Weird. I got an email from Mint that my credit score changed by more than 10 points since the last update. I logged in to check and the score is now 816. I’m not positive but I thought the last score was in the 830s. The details given didn’t show me what specifically dropped my score. It doesn’t matter much anyway; I’m not thinking of taking out large loans. My “regular” debt is just the monthly credit card balance. The mortgage, car, and student loans are all paid off years ago.

The report did say there were some credit inquiries but they were for new bank accounts. I haven’t opened a new credit card recently either. Why does Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan need to do a credit check if I’m giving them money? Also, I opened accounts at Ally Bank and Barclay Bank at the same time and they did not do a credit check.

Another item was credit utilization. My was pretty low at 4%. I have a lot of old credit cards that I don’t use and was told not to cancel them since credit agencies like long credit histories. I recently got a credit limit bump on my main credit card. Maybe that dropped my utilization since I didn’t buy more stuff but got more credit.

Finally, it’s unlikely but maybe they have access to my UCLA Medical and St. Joseph hospital account balances? Most of it should be paid by Medicare and my work insurance but with almost four years of dialysis and a kidney transplant, probably over $1 million of bills have flowed through those accounts. Is that a plus or minus?

Ha ha, just kidding. My sister came up to the apartment with her family to visit, and to drop some stuff off. We then walked to UCLA to show the campus to my niece. She’s only going to be a freshman in high school, but it’s never too early to thing about college. Anyway, since my leg is still somewhat injured, I was sitting next to the Bruin Bear taking a break. Suddenly, I recognized a voice calling my hame, and it turned out to be a current co-worker. We actually worked at the same company previously, so we’ve known each other for over 20 years.He was showing his daughter the campus too. She is a senior in high school so this is for next year.

He took a quick selfie with me in it to show our coworkers. I hope no one asks why I’m out on three months of medical leave if I can walk around fine.

I’m hosting a demo of the software we are planning to buy. This is hopefully the last “demo” before we sign the contract. Currently there are 17 people online; hopefully Webex will be stable since we need our CFO’s approval to buy the software. He is on the call, along with all his direct reports, and it’s the first time they have seen a demo of the software. We’re hoping no one will have an issue with our choice and we can move on and start implementing the new software.

If we continue with this software vendor, there’s a slight issue when we come to implementation. Due to the pandemic, there’s not much business travel going on, so their consultants will have to help us over the phone instead of in-person. Even worse, it’s a Canadian company so even if they travel to our office, they will have problems returning to Canada afterwards.

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For anyone that has set up meeting at a large company, it was almost impossible to find a free slot for everyone with only a few days notice. I don’t want to try and setup another meeting for all these people again.

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We just had a call to inform the second place vendor that we’re going with another solution. It was a weird call, kind of like breaking up with a boyfriend or girlfriend. We were trying to say “Hey, it’s not you. We just prefer something a bit different.” This one was a bit harder since we did a lot of demos with them. I had to reject a lot of other vendors but since there was less time invested, it was a bit easier. I’m glad I don’t work in Purchasing since it appears that this is a regular part of their work.

For lunch yesterday, I stopped at the Raising Cane’s in Santa Ana instead of the one I usually go to in Orange. I got a box combo and the total came out to $9.12, which was slightly more than what the exact meal cost in Orange. Both restaurants had the same price so the difference was in the sales tax. In addition to state and county sales taxes, cities can also add to the rate to raise funds. By checking here, you can see that the sales tax in Orange is 7.75%, and in Santa Ana it is 9.25%. The Orange location is further from my house: 7.1 miles vs. 5.3 miles. At 3.3 miles/kWh in my Tesla, the extra 1.8 miles will need an additional 0.55 kWh, which comes out to 11 cents assuming $0.20/kWh. That’s pretty much a wash, unless I use the Supercharger and get my car battery charged for free.

For a small $8 purchase, the difference was only 12 cents. But if you were making a large purchase, you probably should go to a store in Orange instead of Santa Ana, which will cost you 1.5% more. Here is a more detailed breakdown:

Sales Tax Component	%
California	6.0
Orange County	0.25
Santa Ana	1.5
Orange Co Local Tax Sl	1.0
Orange County District Tax Sp	0.5
Total	9.25

Out of the total, California takes 6.0% and Orange County takes 1.75%. I guess City of Orange is not charging any extra sales tax. You can see how heavy the tax burden is in California. The state income tax ramp is pretty steep and you get to 9.3% pretty quickly. Add the 6.0% sales tax (assuming you buy a lot of stuff), most Californians pay 15.3% in state taxes, before property tax. That’s why I typically vote no on any bond propositions on the ballot. They’re already takin 1/6 of my salary already… do a better budget. With the federal government taking ~1/3 of my salary, that’s half my income gone.

I’m on a conference call with my boss and his entire team right now. There were a couple of directors that I’ve never talked to before on the call. With the spike in COVID-19 cases, both at work and outside, we’re asking people to work from home as much as possible, again. However, management doesn’t want this info out on email for some reason so each VP is passing the news verbally.

Since I wasn’t planning on going into the office anytime soon, nothing really changes for me. I know some coworkers have been going in more regularly but I think the office will be pretty empty for the rest of the year. I also overheard that our company is running low on COVID tests. We’re using about 200 kits per day to test employees.

