(no subject)

[cblj_backup]

This has been the longest week of my life. It's been easily eight or nine weeks long. And that's despite the fact that I took Wednesday and this morning off.

We are at half our normal staff level right now, and half of the remaining staff was out sick for at least some of the week, including me. The Davos conference means we've been compiling research profiles like crazy, so crazy that my boss actually assigned me one, because there just wasn't anyone else to do it.

I'm totally fine with doing a research profile, because my ultimate aim is to move up from administrative manager to researcher. I've made no secret of that, and my department is supportive of it, which is why they give me learning assignments like this. But researchers get really intensive training before they're given this kind of assignment -- and on top of never having done one before, this was an international profile. International researchers are so specially trained and so thin on the ground that we've been trying to hire one for a year without success. Right now we're in talks to import one from Canada.

I've already talked a bit about the budget projections, which we have to submit next week. And also because we're at half-staff, we're both interviewing and hiring new positions.

So here is what happens on Tuesday:

-- My international profile is due.
-- The budget projections are due.
-- I am chaperoning a prospective employee around his interviews.
-- I am giving our new employee a tour of the building on her first day.

Because she's new, I was also in charge this week of making sure New Employee's access, computer, phone, and desk were set up.

The thing is, because Monday's a holiday, everything had to get done this week, and it did. New Employee's desk was set up by ten. I turned in the profile at noon, got it proofed, and turned in the final draft by one. At two we had the budget meeting, and I had final projections in the spreadsheet by three-fifteen.

Getting the profile proofed was really funny. The coworker who's been guiding me through compiling it all week told me not to be upset if I turned it in to be proofed and it came back all marked up; my boss, who did the proofing, was really apologetic about all the changes she wanted. You guys know I take criticism extremely well, it's part of my basic philosophy of creation, but they didn't know that and it really, really showed. Their relief when I made the changes without complaint or hurtyface was almost tangible.

Incidentally, while looking for budget documentation from previous years, I came across a file kept by my predecessor on the network drive we all share -- we have private folders on the drive only we can access, but we also have a shared folder that anyone in the company can browse. In this SHARED FOLDER, that anyone in the company could look at, I found her administrative file, which included a document containing a list of our staff's corporate credit card numbers, a spreadsheet of their birthdates, and a file of results from personality tests they'd taken.

CRAZY. SHE WAS CRAZY.

So on top of everything else, I spent an hour today sanitising the public file and transferring the relevant bits to my hard drive for future study.

I feel like this three-day weekend is a personal reward for this week. I plan to spend most of it unconscious.

Comments

[karadin.livejournal.com]

I found her administrative file, which included a document containing a list of our staff's corporate credit card numbers, a spreadsheet of their birthdates, and a file of results from personality tests they'd taken.

Holy Crap.

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

Wow. Do not want!

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I'm still debating whether to mention this to my boss. The woman ran a pretty tight ship when she was in my position, by all accounts, but I can't figure out HOW.

And she still works for our company, just in another department...

[frenchroast.livejournal.com]

I think you basically have to. Who knows what she might have on her private file?

[eskanto]

Wow.

Guess that's why she's been replaced by your awesomeness.

[angela-o.livejournal.com]

which included a document containing a list of our staff's corporate credit card numbers, a spreadsheet of their birthdates, and a file of results from personality tests they'd taken

Maybe she was trying to determine what the best gifts to give them on behalf of the company might be based on their interests?

Yeah, I got nothing. Crazy works.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

LOL. Well, keeping the records isn't an issue. Keeping them in a public drive, though...

[stephani673.livejournal.com]

Wow on the crazy, but also on the difficulty hiring researchers. Is it that highly specialized?

(I'm librarian/historian/researcher-type and am having a terrible time finding a job as a researcher.)

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Researchers in a general way aren't necessarily specialised, though we do have enough prestige as an employer that we can pick and choose the best. It's just that international researchers are very specialised because they have to be -- they have to know international databases that regular researchers don't, have to keep current on international news, and usually they have to be at least bilingual (our Canadian potential import speaks Chinese and English fluently, and can get by in Spanish and French). International research has a lot of quirks to it.

As a jobseeking researcher -- I don't know if you're looking in these areas or not, but you should definitely take a look at not-for-profits, and the "development" or "advancement" departments of universities, particularly for Prospect Research positions. It's a fairly narrow band -- you spend most of your time researching the filthy rich -- but it's satisfying and the pay's usually pretty good, and you get all the joy of fundraising without actually having to do any fundraising. :D

[stephani673.livejournal.com]

Ah, gotcha. My grad fields didn't require any languages so my Spanish is a bit rusty. I can see how that would be a big draw -- and it really would be smart on my part to reacquire/acquire more language skills.

