Things are heating up - and I don't just mean that it's warmer than it's been practically all summer! Spent a full day working - weird feeling! - with more of same tomorrow. Then Tuesday, the full rush: classes, trying to finish up summer projects; worrying about not having a dissertation topic; indecisive about which courses to take.
Yeah, poor me. Such problems as I have...
Back in July, I renewed my membership in the professional organization for my field. My workplace had paid for the perk back on the East Coast, and I never had thought too much about it, except for all the problems we always had in dealing with their clueless accounting office.
I had vaguely, in the back of my mind, been surprised not to be deluged with a spate of junk mail from them at once. Today I learned why, when I received an "invoice" informing me that I owed hundreds of dollars in back dues for the period between when I left my job and when I filled out the application for membership last month. They don't tell you when you join that if you want to leave, you can't really - it's like the Mafia.
Can they be serious? What a scam! I wrote a two page rant letter, but I don't know if I'll send it - it makes me sound deranged. These trade organizations are such ripoffs - but they try to make membership sound like an essential credential, and once people buy into it, then they've got it made.
Enough of that, anyway.
Posted by otto0114 at September 2, 2004 10:28 PM