TV? What is that?
Doctoral students don’t have
time to watch TV.

That is partly true, but not entirely. I could watch a little TV, but I can’t watch anything consistently, so rather than be disappointed about missing episodes or having to DVR them for later, I just don’t watch much at all. I catch occasional cooking shows and sporting events, but I’m seasons behind on some of my faves, like The Big Bang Theory, Glee, The Office and NUMB3RS (<<Is that one even still on the air?).

Here’s hoping for something good to watch in, say, the fall of 2014! 😉

Because every student needs a break from textbooks now & then, I thought that I would share some of my favorite distractions with you today: web comics!

PHD Comics (“Piled Higher & Deeper”) is a hysterically accurate portrayal of life as a graduate student. The university newspaper runs the comic, and it brings me truly laugh-out-loud moments each week.

xkcd is the penultimate comic for geeks. If you never thought math could be funny, then you might be surprised. (I must admit that some of the punchlines are over my journalism-turned-poli-sci-major head, but it’s still one of my faves.)

Bo’s Cafe Life is a tongue-in-cheek look at the lives of a group of friends who are aspiring writers. I’ve had the privilege of conversing with the author a time or two, and he’s a hoot.

Doghouse Diaries puts a spin on relationships, and some of the funniest quips are the comments by the authors/artists below the comic.

Now that you know some of my favorite distractions, I’m going to go skim my RSS feed for the latest! 🙂

This week in my Human Resources Management course, we are discussing four management theories. We’re talking about how the various supervisory styles fall into a chart from one of our textbooks by Mainiero. The chart divvies up employee behavior based on whether they perform above or below expectations and whether they get along well with others or not. (The so-called ideal subordinate, then, would be someone who gets along well with others and performs above expectations.)

Here are some of my thoughts on the four theories:

My first job out of college was with a Theory F manager, and it was largely the reason for my decision to leave the field of journalism. I worked as a reporter for a small-town newspaper. After being called out during a staff meeting and verbally abused for submitting photos that he deemed to be sub-par for the upcoming edition, I knew that nothing I did would ever be good enough. I believe that fear is a motivating factor, but it is appropriate in truly do-or-die situations, such as Basic Training for the military. In an office setting, Theory F management is dehumanizing and belittling. Because of that manager, I made a commitment to myself—and I have honored it, all these years since—to never criticize an employee publicly.

I think that Theory X goes hand-in-hand with Theory F, in that being a micro-manager is a mere step or two away from becoming a fear-mongering overlord. Assertive personalities under this type of management could fall into the “talented but abrasive” quadrant of Mainiero’s chart, but they will likely butt heads with the boss. Workers who perform beneath expectations may coddle the boss and tread water in the “charming but unreliable” quadrant, but others will ignore the abrasive boss and fall into the “plateaued but indifferent” quadrant or – like me, in the above example – simply leave the job. I can only imagine that the “ideal subordinate” employee to a Theory F manager would be a Yes Man.

On a related note, I see how Theories Y and Z are closely related. An employee who is properly trained, given reasonable autonomy to do their job (Theory Y) and is treated as part of the “family” because they grasp the mission and vision of the organization (Theory Z) is well suited for productive business. A combination of Theory Y and Z seems to lend itself to a work environment where people build careers, not just hold down jobs.

A textbook for one of my classes this semester is The Art of War for Managers, a spin on Sun Tzu’s classic work, The Art of War (which, by the way, is available as a free e-book on Kindle, nook, etc.). The professor for this course is the same one I had last semester, when we discussed Dune as a case study for organizational management. Since it became necessary to familiarize myself with the entire Dune series–beyond just the first book that we were assigned, I thought it would be wise to read the original Art of War text (well, not the original original, because I don’t read Mandarin, but at least the English translation) before the class began.

The book is brief and is a fairly easy read. It is broken down into poetic segments, much like the book of Proverbs in the Bible. Here is one of the statements that resonated with me:

“To see victory only when it is within the ken of the common herd is not the acme of excellence.”

The quote was written in the context of preparing for military battle, but I can see how there are applications toward other aspects of life. Put another way, I think the statement means that we should not define success based on everyone else’s definition. We aren’t cookie-cutter human beings. We have different gifts and skills, and we each have a purpose in life. 🙂

I’m *this* close to being finished with my last term paper of the semester. It has been one of (if not the) most difficult papers I’ve ever written, largely because of my level of comfort/familiarity with the subject matter.

My prof is a big sci-fi fan, which is not a criticism in and of itself, but he also apparently expects his students to be mind-readers and know what he wants, even when he doesn’t specify it in the assignment instructions. It has been very frustrating and is something that I will certainly note in the end-of-semester survey.

I’ve mentioned before (a few times, in fact) that one of our required readings for the semester was Frank Herbert’s 1965 sci-fi classic, Dune. I didn’t loathe the book, but sci-fi isn’t my go-to genre. Furthermore, Dune is a series — and a rather lengthy one, at that — so trying to encapsulate the organizational structure of the society (which is the whole premise of the class) really involves more than just the first book. Much happens in later books (which I have not read, but I will be making a donation to Wikipedia when this class is over) that changes the scope of the storyline.

So, given a list of topics from which to choose, I set out to write about “universal political truths” in Dune. Easy enough, right? Um, sure, except for the fact that no one agrees on anything universal when it comes to politics. I decided to look at the Golden Rule, because it transcends numerous cultural, religious and political boundaries and could, arguably, be described as “universal.” In fact, one article I found said that at least 10 world religions have some variation of the Golden Rule in their texts.

I looked at the standard rendition (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you), the negative interpretation (Don’t do unto others as you wouldn’t want them to do unto you) and the economic version (He who has the gold, rules), with examples of how each rule is demonstrated in Dune. Then, I listed a fourth variation that I linked to the Dune saga beyond the first book: Do unto others so that they will not do unto themselves. This final scenario has to do with Leto II’s tyrannical but messianic rule that he set into motion in order to save humankind, aka, the Golden Path.

Since this blasted paper had to be 20-30 pages (rather than the typical 12), I had to write about more than just variations of the Golden Rule, so I pulled in some philosophy by Immanuel Kant and John Rawls, both of whom fall under the category of “social contract” philosophers, which I tied in with the Golden Rule and compared to Leto II. I’m neither a Kant nor Rawls scholar, so I’ve been grasping at straws trying to wrap my head around their perspectives well enough to write coherently about them.

It’s a twisted, convoluted effort, but I think I’ve made it work. I’m still about three pages shy of being finished, but the boys have kids’ church tonight, so I hope to finish TODAY. Then, I can study for my other class’ final exam that begins later this week!