Well here I am sitting at the library on a sunny Saturday afternoon.  I just finished composing my senior column which will run in Tuesday’s edition of The Collegian.  I can’t believe the year is at an end, where did the time go?  Our last paper will be on Tuesday and I swear it is going to be quite a depressing day for me.

The past two weeks have been a complete blur.  I was in Tampa visiting my mom the weekend of April 25th and last weekend I spent most of my time studying for two exams.  I did however, manage to get out to karaoke at the VFW last Saturday night.  I was the genius who decided that singing Mr. Jones, by the Counting Crows was an easy song to sing.  Well guess what, its not.  There is a video of my SOBER performance, which so far has not made itself onto facebook or youtube.  I am sure it will be up there soon and  people will have a good laugh at me…oh well if you can’t make an ass out of yourself every once and a while, your not human.  I still think the worst part about the whole thing was that  I was stone cold sober, I should have been drunk.

Last weeks highlights and upcoming events

• I am still fruitless in my job search, mostly because I turned down a great job interview in Texas (I know your saying I’m insane, but I am not prepared to move to Texas, would you be?)
• The bruins are breaking my heart once again this year (what else is new?)
• I am a fool for reasons a little too personal to mention on the blog (got you thinking now huh?)

• The Collegian is actually going to make a profit this year (what a f$&*ing relief, no more potential heart attacks when looking at revenue & expense reports)

This may or may not be my last post depending on whether or not I can find some time to make an entry in the next few weeks.   For all of you who have either read The Collegian or followed this blog throughout the past year, Thank you!  I hope at least some of my posts have been relatively amusing and enlightening as to the work that we put in down in the campus center to provide you with a paper on a daily basis.

The Business Manager

Those are famous words around these parts.  Michael King, our EIC, uttered those words last week in the midst of our current fiscal crisis.  What happened you ask?  Well that is a long and not very interesting story.  For short, revenue is down close to 15% for the year and we needed to cut expenses to show a profit.  The result, yours truely is now a full time volunteer at The Collegian.  That was not the only cut however, as we have reduced student payroll across the board and had a steep reduction to our printing budget.  Sounds like fun stuff huh?

Other highlights for this week:

I decided it would be a great idea to sing karaoke at the VFW Saturday night after drinking heavily.  I hear there is a video of me out there on stage, if you end up watching it on you-tube…kudos to you.

I have become the only person that writes in this blog, my apologies for not putting an entry up last week, we were after all handling a financial crisis.

Joe Meloni stated: “Wicked Boom” upon the final buzzer of the bruins game last Thursday.  We are all quite pleased that they are up 3-0 against the Canadians. 

I’ll leave you with a fantastic picture I found on clip art (Copyright Microsoft) that portrays our current financial standing:

Alex breaking a stick after looking at the latest financial statements (except I wouldn't be caught dead in a blue suit)

 The Business Manager

So it would appear that Kate and myself are the only people to post on this blog.  I have asked our fearless leader (I don’t know why we call him that, I believe he is still quite fearful of not finishing his thesis on time) Mike several times to post something, but he always refuses.  I think he just hates blogging.

I have a rare photo of our business office to share with you.  I am pretty sure it is the only photo in existence…..but maybe I am just hyping it up, you decide.

Our Business Office, I'm the clown in the back of the office with his thumbs up

Here are some highlights from last week:

• We operated at a loss last week, posting a little over a thousand dollars below our break even point.  We still have plenty of time in April to catch up, but needless to say I am quite concerned over it.  Thats why I get to be part of the so called drama department.
• Our Ad manager Dan got his hair cut.  I can confirm that he looks quite sexy
• Kate thinks she is somewhere in the jungle looking for jobs, all I can say is good luck.
• I am still without a job and pretty much plan on going right to the unemployment office upon graduation to collect.  I’m pretty sure that is not going to work so I continue to try to find something decent (not in the jungle though).