Do you spend much time schmoozing the prospects or are you just researching them in prospect research? I'm not a great schmoozer. :)

I'd love to work for a not-for-profit and was considering knowledge management as a potential venue, but I genuinely enjoy research so prospect research might be a better option.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Oh no, researchers rarely if ever even meet the prospects. That's what fundraisers are for. :D Prospect research is generally a combination of two things:

1. "Maintenance" research, which involves reading magazines and newspapers for articles about big donors, public events, that kind of thing, and updating the database where we keep entries on prospective donors. For example, one of our researchers specialises in business mags like Forbes and Financial Times; another reads local Chicago news only; another reads science news.
2. "Request" research, where a fundraiser asks a researcher to provide information on a specific person. This can range from a half-page "blurb" (basic info -- address, phone number, job title) to a two-page profile (basic info, work history, donation history) to a full-on bio (all the above plus personal beliefs, family information, non-work personal history) which can be between five and fifteen pages, depending.

Occasionally researchers will go "prospecting", which involves searching for people who aren't on our radar but should be. Even then, the fundraisers do the socialising part.

Some researchers do become fundraisers, but that's not really common. Most of the researchers I've met, from my own "shop" and others around the state, are pretty shy and/or socially awkward.

[elucreh.livejournal.com]

So...anything up to that plot from Castle with the charity event and the home invasions? Iiiiinteresting. I never really considered that might be, you know, A REAL THING.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen that episode, but now I want to know which one it is so I can :D

Prospect Research, in the grand tradition of Every Job I've Ever Worked In, is super-fun with an edge of super-creepy. It's really interesting work, and most of our big big donors are used to it and know that we've researched them, but I think most people would be a little weirded out by how much research we do on any given individual.

For example, I give regularly in small amounts to my undergrad. They have a database, and I have an entry where I'm listed as an Alumnus, Donor, and "Non-Major Prospect" (ie, I'm not rich, so I give sometimes when they send letters but they're not going to send an actual person to talk to me about making a gift). Every donation I've made is logged in this entry as well as my current address, phone, and email; if I've ever attended an alumni event, my attendance is noted; if there's ever been an article about me in a major paper or magazine, it's logged and recorded in my database entry.

Wealthy people would also have notes like "In Evaluation" or "Major Donor", and the name of the fundraiser assigned to them would be listed, as well as every time they've met with the fundraiser.

[elucreh.livejournal.com]

107. Home is Where the Heart Stops. :D

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

I AM MAKING A NOTE TO WATCH. :D

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

I worked on my college's fundraising campaign, phoning alumni and asking for donations, and we were using a database which had entries on their families, jobs, hobbies, involvement in university societies, and so on; at the start of the process we had to enter things like our hometowns, degree subjects and hobbies so we could be matched up with people we'd have things in common with wherever possible. (We were also supposed to try to gather any of this information if it was missing and add it to the database for future campaigns.) All of this was to facilitate good conversation in order to get people in the mood to donate (I have to admit, it didn't work that well. People were very hostile, on the whole).

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Yeah, phone campaigns are the worst -- nobody wants to get that call, and everyone's all hostile and awful. But the thing is, honestly? I've seen the stats, and phone campaigns do earn their keep. :/

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

The annoying part was that letters had been sent out about it, giving people the option to opt-out if they didn't want to be called; lots just didn't bother, though, and then were very cross about being phoned despite that. But yes, they're definitely important (although I'm not sure how much we actually get from our home students; there's not the same culture of giving to one's university here in the UK as in the US. I know my college has a specific fundraising team for US alumni, because we get so much more from them).

[brightly-woven.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't an unemployed or underemployed librarian make a good researcher?

Not that you wouldn't make a better one, but it seems odd that it's that hard to find someone.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

It's not hard to find researchers in a general sense -- we're only downstaffed so badly because we lost a lot of them at once. International researchers are really hard to find, because of the job's specific requirements.

We do often hire people with library backgrounds -- our person we just let go had an MLS, which is why she was hired. (She didn't make it past her probation, but that was because she wasn't picking up certain basic office skills like Excel fast enough -- nothing to do with her research chops.)

[madripoor-rose.livejournal.com]

Were these....personality tests they'd taken for HR or something more along the lines of the OK Cupid quiz? And maybe she was the office party organizer, for the birthdates? (television cliche of break-room birthday cake.)

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

We don't do birthday parties, though I'm sure she had the birthdates for that reason, you know, to arrange a card for everyone to sign or whatnot. The personality tests look like something HR would have them do, yeah. Having either of those things in the records isn't necessarily weird -- but keeping them in a public drive where anyone could access them is a pretty big no-no.

[madripoor-rose.livejournal.com]

Ah. I'd guess it was either confusing the two folders or just getting careless with a shared folder noone else ever seemed to look at or something....

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Our public folder space is, admittedly, a huge mess. There are tons of folders and things filed in strange places. But still, she clearly kept all her work in the admin folder -- it should have been in her private folder or on her desktop, definitely NOT public.

[elucreh.livejournal.com]

She wasn't just crazy, she was INCOMPETENT. Just. WHAT??

[jaydeyn-sitari.livejournal.com]

I have all the drinky-poos swirling in my head right now and yet you still make this fascinating! Heh.

Maybe she ran a tight ship because she had personality profiles and thus was tailoring her admin to that?

:)
Jaydeyn