Dr. Wise's Article on the Death of Marilyn Monroe

In 1960 when Marilyn Monroe died, a young man named Raymond Wise was working on his PhD. thesis in Food Science. The particular problem he was trying to solve was how to speed up the process of rigor mortis in turkeys on their way to market. You see, it takes 24 hours for rigor mortis to resolve it self in turkeys. By comparison, It takes beef cattle 2 weeks. And it takes chickens only 4 hours. During all this time the animal must be kept in refrigerated storage, an added expense in getting food to the consumer, but an essential one for delivering meat that is tender.

One of the drugs that Dr. Wise studied in his search for a speedier way to resolve rigor in chickens was Nembutal. He discovered, however, that instead of speeding up resolution of rigor mortis, Nembutal prolonged it.

Interestingly, Nembutal at low levels is also used as a sedative for humans and was a medication that Marilyn Monroe reportedly took as a sleeping aid and the one that she reportedly died from. But was her death really suicide? Or was it something else?

Since earning his PhD., Dr. Raymond Wise has been a researcher, a farmer, and a business man for the past 50 years. He actually developed the powdered egg formula that NASA’s astronauts ate on their trip to the moon. Over the years he has consulted with major corporations in the food industry on a variety of problems, ranging from the crispness of 40% bran flakes and soda crackers to the tenderness of pork and beans. His list of clients included Kellogg, Swift, Eli Lilly, and many others. Now retired he writes about something that has been on his mind for many years, some information from his thesis that might help to more accurately pinpoint the time of death of Marilyn Monroe.




Some Reflections on the Death of Marilyn Monroe by Raymond Wise, Ph.D., Purdue University
1960

Rigor Mortis occurs when striated muscle fibers are shortened by expenditure of energy in the form of ATP. Huxley (1958) reports shortening of the fibers, increasing in density. Wise (1960) found that Nembutal (Pentobarbital Sodium) lengthens the duration of rigor of muscles by 40% as evidenced by shear resistance of muscle when shear-tested. Resolution occurs when all the ATP are used up and tense muscle fibers relax.

Nembutal lengthens the resolution phase. The Wise study (1960) concluded that the Nembutal prolongs rigor duration and resolution several hours when compared to no use of Nembutal in control animals. While the Wise study used chicken muscle, and the Huxley study used rabbit muscle, these would be similar, and also have application to humans.

According to the Merck index, Nembutal is used in low dosage as a sedative, but is lethal in doses of 2 to 20 g. Marilyn Monroe’s death, however, was not due to ingestion of Nembutal pills but to a lethal injection in an internal site which may have been overlooked at her autopsy. This would account for the lack of external injection marks on her body.
Death comes when all the energy in dying tissue is exhausted. It occurs in the liver last, which accounts for the temperature of the liver in a pan during the autopsy of Marilyn Monroe being relatively high in a cool morgue on Sunday. The last part of the body to die when all ATP are used is the liver.
The bruises on Marilyn Monroe’s posterior indicate that she was probably alive when the ambulance driver James Hall accidentally dropped her while he was loading her into the ambulance at approximately 3:30 a.m.
Corpses do not bruise.

I believe my research on Rigor supports the evidence that Marilyn Monroe died later than was originally claimed by Dr. Engelberg when he initially pronounced her dead to Officer Clemmons shortly after 12:30a (p. 123, Marilyn Files). I believe that she died at 3:30 am or later. I believe Mrilyn Monroe was murdered for whatever reasons.

There was obviously a cover up that included many people. I won’t name all of the people involved, but two significant ones are:

• The housekeeper, Mrs. Murray, who recanted her story in 1985 and
  said RFK was at Marilyn Monroe’s the evening before she died and that
  she had lied to provide an alibi for him and
• JFK, the President of the United States.

Raymond G. Wise, Ph.D.

Bibliography

Huxley, H.E. (1958). Contraction of Muscle, Scientific
American, (November Issue).
Merck Index, 7th Edition.

Nuland, Sherwin B. (1995). How We Die. Vintage Press.

Slatzer, Robert (1992). Marilyn Files. SPI Books.

Wise, Raymond G., Ph.D. (1960). Some Factors Affecting Poultry
Meat (including a chapter on the effects of Nembutal on the duration
and resolution of rigor mortis). Thesis at Purdue University.

