Junk Food Backlash

I used to love Oreos as a kid and now that I'm approaching 50, I really can't believe all of the different flavors of Oreos that are available now for sale:

• Original
• Double Stuff
• Mega Stuf
• Golden
• Thins
• Mint
• Peanut Butter Creme
• Key Lime
• Cinnamon Bun
• Brownie Batter
• Chocolate Crème
• Fudge Crème
• Fudge Crème Mint
• Cookie Dough
• Cotton Candy
• Carmel Apple
• Marshmallow Crispy
• Red Velvet Cake
• Birthday Cake
• Pumpkin Spice
• Strawberry Shortcake
• Toasted Coconut
• Lemon
• S'mores
• Blueberry Pie - only available at Target for a limited time starting June 6th
• Fruity Crisp - available starting June 1st at certain southern? regional retailers

Job Progress Report 5/10

Today is May 10th and I'm 46 days into my resignation and things are looking up in the jobs department at Me.Inc.:

• I got a haircut
• I've brushed up my resume
• Updated my LinkedIn profile to include my notary commission as self employment
• Joined monster, careerbuilder, branded.me
• Multiple recruiters are in play 
• Hiring managers have requested my resume
• Recruiters are emailing/calling

I've tried to keep an open mind about what skills I have and how they can be applied to roles other than mortgage loan post closing. With that being said, I developed an administrative assistant resume with a role in mind with a large local employer. Also, I was contacted about a reports analyst job at a medical insurance company (which is attractive to me because everybody needs medical insurance but not everyone is in the position to obtain a home loan), so I'm brushing up on my Excel skills.

And even while I was typing up this blog post, I got a call from another recruiter asking me if I wanted to interview for a Correspondent Purchasing position. Now I understand why that company is the way it is if they are contacting people to interview for roles they need to fill with zero experience, hiring them at a lower salary because of that fact, and then when they go through their trial by fire and fail, bloop, they get canned and the role becomes open again shortly. I feel like I dodged a bullet.

It's also 8 days from my departure date to be with my family for my uncle's memorial. A decidedly somber event. I think we all agree that his passing was sad but also blessing having witnessed him living with Alzheimer's disease and watching his slow demise. 

Minecraft Hacked!

I don't understand why the local news hasn't picked up on this story yet as it affects over 7 million users. Glad I didn't start playing this...
 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/seven-million-minecraft-accounts-hacked/

Finance in the News 05/02

Puerto Rico Defaults:

http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/03/investing/puerto-rico-default/

http://www.ibtimes.com/puerto-rico-default-how-we-got-here-what-happens-next-2034788

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/14/rescue-bill-for-puerto-rico-as-major-debt-deadline-looms.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-01/puerto-rico-will-default-on-government-development-bank-debt

Why you should avoid buying anything from an infomercial at 3AM

You have to be careful because everyone wants to separate you from your money. I think about this fact every time I read the emails that land in my inbox advertising for this or that.

And then there is all the commercials on tv. Buy our product because you're getting older, uglier, sadder and sicker as time rolls on and if you buy our products you'll be less of those things. But you need money to buy all of  those things. And when you don't feel like you have enough, people will go through all sorts of lengths to get it. So here I am, currently unemployed and wide awake at 3AM watching the latest infomercial selling the idea that life can be easier if you follow our system to be a real estate investor. Immediately, I'm skeptical. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Bait and switch. These were the things that were running through my head watching advertising for a seminar to get rich quick flipping homes cloaked as become a real estate investor.

So here's how it goes. You attend a seminar. You are baited by a book and some sort of minimal free giveaway of cheap electronic equipment they bought in bulk. You get some general information, but not enough to do anything with unless you buy into additional workshop. So you have to then buy into the workshop. And then at the workshop, you are sold access to the experts and walkthroughs. "This is how I did it and if I can do it, you can do it, too."Learn the steps to success and repeat these steps over and over again."

