The Prolific PC Mini-Success

So you would think that after 8 months in a new job that you would be ready to move on to expert (let’s say “verifier” in OTC confirmation-speak) status. But alas, my friend, this is the Peace Corps. After 8 months I’m just getting started. I recently had a mini-success with my tourist survey that I administered at the last fair. I did what I do best, and packaged all my data into a pretty little document brimming with pie charts and the like and I think that my counterpart was semi-impressed (she said she wanted to hire me…too bad for her I already work with her and in some ways for her). Although I think it’s important to know who your clients (aka tourist target market) are, I am hoping that the most important part of that document is the recommendations that I came up with for things that are potential projects that should be supported by the guide association and tourist office. These include giving a workshop to the food vendors on hygiene and santiary food-handling practices and also continuing the involvement with the guides during the fairs where they’ll organize tours during the fairs and festivals along with selling postcards and posters. The thing about being a Peace Corps volunteer is that you try to do the same work as the other volunteers in your project, but the key is to avoid reinventing the wheel, exploit the synergies (ha! what the heck does that even mean, business terminology popping out of my arse) that exist, and leverage the resources that are already at your disposal. Let me say, that was an excellent sentence. I do believe for that reason I am a microenterprise volunteer and not a basic sanitation volunteer building latrines. Anyways, I’ll keep you updated on my work in tourism; I think (cross your fingers) it might be going somewhere!

I found this article (along with the readers’ comments) in the yuppy NY Times on public service careers and the incentives for going into them kind of interesting. I agree that until you can change the view people have of under-valued and under-appreciated careers such as teaching – followed by a major adjustment in salary (hmm…let’s think, if I want to make a lot of money do I teach 9th grade math or be an investment banker?), you can’t incentivize bright, practical, economically-conscious (some with large student loan debts) people to go into public service as a career. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/education/23careers.html?scp=1&sq=public+service&st=nyt

In more important news, after reading the June issue of Vogue, I’ve decided that I am a fan of Alexander McQueen dresses. Although completely irrelevant to my current situation, I still have the ability to admire couture fashion and fantasize about prancing around in frilly dresses and 4-inch stilletto heels.