Bloggin', Postin'

Personal post before getting back to work tomorrow.  Had a short mini-vacation since work last Friday, though I did go in for 1.5 hours for a meeting on Tuesday (NYE).

What is proper etiquette if a meeting where your attendance is required gets scheduled on a day you took off but forgot to mark as such on your calendar?

First workout at the gym was Tuesday.  I work with a trainer, he had me do "back and accessories" which meant barbell rows, then some row machine, then some other sort of row with a cable which was suppose to hit my deltoids, then lat pull downs, then pull ups and some curls to end.  3 sets of 10 for each exercise, I think 15 for the curls.  I'll have to start paying attention to what the names are and the weight I'm doing, I think the most I did with the barbell row was 95.  Most of the later exercises I had trouble hitting the last few reps - got spent really quickly.  Today my back is feeling it all over though, which I take is a good thing; but, the inside of my elbows is also really feeling it like near the joint or maybe the ligament.  I also can't extend fully, so not sure if that is a good or bad thing.

Have some date nights coming up, but I also go cancelled on Monday night like an hour before.  This would have been a second date and was probably going to be a sleepover since she lives an hour away and we were planning on drinking in.  This is not wifey material, we are pretty clear we are just looking for some fun with each other.  Anyway, the purported reason for canceling was she had no gas to drive here.

I was talking to my friend, he said I should have gone and picked her up.  That didn't seem reasonable to me - little too desperate or something.  Since I don't have much to say tonight I'm gonna put some convo down below for entertainment and to see what independent thoughts people have and may share.  The only background you need is to know we had one double-date, she made it clear she was DTF, we planned a 2nd date but she cancelled on me, then after some back and forth we hadn't talked in about 10 days and I was the last to message her something but never got a response.  Following all that, I hit her up one night which is where it starts below.  I'm redacting location info.

inb4beta
-FS

AROUND 3AMFS: Heyy - be a good sport and tell me what it was? Not that I'm eating myself up or anything, just so I can make improvements in the future. I'm really terrible at girls haha. Appreciated ;)Female: I've just been busy..looking for a job.. Why is it that you don't talk to someone for a few days and they think you aren't interested. I like you, I wanna see you again soon I've just been busy with holiday stuff and looking for work. How are you?FS: Pleaseeeee, you went from talking to me on the regular to ignoring me. It's all good, I've been on both sides of that so I understand haha.. Sometimes there just isn't that spark. ;) You will find a job don't worry.Female: Stop I like youFS: seriously ? :*) baw. Playing.Female: You're cute, what are you doing tomorrow night?FS: taking you out :)Female: =) where?FS: Hmm ice skating at xxxxxxx, and dinner at the hipster vegetarian place?Female: Idk about ice skating, I don't like the cold.. Maybe something else? If that's okay... :( food sounds great though!FS: hahaFS: theres that non-spark again. What do you like? remember what I said about not being good at this :)Female: Idk what is there to do that isn't outdoors? :pFS: Well we can always just chill and drink wine, watch netflix, catch up on that conversation we never had cus of the surprise double date ;) Goto the movies.. go test drive sports cars we can't afford. I'm actually off tomorrow, which is why I'm still up. So if you wanna catch a matinee when nobody is there we could do that.Female: HmmFemale: I like how netflix sounds :)FS: Sounds good to me, I'm really enjoying the shit out of this couch I finally got into the apartment through my window.Female: Is it super comfy?FS: fuck yes :)Female: Nice I'm excited, I'm gonna get some sleep I'll message you tomorrow :)FS: Word, sweet screams

NEXT DAY AROUND 5PMFemale: So small issue, I don't have the gas to get to xxxxxxx tonight..FS: Damn that suxFemale: Yeah it really doesFS: Yup well let me know if you figure it out I was looking forward.Female: Me too :(

Postpouri

Took a couple days PTO before New Year's so I am just finding time to update this blog.  Clearly I've not given this much priority - looks like my last update was September.  I'll update about work mostly but also some personal life stuff.

