Our respective alarms all start blaring at 5 a.m. this morning (Eastern time, so really 4 a.m.) to get on a plane back home. Shout out to the Radisson for having Sleep Number beds, free wireless, and a free shuttle to the airport. While in hindsight we should have just come back Monday night, at least we moved to a hotel right next to the airport for maximum sleep in time and it was glorious. After a lot of connecting and waiting and random dozing off and flying and driving and one oddly delicious breakfast sandwich from Potbelly even though the lady put bacon on it the first time, we made it back to Iowa City and went our separate ways. While we did some serious bonding over our long weekend, I feel I need an extended break from all things PRSSA and my fellow members (said as lovingly as possible, of course.) If I heard the words networking, social media, Twitter, or resume in the next week, I will LOSE IT.
While I should be getting some homework done, sleep is absolutely trumping any deadlines I currently have, so I’ll leave you with some photos from the trip. A freshly bathed Fergus is snoring away next to me– he snores a lot and gets the hiccups once a day, thoughts?– and I will probably soon join him (I seem to have chronic sinus problems, the snores are not my fault. I SWEAR.)
I just sneezed twice and he woke up, bewildered. Love.

PUMPKIN MARTINIS!!

No zoom-- we were literally at the White House's front door during the Garden Tour

Sasha & Malia's new play set

The changing of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery

If you’re a-Facebookin’ and wanna see all my pics, you can click here.

During my Monday morning perusal of the Daily Iowan to count how many of my friends got to personally meet some of Iowa City’s finest over the weekend, I found this article which addresses the very reasons I picked up the phone on Day One of this blog and say “Yo Pops, I’m hoppin’ mad ’bout some shit goin’ down.”  If you really don’t want to read the piece, or the Press-Citizen’s version of events here, essentially the hospital will begin asking patients’ permission to put their contact info in a database and solicit them for money.

I’m not particularly fond of the DI’s reporting on it, as it seems the side in favor of this policy basically wrote the article.  This is problem numero uno I have with the profession I’ve chosen to go into.  While PR is spun to us in class as unicorn and rainbows, press releases and event planning, it’s often hard to forget the giant elephant in the corner with his Spin Doctor shirt on.  No matter how much the spokespeople try to gloss this over as “low pressure…ethical…everyone else does it” (<–which um, HELLO, I was taught in like second grade that should never be an excuse for something) the fact is that it’s over the line.

 While I’m extremely glad they are not asking Medicaid and Iowa Care patients to participate, this is such a skeezy, low brow move for such an “esteemed” high-class place that we’re supposed to be running.  People are at the hospital because they are sick, because there is something wrong, in which medical bills will need to be paid.  Let’s try to now catch them in a very vulnerable, anxious state, in which they are already filling out dozens of forms.  Do they not think patients realize the hospital exists?  That they’re just sitting around with their checkbooks going ‘Gee, I sure want to give back in some way, but I just don’t know if UIHC will want this money.’  I understand that signing the form will only put them in a database, that no one is holding a gun to their head and demanding five bucks, but at the end of the day it’s solicitation, and outright asking people for money sucks.

As for the argument that this would somehow affect patient care, that those who consent would be treated better than those who don’t, I don’t think that’s an issue at all.  That thought never crossed my mind when I found out about this a few weeks ago– I have faith in my co-workers, who are as disgusted by this as I am, that nothing like that would even be considered.  While many days I wonder how we can have so many CEOs making bank while 200 fellow employees were laid off, at the end of the day they’re still human CEOs making bank…

The UI Foundation does some great work.  Not only do I know many students who work for them, but many of the administrative staff of the foundation have come to speak with my PR workshop class.  These people are good at what they do, they’ve taught us some great things about fundraising, it doesn’t even sound like a half bad place to work.  I can see how some might try to pose a legitimate argument that they’re just trying to do their jobs, that these people, after the bills are paid, may want to be informed of programs they otherwise wouldn’t know anything about.  None of this relevant as far as I am concerned however, this entire idea is tacky and completely out of line. 

 Iowa has one of the smallest percentages of alumni who give back in the Big Ten– let’s work on increasing that before we cop out and start taking advantage of many of the patients who have to go to our hospital, not who choose to.  Hospital employees are not having this either– many of the reception staff who will have to be trained how to administer these forms have flat-out said they will not go.  I don’t see how, from a relationship-building standpoint, this idea could ever work out in the long run.  People will be so turned off by this that I can only see negative things coming from it. 

In the Press-Citizen article, someone from the foundation is quoted as saying she’s surprised people are even questioning this program after the Pappajohn’s announced their $26 million gift.  Are you high?!  Does this not seem like the most contrived announcement, hiding behind that gift, to make this program seem like no big deal??  She makes it sound like the patients should be thanking them when she says they’re simply “offering the opportunity to grateful patients who want to help make a positive impact on the lives of others.”  That is the dark side of PR.

