Hiatus

Blogging will likely be less frequent for a while as I begin my new job .

New job

I have accepted the employment offer which I received last month. I will begin work Monday, February 1. It appears best I say nothing more about the specifics of the job. It will likely leave less time for blogging.

Discretion

Someone asked in comments whether I could talk about what I would be doing in my potential new job . The short answer is no. At the moment I don't know the exact limits about what I would be allowed to talk about but it is clearly not very much and I would prefer not to say anything rather than worry about inadvertently crossing a line. This is another reason I have some mixed feelings about this offer.

2009

I wasn't paying attention and failed to note the arrival of 2010. Despite getting laid off 2009 wasn't a bad year for me. I wasn't enjoying my job much at the end and early retirement was financially feasible but not the sort of thing I was likely to do on my own. So, after the initial shock, getting fired wasn't the worst thing in the world for me. Kind of like having your spouse leave and discovering you are happier without them.

Things seem to be looking up a bit for the rest of the country as well. At least immediate disaster seems to have been averted. However the economy still seems quite fragile to me. It's nice that the markets are up but the speed and magnitude of the rise are a bit unsettling as they suggest another bubble. And the politicians aren't helping by failing to do much of anything constructive to prevent future crises. And the oil is running out which isn't going to be good.

Oh well perhaps things will work out alright. Here's hoping you all have a good 2010.

Princeton

My potential job site is in central New Jersey, near Princeton. I drove down Sunday to look around a bit. Princeton seems to be the sort of college town that some people find quite appealing but which strikes me as expensive and crowded. The picture is of some buildings on the Princeton University campus.

I ran into a little traffic but even best case it appears the commute would be almost 2 hours each way so I will probably need to move. I have been looking at real estate sites and it appears that real estate prices for the sort of 2 bedroom townhouse condominium I have here are roughly similar (at least outside of Princeton itself) but that property taxes are higher. If any reader has useful information about housing options in the Princeton area I would appreciate hearing it.

Job search update

Back in March I applied for a security clearance which was granted in November . The costs of obtaining the clearance (which I believe are considerable) were borne by a potential employer so it seemed likely that an employment offer would follow. This has proved to be the case as I received an offer letter Tuesday.

Strangely enough my feelings about this are a bit mixed. I have found I don't miss working all that much and it was becoming apparent that I could get by financially. Also the new work location is about 90 miles from my current home so I will probably have to relocate. On the other hand getting a salary (and benefits) in addition to my pension will certainly improve my financial position. And it seems unlikely that there are a lot of better jobs around. So I am leaning towards accepting.

The position would be temporary (with the possibility of becoming permanent) but this doesn't bother me too much since early retirement has its attractions. It does mean I will be cautious about buying rather than renting if I relocate.

Security clearance update

Back in March I applied for the security clearance needed for a potential job and I took the required polygraph examination in June. I had thought this meant the clearance review was almost complete but I hadn't heard anything since. However on Wednesday morning I received a call that my clearance had come through which was nice to hear. So in my case, which I would think was pretty straightforward, the clearance process took over 8 months.

In the meantime my potential employer seems to have mislaid my employment application so there remain things to be done. Still it feels like progress.

New York mini-COBRA update

As I noted here New York has expanded their state COBRA law to grant 36 months of coverage in some cases. Unfortunately it appears this does not apply to me but not for the reason I was worried about. As the FAQ explains the law does not apply to self-funded (as opposed to fully insured) plans. The difference is explained here which notes in part:

Self-insured plans are subject to federal regulations, while fully-insured plans are regulated by the state in which the plan operates. This exempts MSU from providing for state-mandated benefits in our plans (which can be costly) and from paying state-mandated taxes on health care premiums (an additional expense for the plans).

I expect IBM's thinking is the same as MSU's and all their plans are self-insured. The benefits person on the phone said the law didn't apply to IBM and this seems like the most likely reason. And I really can't complain, New York's legislature is basically completely owned by the health care provider lobby and state regulated plans are likely much more expensive. Prices in the individual market seem to be ridiculous. Fortunately IBM has retiree plans that I can go into as an alternative which are more expensive than the employee plans but still better than the New York individual plans.

Time and Chance

Matthew Yglesias blogs about a paper which claims to find that graduating from college and entering the job market in a recession year has long term negative effects on your career. This seems plausible although the paper has the weakness that it only looks at a small number of years. So even if you show that people who graduated in high unemployment years did worse it is possible that these years were bad for other (or additional) reasons than high unemployment. However it is certainly true that chance events play a big part in life. This is not a new observation.

Ecclesiastes 9:11

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Yglesias goes on:

... If you’re graduating from college this spring, you’ll be sitting around at the age of thirty-five still suffering from the fact that Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Ben Nelson, and Kent Conrad decided to make the stimulus bill stingier in order to better bolster their credentials as preening centrists. When thinking about short-term inflation-unemployment tradeoffs, this sort of thing is crucial to keep in mind. Inflicting a high unemployment rate on the population has incredibly punitive and deleterious long-run consequences for young people.

I think this is pretty wrongheaded. First if you are looking for villains the people who caused the recession would seem better candidates than a few moderate Senators. Second optimal economic policy is not as obvious as Yglesias would have us believe. Third any policy has winners and losers. One could equally say "inflicting a high inflation rate on the population has incredibly punitive and deleterious long-run consequences for old people on fixed incomes".

