Monday, July 28, 2014

Thoughts on my overly verbose e-mail signature.


Kevin Schachter


Business Technology Education – Department Chair
    *Technology Coordinator
    *Future Business Leaders of America – District XII Co-Director
    *High School Ethics Bowl – Coach
Industry Certifications:

    >Microsoft Office Specialist: Certified Master(Word Expert, Excel Expert, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access, OneNote)
    >Adobe Certified Associate (Dreamweaver, Flash, Photoshop)
    >Intuit QuickBooks    
    >National Retail Federation: Customer Service
    >Other: Time Management, Business Communication, Qualitative Problem Solving, Business Writing, and  Interpersonal Skills


    *PHUHS.org webmaster
    
(727) 669-1131 ext. 1248 (email preferred)

“One should guard against preaching to young people success in the customary form as the main aim in life. The most important motive for work in school and in life is pleasure in work, pleasure in its result and the knowledge of the value of the result to the community.” ~ Albert Einstein

CABAM Mission: Empower Success
CABAM Vision: To provide students with rigorous and relevant business concepts and skills, through education and experiences, that are vital for success in life.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What you see above is my work e-mail signature. This is what appears at the bottom of every e-mail I send from my work e-mail account. It seems a bit (a bit?) much, and might even be seen as some to show some conceit, but I believe everything there serves a purpose.

Obviously, each item is intended to convey some tidbit of information, but, more importantly, taken as a whole, it serves to remind me of a number of things. Primarily, it reminds me why I always seem to be so busy when I am at work. Additionally, it reminds me of the things that I need to be focusing on while at work. I occasionally consider trimming it down a bit, but inevitably end up not doing so, and even find myself adding items when I do edit it.

What I have really noticed about e-mail signatures is this: beyond the name of the sender, and checking to see if there is an interesting or at least mildly amusing tag line or quote, I don't think anyone really reads or pays very much attention anything else in an e-mail signature. So they really do serve in effect as personal reminders.

Among the reminders for me are:
  • That while my program is a CAPE academy, we are not yet a Magnet or Academy program. This would enable us to draw additional students from outside our attendance zone and thereby further grow the program. I still have a lot more work to do to make that happen.
  • That all of the industry certifications I have earned could probably enable me to make a lot more money doing something else, but there would be many other tradeoffs that I am not willing to make.
  • That while I wear many hats, and perform many functions, each of these contributes minimally to my salary, but they all greatly increase the value I add for my students and for my school.
  • And above all (referring to the Einstein quote), that there is a greater purpose to what I do, that I constantly need to keep in my line of sight.
Finally, I feel like that since I put a lot of thought and information into my own sign off, it causes me to pay a little more attention to how other people sign off on their own communiques. The more I examine them, the more I realize that you can tell a lot about someone's personality from what they do with their signature. Fonts, pictures, animations, quotes, titles, contact methods, certifications, organizations, signatures, etc. Each of these gives a little bit of insight into who is on the other end of a message. As technology causes more and more communication to become nonverbal, I think this is a good thing, as it can fill in many of the blanks that we might usually pick up from things like body language, facial expressions, hand gestures etc.

So take a moment when you have it; which if you're reading this I'm sure you have plenty; to look at your own e-mail signature, and see what it says about you, and if that really is the message you are intending to send. (If you don't know how to customize your signature, click here for assistance.)

Feel free to comment with either your own thoughts on e-mail signatures in general, my e-mail signature, or even paste your own in the comments. Thanks.






Thursday, July 17, 2014

Can't be Bothered to Rant

Someone, we'll call him Jeff, upon reading my previous post, said they would like it better if I were ranting about something. So I've spent some time today trying to think of something that has me fired up enough to rant. Unfortunately however, it seems like my brain has quietly slipped into that summer phase of quiet detachment where I'm more likely to shrug my shoulders than launch into some verbal tirade.

Perhaps when school starts again, and my brain switches gears back into a more intellectual (and argumentative) phase, I'll feel more like ranting. In the meantime, feel free to peruse the list below of things I might rant about come what may (August actually.)

Top 10 things that I considered ranting about today, but just didn't have the brainpower to commit.
  1. The way that many parents do not  know how to park at my daughter's pre-school.
  2. My neighbor whose fence is on my property by about 8 inches.
  3. The phone case I ordered via Amazon on Monday which was supposed to be here yesterday and has not yet arrived.
  4. The online textbook/software order I placed in June which the school apparently does not have the funds to purchase, even though they have the money to buy materials for newly added courses.
  5. America's sudden obsession with soccer.
  6. The ending of How I met Your Mother.
  7. The ending of 24 Live Another Day.
  8. Female Thor
  9. The fact that someone called me a liberal. (Jeff!)
  10. How quickly this summer is passing by.
Honorable Mention: The price of annual passes to Busch Gardens.

Comment if you'd like a future post to feature a rant on one of these topics.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Musings of a Procrastinating High School Teacher

11:46 a.m. Wednesday
It's raining.
It apparently does that a lot during the summers here in sunny Florida.
I didn't used to pay that much attention to it, as I used to be working.
Now, however, as I have started working less in the summer, I notice how much it actually rains.

I went to the Dr. this morning for my routine annual physical.
Other than the predictable aches and pains of being fourty-mumble, he said I look great, but still need to lose some weight. So I got that going for me, which is nice.

I'm supposed to be writing a test. An End of Course Assessment (EOCA) to be more precise, but I'm procrastinating. (Don't tell my students!) That's why I'm writing this blog instead. I'll make $400 when the test is finished and approved, but it's summer, and even though it's raining, I don't really want to work that hard so I look for some distractions. The test I'm working on now is for a course called Medical Office Technology. I'm the only teacher in the county who teaches it, therefore, no one else is more qualified. I'm obviously also the only one who will be administering it, but I can't share any of the information with my students. How is this going to work?

The dogs are at my feet, Brownie, because she's scared shitless of thunder, and Buddy (the beagle) because he just likes it there.

Need more coffee...

12:11 p.m.
I was going to add more to this, as I continued to procrastinate, then I just decided to show you a picture of the sleeping dogs instead.