Doug Clark. Who is this guy? Someone from Utah that flipped houses and was filmed doing so to make a certain type of reality tv show. You can find this out if you search for "Flip Men" and watch shows on youtube. The tv show went off the air four years ago. Investigating further, the Better Business Bureau currently has a great example of what it's like to go through their learning process and you can read how these poor people from New Mexico feel like they were duped:

http://www.bbb.org/utah/business-reviews/seminars-and-training-wealth-building-and-real-estate-results-not-substantiated/doug-clark-in-lindon-ut-22364446/Complaints#breakdown

So how does this go for them? They buy an LLC. They make a business selling you the same LLC paperwork to you. You pay the filing fee. They call an infomercial company and create 10 minutes of script that's repeated 3 times to create a 30 minute show. They hire a host to ask scripted questions of spokesperson. The background for the host looks like a newsroom or a talk show stage. The spokesperson looks like they are sitting inside a beautiful home, but it can be a photo projected on a green screen which provides the desired appearance for you to think, "Yeah, I want what this guy has." In actuality, he's sitting in another part of the studio. Once the infomercial is filmed and produced, they rent seminar rooms in hotels around the country. They develop presentations at four different levels. One for the free talk to get you to come in (the infomercial). Two to provide some more information to bait you to buy the seminar. (They have to sell enough seminars to pay for the space they rented on credit cards.) Three is to buy the access to the process and techniques they are familiar with but you're not..Maybe even a website they feed with the foreclosures that you can get from newspapers yourself.  They prey on the fact that you're not confident you're doing things right because you're not gaining the expected results they tell you you should be having so... Four you get access to the experts... the people that keep you in the process so they can use any amount of success you may have to bolster what they are trying to sell in the first place.

You paid for a seminar, a LCC, you maxed out all of your credit cards and then paid for access. You haven't bought a foreclosed home yet which is what you wanted to do in the first place. You'll need more money to do that so you'll have to get others to pay for the purchase of a foreclosed home reducing your profit margin. You'll have to pay for others to fix the home because you're probably not a licensed contractor and then will reduce your profit margin more. If you couldn't find other serious investors, you went to a bank or mortgage company to get a loan and then the mortgage comes due between 30-60 days. That's the same time frame you have to fix the property and sell it. This is why you want a buyer on contract to get you out from under having to pay for that mortgage payment. They also forgot to tell you you also have to file two tax returns, one personal and one for your business. They also don't tell you that as a real estate investor, you're responsible for self employment taxes on all money you make.

You don't need to buy someone else's seminar to know that everything you do involving a home is expensive and you end up paying for it in the end. You don't need to buy someone else's seminar to tell you that if the mortgage payment is more than the going rental rate, you'll forced to sell. Guys like these love to sell seminars like these in states where the real estate is expensive so you have no recourse when you fail because you didn't follow their program.

My feeling better, less stressful, enjoying Good Friday because I quit my job yesterday life in Orange County!

There are ways to leave a job gracefully and then there are sometimes when you have to save yourself and just walk away. Yesterday, I quit after 6 months.