Introducing Ray and Peggy Wise

For many years, Benny and I have had the privilege to have some good neighbors, among them Ray and Peggie Wise. They operated AquaWise well into their seventies, and had a feed store along with their water softening business . Originally from around Peru, Indiana, Ray fought in World War II, and then went to Purdue on the G.I. Bill. He earned his Ph.D. in Food Science from Purdue University in 1960 and subsequently did consulting and research for many major companies, often at his little farm outside of Lafayette with the help of his able and capable wife Peggie and their three children. He was a power-house and pursued many different interests, as well as farming and operating his own business in the course of providing for and caring for his family. One of his major accomplishments in his field was developing the powdered egg formula that the astronauts ate on their trip to the moon.

Although we had occasional interaction with Ray and Peggie at their store and in conjunction with Benny's refinishing, we actually got to know them better in later years. Benny especially struck up a close friendship with Ray and Peggie when he took them to the 2001 Farm Progress Show just down our road from our houses after Ray was recovering from open heart surgery and was unable get about without assistance. Benny and another friend of ours, Larry Giroux, also mowed the Wise's yard after Ray had that surgery, as good neighbors often do.

Ray and Peggie were friendly, kind, intelligent, and interesting people. They were members of the First Christian Church in Lafayette for most of their married lives. Although a disciplined, empirical scientist, Ray has lived comfortably with both his science and his faith. He is even somewhat of a mystic. Ray has given Benny and me some really fun and nice things to sell at antique shows and in our booth at Antique malls. Many items were primitives. One in particular was a bob sled he had made as a boy with a steering wheel from an old Model T Ford. More recently he contributed an old unicycle to our garage sale.

Peggie Wise passed away in late winter / early spring of 2006 after a long bout with Alzheimers and diabetes. When she had to move to a nursing home because of her medical condition, Ray faithfully went to sit with her every day. Married almost 60 years, he has been lost without her.

One of the things that Ray has always wanted to finish was an article on the fate of Marilyn Monroe. He had always felt that the research he'd done for his Ph.D. could shed some light on her death and he followed the news of the time and subsequent books about it with great interest.

He has been kind enough to allow me to post his observations on this blog, so stay tuned ... :)

From another of Aunt Firma's Patrons

Thanks to Robert Shaw for this photo of a 36 x 24 inch painting of a
short covered bridge that he and his family purchased at a church garage
sale several years ago. He says that it hangs in their family room and
that they enjoy it very much.
Thanks, Robert, for this lovely sample of Aunt Firma's work!
Sincerely,
JuneBug

How much is your painting worth?

A few years ago I received an email from Morris Robinson with an oft asked question:


Hello Jeanne:

I would like to have an idea of the value of a fall scene that I purchased from Firma in the summer of 1973. The oil painting is about 30 inches wide and 24 inches high. I don't intend to sell it. Rather, I intend to contribute it to my law firm.

Allow me to share an anecdote. When I purchased the painting, I gave Ms. Phillips a check drawn on a Boston bank. She accepted it. I couldn't help asking her, "How do you know that I am who I say I am and that my check is good?" I never forgot her response. "You didn't come all the way to Turkey Run, Indiana to pass off a bad check. Anyway, I can always paint another painting!" I have told the story many times. The check, incidentally, was good.

Best wishes.

Morris Robinson

I asked the family and got the following answer from cousin Dorinda that many might find helpful:

There are several questions that I need to ask ...

1. I would imagine that is in excellent condition, if not, then that would devalue the painting.
2. What type of frame is it in?? If the painting is in an ornate frame then the package is worth more than if it is in a plainer frame.
3. I have found that some subjects she painted are worth more than other subjects ( less known subjects i.e. a painting of Turkey Run Bridge is more memorable to collectors than an obscure barn).
4. Just going by size and subject matter, One sold last year on Ebay for $175.00 and another was over $200.00 approximately the same size.

Hopefully, this information helps you.

Dorinda

Also thanks to Dorinda for the following suggestion:

If you set up an automatic search on ebay for Indiana Artists, pay particular attention to paintings that may show up from Brown County artists from the 1940's, 50's, 60's, and 70's, to see what they look like and how they are priced. Aunt Firma used to go to Brown County to paint, and she may well have painted with, or at least met some of these people. The styles seem very similar.

Other relevant localities include Parke County and Fountain County - I believe Aunt Firma helped influence many of those artists. For instance the two Parke County artists listed below mention on the Parke County Covered Bridge Art Association web site that they studied under Aunt Firma - and I'm sure many others have also studied with her through the years.

