| I met Nathan for a 30-minute 8:00AM meeting, in which he started off by allaying any fears about the solvency of Ameriprise—considering the national financial debacle that’s been going on this week.
Next, we talked about shifting my asset allocation to a more conservative mix, as I enter the “quasi-retirement” phase that I’m in. He’s going to take my IBM pension money, which has always been money that’s essentially “guaranteed,” and put it in something equally as “guaranteed,” that is, something like bonds with as high an interest yield as we can get. |
Then, I have a huge chunk of IBM 401K money that he’s going to invest in a new joint offering by Ameriprise and Morningstar. That move does two things:
- It allays (obviously, this is “today’s word”) my concern about all my money being with Ameriprise alone, and
- It is a “guaranteed” instrument, in which even if the stock market takes you below your initial investment, they guarantee you won’t lose any of your principal.
I dropped my Arbitron diary into the mail as requested today. Glad to be done with it.
Today was my third day in the office working for the state. We had a morning meeting—what we would have called an “area meeting” in IBM, consisting of everyone in the three or four departments who work for my manager’s manager. In IBM we called that person our “second-line manager.” Here, so far as I’ve been able to determine, we call him “Stan.”
Since there isn’t a conference room in the building we work in, this meeting was held across the street in Scott Hall. I walked across the street with my manager, Jude, and a guy named Dan, whom I had met yesterday on an afternoon tour of our building, during which Jude introduced me to a ton of folks.
Dan told a short story about when he was officemates with another guy named Dan, which reminded me of when two guys with the same name are dating each other. I weighed whether I wanted to share that, and in the moment, decided against it.
The meeting was interesting enough, and one of the things mentioned was the accommodations that will soon be made for an upcoming three-day conference in Greensboro that several us will be attending.
Back at the office, I took a moment to talk about two things with my manager, the first being my dilemma of sharing that story about two guys with the same name dating. I’m glad we had the conversations, because as a result of it, several things happened:
- She reaffirmed the nothing-but-supportive environment that this office is going to be.
- She encouraged me to be “who I am” all the time, and said if other people have problems with it, it’s a growth opportunity for them.
- She told me about several other GLBT employees in our organization—ones who are out, of course.
I also brought up the fact that there might be some consideration as to with whom I share a room when we go to Greensboro. I certainly don’t have a problem sharing a room with anyone, but being that I’m out in the office, there might be someone who wouldn’t be comfortable sharing a room with me—regardless of whether that’s a “valid” concern or not.
She thanked me for bringing that up, as it wasn’t something she had considered. I told her that my preference would be to room with someone who knew I was gay, and someone that she knew wouldn’t have a problem with that.
Tonight was the STC-Carolina‘s annual membership drive luau. Sarah brought her family, and that husband of hers, Andrew, looked as fine as ever. 🙂
For our name tags, we used a book that offered an Hawaiian name for “real” names, and for John there was a choice between: Keone (non-biblical) and Ione (biblical). You know I was all over the non-biblical choice. Afterall, I’ve been an apostle (along with James, Peter, Andrew, Phillip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, Thaddeus, Simone and Judas) long enough. But I digress…
Sarah and I had lots of laughs, which is no surprise. Rebecca was the only other NCSU STC member there.
Oh! Affirmation: Sarah sent me this brief affirming e-mail earlier in the day: John, I want to put a thought in your head about co-presenting with me at the STC conference in Atlanta. No need to say YES right away-let’s chat about it at the Luau. But I think that we could contribute quite nicely to Leadership Day. Happy Wednesday, Sarah
I went to bed at 9:00, as I was really wiped out this evening, and my right knee is absolutely killing me. This situation has got to get better before I’m having to walk all around China.