That’s about all the fun from here on this cold Tuesday afternoon.  To quote a strange saying that psychopath came up with:

“Stay Bless”

The Business Manager

So I’ve resigned myself to the hunt. Much like running through a jungle to escape its aboriginal inhabitants only to stumble upon mountains of treasure – I am looking for a job.

Is my job hunt reference really just a metaphor? It's certainly a jungle out there in the great, wide world of employment opportunities.

Anything enjoyable would be nice. That would be the real diamond and jewels.

However, it’s a difficult search. My two roommates already have positions as do many of my friends. But jobs in the humanities are different – they’re, for the most part, immediate hire.

So I’ve taken to selling myself on paper and/or the Internet.

Last night I applied for four positions: technical writer at General Dynamics, writer/editor at Lockheed Martin, editorial assistant at the National Academies (one of their journals), and a marketing assistant at the National Academies Press (definitely top choice). Although I really would like to work at a publishing house, the whole book industry isn’t going so well. I would know, I’m writing a 50+ page paper about it.

I figure I’ve got a good plan going. For jobs in the Washington, D.C. area, I’ve been using bookjobs.com, WashingtonPost.com, Monster.com, MediaBistro.com and CareerBuilder.com. Applying for 3 or 4 jobs a week won’t be so bad. Unless they all have their own poison darts: resume builders. I hate those things. I made a resume for a reason – to upload it, e-mail it or mail it to someone. My resume makes me look good, and these silly resume builders don’t – they just tire me out.

Anyway, if you have a job for a creative and motivated (and who is really good at running through jungles) writer and editor, let me know.

Speaking of the lovely gift mail L’Oreal sent us on Friday, this place turned into utter chaos for fifteen minutes.  Imagine if you will, the lovely young ladies on our ad and classified staff tearing open the boxes that contained those shower kits and then throwing shampoos and conditioners all over the business room.  The end result was a mess of cardboard, packing bubbles, and unwanted Garnier Fructis products.  This is what happens when you are underpaid, overworked, and just genuinely tired of being in the dungeon we call our office.

Here are some highlights from the past week:

There was a bet over the NCAA hockey tournament between Joe Meloni and Michael King.  King has already lost the bet (a carton of cigarettes of all things), shows how good our chain smoking EIC is at picking college hockey games. 

I got absolutely trashed in nine holes on the links Friday afternoon.  King hit a 38, three over par which is very respectable.  Myself, on the other hand, nearly doubled his score with a 70.  I can admit it, I suck at golf.

Planning for our bar crawl at the end of the semester has begun.  The design for our t-shirts was developed yesterday and of course we are pushing the limit on what is politically correct to wear out in public.  I don’t want to spoil any surprises, but I imagine you would find it quite funny.  Artwork to follow in a couple of days.

I will leave you on the admission that I did take home some Garnier Fructis shampoo on Friday afternoon.  And yes what little hair I have smells like tropical fruit….so what, it was free.  Why not?

The Business Manager

I have an announcement:

For the very first time I received mail at The Daily Collegian - and it was glorious. For all the communication that is done through e-mail, Twitter, Facebook or little post-it notes taped to my computer, getting some snail mail kind of makes you feel legit.

Although I am not the only recipient of such hairolicious goods - free stuff certainly does get your attention. Especially for poor, college journalists.

 This all stems from Garnier Fructis (aka L’Oreal) who is bringing a “Sing in the Shower” contest to Southwest at UMass. No, it’s not a get naked and sing contest. Contestants must perform their favorite karaoke song. The UMass winner will get $500 and a years worth of Fructis products (which personally I think smell awesome, the only basis I use for buying shampoo). The campus winner will compete against 11 other colleges and the grand prize winner will get $5,000, a hair makeover and a trip for two to L.A. to the American Idol season finale performance.

Heck, I used to sing, and since its American Idol-based, maybe they’ll have Kelly as one of the choices. My life would actually suck without her. There are some talented singers here at UMass and although I do love to sing in the shower (secret: also used to be in a band in my awkward high school days) I bet all of Southwest would giggle at me. And yes, some Ugg-booted ladies scare me. But hey, all I have to lose is my dignity.