Mathematics

I was asked in comments a couple of days ago whether I was doing mathematics while out of work. Somewhat sad to say, the answer is no or at least not seriously. While with my former employer I gradually did less research level mathematics until in the final years I was doing programming almost exclusively. So at this point I am rather out of touch with the current research and am not very motivated to get back into it.

Some people can work for years on a problem without much interaction with other people. I am not really able to do this. So as I gradually lost contact with the mathematics research community I became less productive. And I became more interested in other things.

New York mini-COBRA expanded

New York state has passed a law extending the 18 month federal COBRA period (during which you can stay in your former employer's health plan) to 36 months in New York state. This would be helpful for me but it is unclear whether the law applies in my case. According to the FAQ :

The law effects policies or contracts issued, renewed, modified, altered or amended on or after July 1, 2009. For most policies, the new benefit will apply on the policy’s annual renewal date. You can check with your insurer to determine the renewal date.

I was terminated effective February 26, 2009 but will be still be covered under federal COBRA on the renewal date (which I think is near the end of the year). Does this mean I am then entitled to a renewed policy for the remainder of the federal COBRA period which must contain an option to extend for an additional 18 months under the new state COBRA law? Hopefully, but it seems unclear.

Dog days

One thing about being out of work is you notice things you were oblivious to before. For example working in an air-conditioned office all day I didn't fully comprehend how miserable the weather around here can be in the summer. Hot and humid every day or so it seems. Currently it is pouring rain from a front coming through so perhaps things will improve a bit.

Taken Polygraph

Tuesday afternoon I drove down to Baltimore for the polygraph test required for my security clearance. The drive took about 4 hours with only minor traffic delays. A reservation had been made for me in a hotel near the facility which does the exams.

The exam itself was scheduled for 11:30 Wednesday. You aren't told immediately if you have passed. However the exam appeared to go smoothly and only lasted about 90 minutes which I gather is a good sign.

I have some doubts about effectiveness. I won't detail my reasons as this might help someone beat the exam which I have no particular interest in doing. And the process does have a certain sobering effect as it emphasizes that the government takes security very seriously. Something to consider before accepting any job offers which may be forthcoming.

The drive back took a bit longer as I stopped once for food and gas and also ran into some traffic delays. Still I was back by 7pm.

Pending Polygraph

The polygraph test required for my security clearance has been scheduled. This will involve a trip to Baltimore. I have been told the test is just intended to verify information I have already provided. Since I have led a rather boring life hopefully things will go smoothly.

Getting a physical

I got a physical exam a couple of weeks ago and went in for a follow up Tuesday to discuss my lab test results. Fortunately everything was normal.

A recent news report on rising health insurance costs suggested increasing worry about losing coverage was encouraging more utilization contributing to cost increases.

Costs will rise in part because workers worried about losing their jobs are using their health care more while they still have it ...

This initially seemed plausible to me as I have been thinking I should get stuff done while I am still covered under Cobra. But reading further in the story:

The 9% increase predicted for 2010, however, represents a slight decrease from the 9.2% PWC projected for this year, and 9.9% predicted for 2008 ...

which causes me to doubt that increasing insecurity actually explains much. The 9% annual cost increases are alarming and obviously cannot continue indefinitely.

Unemployment computation

I have been collecting unemployment insurance since being laid off a few months ago. A couple of weeks ago I attended the Yale commencement which meant I wasn't available for employment on that Monday as I duly reported when certifying for that week. I was unsure how this would affect my benefit amount. It turns out my state benefit was reduced by 25% but the federal $25 per week supplement was unaffected.

Linked in

Part of my separation package with my former employer was the services of an outplacement firm. This firm suggested the Linked in social networking site was useful for job hunting. So about 6 weeks ago I registered with the site and set up a basic profile but didn't do anything further. Today I attended a class at the outplacement firm on Linked in basics. Perhaps this will motivate me to start using the site.

Filing cabinets

My condo has been messier than usual since I got laid off since lots of files from my office are now piled in my living room. So last Saturday I ordered some file cabinets which were on sale at Office Max. They arrived today. This should eventually improve things but at the moment they are just adding to the clutter.

Cobra subsidy

The recent economic stimulus package provides some subsidies for Cobra coverage . I recently received a letter from my former employer about this. However I don't appear to benefit. As previously noted my former employer was already picking up the cost for medical insurance under Cobra for a year so the 65% subsidy for nine months doesn't help there. My former employer was not subsidizing dental insurance under Cobra so I would get a small benefit except for the fact that I will probably be over the income limit (for singles the subsidy phases out between 125k and 145k) and have to repay the subsidy on my 2009 taxes. Nor do I benefit from the second opportunity provided to elect Cobra coverage. I would have benefited more by the proposals to extend the 18 month Cobra limit but these were removed from the final bill. I can't complain too much as I have less need than most of the recently unemployed.

Rainy day blues

Another common problem with the weather here is a lack of sunshine. Today for instance was dreary, gray and rainy. Not weather I find congenial. Perhaps I should consider moving somewhere with a nicer climate. But inertia is powerful in my case, I am not big on new things.