Mary Harrison
Louise Michael

From one of Aunt Firma's Patrons

I'm taking the liberty to share this email and lovely photograph of Aunt Firma's work from Bill Morgan received some time back - thanks so for sharing this, Bill, the pic is gorgeous!

Jeanne:

I found you through a search for Firma Phillips on the web. Love your website, as I come from a family of maniacal amateur photographers, and, alas, have the bug myself.

Our mother passed away last Wednesday at age 88. We are sad, but she was ready to go, and said so outloud to several of us in the last few months. While her health was not the best, she was reasonably O.K. and active to the end. She took a fall on Wednesday morning, the first sign of anything wrong, and was gone by 2 the same afternoon. This was how she wanted to go.

We're now in the throes of deciding what to do with her things. Amongst the treasures are 2 works by your aunt that my brother bought for our parents. We will probably keep them in the family, but want to establish value for insurance purposes. We wonder if you might know who to contact who might know the value of her work these days. One work is painted on an old cast-iron flat iron, a winter scene of a covered bridge. It is signed, but not dated. The second is a large crockery butter churn, with winter scenes of houses and barns painted over the entire surface. The pottery lid is also fully painted. It is signed and dated 1972. My father drilled a small hole in the bottom and converted it to a table lamp, but we have the original wooden churn plunger if someone preferred to have it look like a churn again.

I do not have digital photos at the moment, but will send some if it would help evaluate the works, or if you would just like to see them. Thank you in advance for any information you can provide.
I'll be sending a link to your "Weddings and Funerals" story to my sibs - I think it would be a good read for them right now. It was for me.

-- Bill Morgan
Morgan Roemmel Design, LLC
Muncie, Indiana

Cousin Lowell on the topic of Firma

Firma did graduate from Kingman. I think she always had the talent to draw and paint but utilized it after Glen passed away(1962). Probably a financial necessity. I know that she was in the group of artist that started the Rockville Bridge Festival.

She studied painting at Wabash College after she had been painting for a while. She had a studio at Sugar Creek village by Turkey Run and previous to that one at Grange Corner just south of the old Grange Corner store and of course in both of her residences.

My sister Marie stayed with Glen and Firma while she studied nursing during much of World War 2. That was in Paris,Illinois. Marie would have not been able to afford nursing training without the generosity of Firma and was always grateful to Firma.

I would imagine that most of the artist that were of her era have passed on now ... contact the Covered Bridge Association for more information.

Sad that I know so little about a person I liked and admired.

Lowell

Addendum: When I said that Firma studied Painting at Wabash College ,I should have said she was tutored by an art professor from Wabash College. I think this was when she learned to paint with a knife. Barbara said that Firma had painted a picture of the instructor.

More History on Firma

This information about Firma came from my cousin Richard a few years ago ...

My wife, Marie L. Alward, her niece, was the sole heir to her estate when she died. Marie lived with "Aunt Firma" in Paris, Ill for a year before going to nursing school there and saw her frequently during that 3 year period.

Firma was the first in her family to graduate from high school which was in Kingman. Indiana. She was one of five girls and three boys. Her father was born in France and came to the US when he was ten. As an adult he was a coal miner and moved about Indiana where there were mines. Most of Firma's growing up years were in Fountain and Parke County. Living in small rural areas they experienced a great deal of prejudice, even to having a cross burned in their yard (KKK) because the community considered them foreigners and catholic . It was necessary for Firma to work to earn money to go to HS.

Artist Firma Duchene Phillips

Hi, everyone, I and my family would like to thank all of you who have
come across my story about my Great Aunt Firma Duchene Phillips
and have contacted us to let us know you have one of her paintings or to
share a memory of her or were just wondering about the current value of
some of her works. We have really enjoyed hearing from all of you and
seeing all the lovely pictures you have sent.

I am posting on this topic on my blog site for those who are
interested in Aunt Firma and her art work so that people can not only
share with us but with one another. I'll be happy to put any pictures
that you want to share of her works on the web so that you can link to
them - just email me.

I do watch for her paintings on ebay and will try to post a notice
here when someone puts up one of her paintings for auction. It has
happened a few times. It's funny - even though Benny and I have dabbled
in the antique and refinishing business for several years, I haven't
come across any of her paintings myself in antique stores or malls or
flea markets - hopefully that means people must be hanging on to them.