My accomplishments: I hired 3, fired 1, promoted 2, trained 3. I recognized gross risk issues surrounding safekeeping of original notes in case binders and had purchased fire-proof cabinets for storage. I wrote the compliance draft for safekeeping records... because they didn't have one. I suggested an electronic key card for the file storage room when I first arrived, but I was told it was too expensive. Once the new CRO was hired, it's back on the table, but with a wood door... to save money - so clueless. I started a collateral workbench project to take the #1 funder of reverse mortgages off of spreadsheets to track collateral prep between funding and shipping. I started the discussion about record retention and found out the table was out of date and they were sited for it at least once. BCP is out of date 3 years. I started to work on MERS 3 weeks ago after a visit from the relationship manager, and come to find out no reconciliation of the rejects, warnings, RI and RH reports have been done for years.( Probably since Margarita Harrison left the department. Last year, I found her at Carrington supervising a group of reviewers recertifying B of A Ginnie Mae correspondent collateral after B of A publically got slapped on the hand by Ginnie Mae for non-compliance.) I started to socialise the fact that they don't have to pay for registering mini-corr loans in MERS because the company not only has to pay the registration fee but puts them on the hook also for the MERS compliance. I organized the MERS project. I gained control over the MERS training and MERS production accounts. I set-up the security correctly and reactivated the secure questions. I created collateral qa check sheets for retail, wholesale and Advantage lines of business because again... they had none. I revised the hoc shipping desktop procedures. I ordered more carts to move files traveling through three floors of office space. My group took in processing collateral for the Wholesale group, including correspondent and mini corr (PA) loans. I enforced the clean desk policy in the suite. I gained control over the Iron Mtn account. I stabilized the file storage data and archived data for loan files stored at Iron Mountain. I collaborated across departments - with Facilities to promote safety and security, with File Management to reconcile workbenches and missing documents from the loan file, with funding to ID, log and deliver closing packaged and follow-up docs to the funders daily.

I learned what a HECM can do for 62+ seniors that have enough equity in their homes to access it, otherwise if short to close get nothing. After appraisal if their repairs cost money they don't have, get nothing. Many seniors are under the assumption that if they get a reverse mortgage, they don't have to pay taxes and insurance anymore, but that is not the case. Because HECM loans under their state's loan limit threshold are FHA insured, they pay upfront MIP a year in advance, plus recurring taxes, insurance and are required to keep up the home to FHA standards.Heirs can have the home if they pay back all disbursements plus high interest, otherwise it's sold and any work done to make it sellable is charged back to the dead borrower's heirs, because, hey, it's a violation of the terms of the deal.

What it came down to was I had a manager that hung her hat on quality assurance and knew little about the business and compliance side of post closing. She's never reviewed the custody agreements the team delivers to so she doesn't even know what's the right thing to do. She was excluded from new business meetings and didn't know or care enough to ask as it came down the pipeline, she sat on her hands before I got there and did nothing about the lack of department PNP, the MERS mismanagement, the need to secure original documents and the guidelines surrounding them until someone pointed it out to her. I even saw it in action in one of the record retention project meetings when before we got started, the discussion was about HUD petr reviews and she didn't know that the de underwriter would be dinged if the loan was deemed incurable, defective and uninsurable. She thought a broken loan is broken and just a loss to the company (period). She flooded the Santa Ana HOC with loans that didn't clear MIP and then they called her on it after I complained for two days. A strategic move she said. To see how loud and how many times I would complain about it because each one was landing on the reports my team was processing? Change management skills were minimal. She'd get a directive to change all of our collateral processes because one new warehouse wanted it a certain way. What? I called her on it and because she had called all of us in her office, I had to be tactful about it and come to find out I was right. And there was no thank you, how did you know, or empowerment over any of that. I described working for her as a white water rapid ride and every time I didn't get the information needed to do my job, I felt like I was getting bumped hard to the side of the boat almost being thrown overboard. It was a gut feeling, and I should of listened to my gut sooner, I should of stopped and thought that it was weird after the manager of the dept who worked under her up and quit and then I was called for a lesser role. Hind sight... She kept telling me I was slow to manage my staff and staff attendance problems. Well, slow just came to a hard stop yesterday. And I don't have to deal with it or her anymore.

W/e 03/20/16

My head is in a bunch of different places this Sunday morning.

I've received papers in the mail to execute in order to releave my obligation to the timeshare condo I bought and don't choose to maintain anymore. That's good news. It's value went from the high of $7k which was what I paid in 1999 down to today's assessor's value of $502. It's value is so low now, the county doesn't even bother to send the tax bill anymore.

