is definitely a keeper!

I'd like to mention a special thanks to my former coworker's chickens. They provided the farm fresh eggs that helped my treats be so delicious.Keep up the good work ladies!