I received a new Costco Citi credit card in the mail today. Since my parents go there all the time to shop, I hardly go anymore. For the past 10 years, I’ve only had one or two transactions per year on my card.

In order to activate the credit card, I went into Citi’s mobile app. I also have a Citi Double Rewards card, which is my main credit card since it gives 2% rebate on all purchases. I got tired of tracking which card had the best rebate on which categories. Looking around, I noticed that I had about $175 in cash back rewards. On some cards, there is an option to automatically apply the rewards as a credit to your account. For Citi, you have to go in and choose a redemption option. You can convert to points for shopping, apply as account credit, get direct deposit into a bank account, or receive a paper check. The points option is a $1 = 100 points conversion but items cost 100 points per $1. I don’t know why anyone would choose that option since you don’t get any monetary benefit yet you lock yourself into Citi’s points. Anyway, I chose account credit since there is always a balance due.

I also noticed you can ask for more credit on your card. The app asks for your salary and rent/mortgage payments, then it decides within a few seconds whether to modify your credit line. I didn’t change the existing values much, but when I clicked on submit, it gave me an additional $4000 of credit. Dangerous if you can’t control your spending. I don’t buy that many large ticket items so I’ll probably never used all the credit available but I guess it doesn’t hurt to have it if you’re responsible.

It’s that time of the year again. I hate doing these since the process at most companies are so formulaic. You (or your manager) fill out a form with a set of questions that is supposed to cover a year or more of work performance. I’ve always worked in small teams, often with just one direct report, and I talk to my staff (or manager) everyday. By review time, all that needs to be said has already been said a hundred times. Even worse, at both the current and previous company, the review is only indirectly correlated to the salary increase. The actual increase amount is a separate decision and not directly calculated from your performance review score.

The first step in the process is a self review. That is due at midnight tonight so I’d better get going. Our company uses a five point scale so you have to give yourself a ranking on several criteria, and write some text as well. Since I switched to part-time about halfway through the year, this is a new experience. What standards do I use to evaluate myself? I’m pretty certain that if I was working full-time, I would still make about the same progress on my one-and-only large project. Do I score better since I’m only working 3/4-time and getting paid less? Also, I’ve worked for the same manager for 17 out of the last 20 years so I can probably write my final review for him. Typically I get a 3.5 our of 5, but that doesn’t seem to have any impact on promotions.

At least this year I don’t have any direct reports so all I have to do is the self review and be done!

Even though everyone in the house has a Windows PC as their main computer, every other device is made by Apple. I just purchased a new Watch Series 6 to replace my Fitbit. The Fitbit was a hand-me-down from my niece who didn’t use it at all. It’s fine but the Watch has a built-in EKG function and an oxygen saturation sensor. After my a-fib episode and pleural effusion, it would be good to have a constant monitor on my heart and breathing. I got the larger version (44 mm) plus the new solo loop band. The total came out to $429 before tax. Since shipping would take 2-3 weeks, I opted to pick it up at the Apple Store at South Coast Plaza. Let’s hope it’s not as much of a zoo as last time.

I also just purchased an Apple TV 4K online as well. We have two Apple TVs already but they are both from the first generation. I think the output is only 720p and not sure if it can use the latest OS. We’ve also since bought a Samsung 4K TV so this will match nicely with it. I got the 64 GB version so it was $199, but there was a Black Friday special offer for $50 off. Finally, I bought my mom an iPhone 11 a few months ago. That turned out to be the most expensive item lately. We also have six iPads and about the same number of iPhones at home, plus a few old Macs. It makes for a very busy Wifi environment; right now there are 41 devices connected. I’m sure if everything was on and connected, the count would be closer to 70.

I think the pandemic has been good to a few companies like Amazon, Apple, and other electronics manufacturers. I should have purchased Apple stock earlier. Currently I have 168 shares in my managed brokerage account.

It’s time for HR training again at work. I’ve had these training modules for many years now. Almost every large company in California has some sort of training on workplace harassment. I guess the only surprise is my “personalized” course is titled training for “non-supervisors”. I was hired to my current company as a director level employee, which means I managed people that managed others. At my previous company, my last title was at a senior manager level so for the past 15 years, I’ve been trained as someone with managerial responsibilities when it comes to workplace harassment. However, with COVID and my dialysis schedule, I gave away all my staff to other directors so I’m a group of one at work.

Hopefully that means the training will be shorter this time. 😀

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Ugh, the switched the course this year. Not sure what company HR contracted but it’s totally different from the course from previous years. On the third screen, it requires you to answer a question in a freeform text box. I hate these type of questions. Whenever they come up in a survey, I usually just skip. I don’t think I can skip theses questions.

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Holy crap! I’ve been at it for over four hours and I’m only 40% done. Sure I’m multitasking a bit with other work and calls, but this course is taking forever to complete. My goal now is to finish the remaining 60% by end-of-day today.

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Done! It took about five and a half hours. The last two modules were shorter; the last one was only three pages. I also found out that you can submit a blank text box for the freeform questions. Finally, there is no quiz at the end of the course. Previously, there was always a quiz and if you failed to get a passing score, you just took the test again immediately. There was a time spent requirement but I believe I more than satisfied that.