Work: 

I think I've mentioned how I've had to take over a lot of the managerial stuff in my department since my supervisor's departure.  I've found this stuff very frustrating! (and I hear the former boss did not enjoy it much either, for the same reasons).  Executives have a lot of management 'devices' - tools to define goals, motivate and focus work, grade performance, etc.  These devices seem to usually come from the latest article on management published in the Harvard Business Review.  Some executive gets the idea to propose implementing a device they read across the company and...I don't know, maybe improve their reputation with the board or with the CEO or something if it 'works' (i.e. if we unrelatedly happen to have a good year).

Two reasons this is shitty:  First is that a case study doesn't establish that the device was responsible for whatever claimed positive impact was found at the company it came out of (usually a large tech company which in no way resembles our small carrier).  Secondly, the implementation pre-requisites are often laid out in the article but ignored anyway, at least at my company.  This is the part that frustrates me most, because I have to implement it in my department.  One such device isn't even meant to be used at a departmental level - it is specific to a business unit.  There are requirements for numbers of employees, authority levels, etc, none of which are met in my department of 1.  Not to mention the fact that the financial performance indicators are not something that can be tracked at a departmental level.  So the scorecards and things that I end up putting together end up 1. wasting a lot of my time; 2. frustrating me because I know I can't create anything of quality but I have to make it and call it mine anyway; 3. being constituted of a lot of bullshit; and 4. potentially influencing decisions at a higher level (GIGO - garbage in, garbage out).

And I'm still handling this stuff after 4.5 months now.

What else..

I've completed a second major project recently and had very good results both in terms of the actual findings and in my effectiveness at presenting the findings to a broader audience.  That was a high note in the past couple months.

I also have a couple projects on deck which will be more interesting.  Assessing a data product (relativities) which could potentially be implemented in our rating structure is one.  As far as how to do that..I have to figure it out.  I guess there is the crude approach - order exposures ascending by the relativity provided to us, group exposures into quantiles and assess loss ratios over a historical period - and there must be a more sophisticated approach.  Not sure exactly what the more sophisticated approach is and have to figure that out...its a loss model, so transforming the relativity and entering it into the existing severity GLM (as an offset?) and comparing the results to the reference model without the relativity based on AIC, BIC, gini index, Deviance.  If you know what I'm talking about I'd appreciate comments or link to the relevant CAS papers.

And let's see...I have to mention I'm sort of hesitant to talk too specifically about work in case someone I work with comes across this blog.  But it looks like I'm going to get some experience in another actuarial area due to the departure of some staff.  I think this will ultimately be a positive for my career development, though I also feel my development in my own area has been very slow due to not having guidance and this will only further hinder me there.

Last thought for those hoping to enter the field: I've found that one of my biggest areas for improvement is communicating/summarizing technical information for others.  Don't underestimate how important this is!  Executives want a few bullets, color-coded tables, 1-5 rating systems, etc.  Looking at your main graphs or tables and trying to imagine yourself as a person with no prior knowledge is difficult but useful.  What is bolded, larger font, how the table is laid out, where there is an arrow to draw attention, what columns are needed and which ones have less value in information added than value taken away by added complexity/confusion - these considerations are all important, though they can be frustrating for the donkey who knows his exhibits top-to-bottom.

Personal:

This post is already tl;dr and I'm getting tired of writing.  I've been on a few dates and there are two girls that are very interested but I'm just not feeling it for either of them.  There's just no spark.  Usually I am not the one feeling that way and it kind of sucks being the one that has to say this is not going anywhere.  Maybe I'm just getting pickier as I get older, which is a theory I heard recently, but I think really that pickings are getting slimmer.

Also, I just joined a brolic gym where I can lift heavy shit and put it down.  I've been wanting to do this for a while now.  I got a personal trainer (he manages the gym) I'll be working with 3 times a week at $25 bucks per hour session.  The gym itself was $35 a month or a year for like $150...I was really happily surprised, when the only other thing I was able to find was crossfit at over $9000 dollars a month and the people all seem like tools.  I'm doing the month before I go for the full year.  First session is Tuesday.

Peace out.