Costume shopping was a success and I am going as…

Daphne from Scooby-Doo! 

It was between her, Velma, or one of the wives from the Flintstones (character costumes were way cheaper at Second Act and I had no motivation or ideas to making something from scratch.)  Bestie was the ultimate decider with his much-appreciated input: “You’d get to have cool hair with Daphne.  You will get hot in Velma’s sweater.”   Betty and Wilma had weird foam hairpieces anyway, not that the giant BRIGHT ORANGE monstrosity that looks nothing like the above picture is much better, but I have til Friday to tame it.  He is going as Mr. Rogers, or as he put it “Me but with a sweater vest.”  Ahh, also so much more practical and economical that one.

I kind of want to see the Michael Jackson documentary. 

I’m making Halloween themed cupcakes and sugar cookies for Saturday morning tailgating and am so excited.

Friday will be a busy day of touring Eastern Iowa companies, learning about PR and marketing and networking and eating free lunch and taking notes and asking compelling questions and lots of smiling and awkward introductions and being really uncomfortable in dress clothes.

Roomie just came out to show me her Twister board costume.  She looks very cute in it (p.s. I HATE, hate, hate, loathe when people call me “cute”, but it’s okay for girls to say it of their peers.) 

In conclusion, I have stayed up too late yet again, have failed to do laundry yet again (I have officially run out of towels, at this point it’s now become a necessity) but helped in the once-every-three-months trash overhaul at 713 and watched a documentary on morbidly obese pregnant women with Bestie.  Chalk today up as a W.

Happy anniversary to Slash & Perla <– luckiest woman alive…

Let’s not talk about the kid and the balloon and his parents who clearly need a psychotic evaluation.  Let’s instead look at some other happenings around the country today and ask ourselves WHY little Falcon and his Wife Swapping famewhore mom and dad were the largest story of the day when an interracial couple was denied a marriage license in Louisiana (it is still 2009, right?  I didn’t get the whole regressing 50 years/ pre Civil Rights era memo…)

I am a journalism major.  I hate journalism.  I am realizing this a bit too late, however, and am close enough to just getting the degree that I’ll never change my major.  The past two years I have met some awesome super interesting people in the field who absolutely love what they do.  These people have more passion for the truth and reporting and sensational story-writing than I’ve probably ever had for anything yet in my 20 years.  That’s not me, though– I’m not naturally inquisitive, I find the media at times to be absolutely repulsive– I’m even becoming jaded on the PR aspect due to me realizing it’s all about money.  I KNOW– it’s America, capitalism, what else did I think it was about??  Maybe I’m just being a Debbie Downer, but I can’t imagine myself enjoying a life where I wake up to go to work every day to promote a company and/or product with the sole image of increasing sales/saving face.  Even non-profits, the field I’ve been leaning towards, are about donations, donations, donations.  I’m not good at asking for money– I think it’s tacky and I don’t handle rejection well.

As I’ve mentioned, my dream job is to bake for people.  Obviously the proper channels to actually pursuing this would be to take some business classes and get really good at baking.  It’ll happen one day,  but now is not the time.  I know I shouldn’t give up on the whole writing thing– as much as I hate journalism, I still hold out hope.  The smell of the New York Times  makes me really excited, and I am able to get satisfcation out of writing a kick-ass lede or getting a really great interview.  Maybe I hate it because college is the first place I wasn’t spoon-fed compliments just for making an effort.  I’ve pretty much accepted that either route I go, mega millionaire dollar signs are probably not in my future (which kinda blows since my only official life goal is to have enough money and no kids so I can fly to Vegas whenever I want…)

Also, how great is Taco Bell?!  The bestie and I went this evening– I’ve only been a handful of times in my life– and I am continually surprised by the dirt-cheap prices yet amazing food.  Blackjack taco box? I never knew that I needed two tacos, a burrito, and crispy CinnaSticks with a soda as big as my thigh all at one time!  (For the record, neither of us ordered this, but we saw it and were both in awe and excited for having found ground zero of America’s obesity epidemic…)

We also watched an episode of Gone Too Far, DJ AM’s documentary about helping addicts (which is ummm EXACTLY the same as Intervention only with a C-list celebrity instead of actual credibility.)  Does anyone else think that show has lost any sort of effectiveness it may have had on the addicts/audience due to the hypocrisy of the situation?!  Right before, MTV had just aired the documentary about Steve-O’s drug addicted past, so as one of my friends pointed out, the channel has basically become a giant how-to on getting high.