Now, I happen to be running out of shampoo – perfect opportunity – and now my hair will smell amazing. And maybe some of this stuff will help to make my straight, boring hair super cool. But probably not, seeing as my hair is difficult and it takes about 2 lbs. of hair spray to keep my hair from reverting from curls (done with a curling iron) to stick straight once again. For all the girls out there who straighten their hair: I swear, having it straight all the time is boring. Promise.

UPDATE: Press kits are pretty cool, and my friend Matt brought up a good point. Ethically, how can I just take the stuff that comes to me in the mail? Well, technically, it’s like a press kit or getting a CD in the mail to review. Believe it or not, not all journalists review every CD by every musician that comes to them. However, marketing companies have to come up with an ingenious way to grab someone’s attention rather than just sending a paper press release – even if it involves a pretty sweet, green towel. Just with this post, as a journalist, I’ve given the contest some press (after all it’s linked to our website). In addition, L’Oreal has been purchasing ads from our paper. Especially with a pretty cool outdoor event that involves people making fools (or gods) out of themselves with a microphone, it’s something The Collegian would cover.

Spring break is officially over and all of us are excited to get back to publishing, while none of us want to go to class for the first time in over a week….myself included.  It was nice to get out of the daily routine for a week and hit the slopes for some fantastic spring skiing.

Things are starting to get in motion to hire the new executive board for next year.  Letters of intent for the Editor in Chief position are due by this Wednesday; with any luck in the process we will have our EIC for next year picked by the second week in April.

Business Manager applications are also being fielded at this time.  Hiring my replacement will not be easy, as we need someone with accounting/finance experience.  The last thing we need is someone who doesn’t know how to keep the books.  So far we have handed out four applications; I am hoping to have at least ten people apply for the position.  We’ll see what happens.

As of today we have 35 more editions of The Collegian to be published this semester.  That little statistic took me by surprise, the end is coming on quick.

At least golf season is upon us.  If anyone is in the Amherst area, Cherry Hill plans to open on Friday.  You just might see Mike King (EIC) and myself teeing off.  You can tell who’s who from how we tee off, I’ll be the guy slicing the ball into the woods.

Enjoy your afternoon!

The Business Manager

In the turmoil of these economic times - assistant news editor Ben Williams is taking the high road and offering his services for sustenance.

So tonight at our Exec. Board meeting, I got a whole pile of crap for having not posted anything on the blog yet. For those of you who don’t know – which probably isn’t many, considering that I’m pretty sure 90% of the hits this thing gets is Collegian staff – the Exec. Board meets once a week to talk about The Collegian with the bigger picture in mind. Sure, the day-to-day happenings are important, but we generally focus on long-term plans and goals, future events and all sorts of other exciting stuff.

Then again, conversation inevitably ends on EIC Mike King’s senior thesis. Or rather, his lack thereof. On a side note, because I’ve now posted something, Sarkes and King must follow suit.

So here you go. I’m Max, and I’m the Advertising Production Manager. My department is basically responsible for the production, proofing and placement of each ad in the paper. We’re a relatively small department, but no less important.

At this point in the semester, ad production almost runs on auto-pilot – which is nice, because it allows me the time to focus on the rest of my life/college/etc. That means that at some point soon, I’ll hopefully have a job lined up for the summer – after only four and a half months of searching. It also means that maybe I’ll have a place to live next semester.

Alright. I’m satisfied with this. Have a good vacation…

I broke my left index finger Friday night playing an intramural basketball playoff game.  We lost by ten to be bounced from the playoffs and I am wearing a sweet splint for at least the next two weeks.  I have become rather useless on a computer, in fact it has taken me almost five minutes to type this one paragraph because of how bulky the splint is.

Nothing exciting going on at the paper today, just another day in paradise as that Phil Collins song goes…

Until Next Time,

The Business Manager