I'm contemplating whether or not I want to stay at my job. I've gained ReverseVision, HECM, FHA, Ginnie Mae and advanced MS Excel experience in the seven months since I've started. There was a sobering statistic disclosed at the last Operations town hall which stated sadly only 33 percent of staff were there for over one year. An audible gasp came from the audience. Being #1 comes at a cost having to deal with the sheer volume which makes it hard to attract and retain employees, not to mention favoritism. So between now and June will be the time for me to either figure out where I fit in or find a new job. And the latter is looking more attractive. The stress is so palpable, my eyelids twitch just thinking about the place and I hate that.

So I'm really looking forward to the week's vacation I put in for even though it has it's own level of stress and sorrow built in. In 58 days, I'll be in New York with my family for Uncle Frank's memorial.

Last weekend, I bought supplies to build another two raised planting beds on my patio. I almost killed the tomato plants I bought drying them out without watering them for a week. they seem to come back to life after being drenched on Friday and Saturday. I have more coming up where they the cherry tomato plants were last year, now the where the peas are planted.

Is this work or something else?

02/19

http://www.businessinsider.com/googles-ranking-system-okr-2014-1

Scorecard: points are minutes. Total minutes = your productivity. Don't meet pace and your productivity minimum will be in question.

QA Reports layered on top of your pace can make your work look sloppy when you can't work fast enough and maintain your accuracy.

And then I was thinking... 02/16/16

They say the essentials we all need are food, shelter and clothing. [...and then the government taxes us for what they provide while we provide some sort of existence/life for our ourselves and our families. Paid taxes in 2015 for the first time in a while.]

But as I was walking back to my home after driving home from work, it hit me that these things are driven by money, emotions, and comfort.

One's ability to earn enough money could either raise or lower the emotional state resulting in a level of comfort in life. Personality and education back it up. Health, whether it be physical or mental is controllable to a certain extent, but for the most part, your health outcome is in the genes you get from your parents. You get what you get healthwise, from genetics, unless you smoke, drink, or take/abuse drugs and food and don't choose to move your body in vigorus ways to help build muscle and remove the toxins then the results or the lack thereof - you did to yourself and your genes did it to you. [Yes, I have Crohn's disease, but changing jobs has changed my commute and my stress level is down due to less of a commute, up to new surrounding and standards to get re-acquainted with on job tasks I'm already familiar with and working for a manager that actually cares to manage, but change is good.]

And then I was thinking, that,  "Isn't it enough to be a good person?" ...as I drive home on the "freeway" in this car, with this amazing horsepower as I grasp the steering wheel, this conveyance I'm seated in, that others, too, are seated in as we travel to our destinations and in my mind's eye/imagination- the exterior of the cars melted away and all people commuting on the freeway were seated floating in a dimly glowing interior blue light with powertrain and frame assuming the driving position with hands on their steering wheels, no upholstery with tires-this technology that really hasn't changed all that much in over 100 years [but to make it faster, safer, use less gas, or another fuel, but really at what cost to our environment if the power to make that alternate fuel was derived from fossil fuel?] and when we as humans end up using up all of the fossil fuels this world has, would we then need to worry about the need to expand our roadways or instead how they scarred the earth, contributed to global warming and how they'll need to be deconstructed?

No, it's not enough to be a good person if you're not exhibiting that goodness for someone else other than yourself to recognize, witness and benefit from. Hence we reward the leaders in their field - whatever they may be and punish those who don't meet society's expectations of what is good and right and true and sometimes - most of the time - logical.

If people were forced to work and live only within the areas that their feet could carry them, how many could? Could one's life be richer and still not have to worry financially?

And to think the fact that management tools are being rolled out to my team tomorrow. And I'm so excited, I can't sleep.

My Uncle Frank passed away tonight. I'm glad I got to know him before Alzheimer's took it's toll on his daily life. He taught me to take care of the people and the things you love and the rest will work itself out. This weekend, to honor his lifelong love of plants, I'll be planting flowers and tending to the cherry tomato plants that made it through the winter cold. Rest in peace, Uncle Frank. You will be missed.