Thanks again and hope to hear from you!

JuneBug, Co-Proprietor of Second Looks Antiques and Refinishing

Her Last Picture

An amazing story ...

An amazing story … Came home to the answer machine light blinking. It was message
from a guy in Seattle, Washington, named Roger Ligrano. Said he had come by 19
or 20 paintings by a David Grossblatt. And that he had looked him up on the internet
and found my website on the Café Rienzi, and could I please call him back, as
they were very eager to find out the background of these paintings. When I called,
Roger Ligrano, as it turns out, is also an artist. He has exhibited with Dale
Chihuly at the New York Botanical Gardens in 2006. Anyway, here’s how the story
unfolds … A friend of Roger’s somehow managed to intercept three truckloads worth
of paintings on their way to the dump. He salvaged 19 or 20 of them and took them
to Roger. Roger started hunting down the artist. “Do you know,” he told me, “there
is almost nothing about David Grossblatt on the web? But whatever there is seems
to be closely related to this Café Rienzi.” He had come across my Rienzi page
and from there discovered my business page and phone number and decided he would
attempt to contact me after a number of other leads failed. He was very interested
in finding out about the artist, and whomever was getting rid of these paintings,
and about the Café Rienzi. So I called my Aunt Joan and Uncle Tom and am in the
process of hopefully hooking them up with Roger so he can interview them, so to
speak. In the meantime, Roger emailed several photographs of David’s paintings,
and without further ado, here they are:


Featuring the Discovered Works of Artist David Grossblatt, Co-owner of the Cafe Rienzi


courtesy of Ligrano Studios, Seattle, Washington












More tidbits from my conversation with Aunt Joan and Uncle Tom:

More Memories of the Cafe Rienzi

This comment about the Cafe Rienzi came to me on another message board by the way of Doug Schneider:

A bunch of my high school friends and I would take the Long Island Rail Road into New York, and head for the Paperbook Gallery. After buying our books, we would then go the the Cafe Rienzi. Here I would order a himbeersaft and hope that people would think I was a real beatnik, instead of a high school kid from the suburbs.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane, Doug! I was no where near New York and the Rienzi during my high school years, unfortunately. That was in the sixties. Makes me feel like I missed out. I just remember the stories my aunt told of the original founders starting it up and the hi-jinx and fights - arguing violently about how to cut the cake and what size to serve and throwing plates at each other across the kitchen. I think that last part was primarily my aunt and uncle's doing, lol!

My parents divorced when I was 13 or 12 and living in South America. But in my childhood, we used to be in and out of New York all the time visiting my grandparents and aunt. I loved to spend the night with Aunt Joan - she was so much fun. She'd take me to Charlie Chaplin movies in the Village and to coffee houses to get that real Italian lemon ice. I knew about real lemon ice and cappucino long before they found their way into the midwest mainstream - and it's still hard to find a really good one (of either) here in the midwest, altho occasionally I get lucky. Uncle Tom took me to his painting studio and let me paint.

Sometimes the family would eat out in the Village too - I remember this one place that had a garden area in back where you could eat outside - I think my Mom and Dad, and Aunt Joan and Uncle Tom, and I were all there for a Sunday meal. I was really little and I tried to catch the pidgeons ...

JuneBug

larry's Memories of the Rienzi

Just got a response back from larry, Harry Justman's nephew about the Cafe Rienzi.

"I was about 12 when harry left the biz.....my brother david did work at the rienzi on sunday afternoons for a while . I recall harry having only one partner named david....last name unknown. I could draw a floor plan from memory. I recall the display of fancy Italian pastries.....flimsy wire backed chairs and tables....real la bohme territory....big brass colored expresso machines...a dinky kitchen facility. While in law school in 1979 a friend of mine arranged a double date.....and in the middle dinner it flashed on me ......this resturaunt is the old rienzi, a proustian moment.

as to memories....my parents . quite provincial, seemed facinated by the bohemian types.....and as a child it was clear that my parents thought the patrons a bit exotic/dangerous.

harry liked the beats .....and got out of the biz when the beats morphhed into hippies.....who he did not like. My cousin nina had a birthday party in the back area .....complete with a then exotic pinata.

Before passin I would ask harry about the various iconic peoples passin through in rienzis heyday.

he would repond with statments like.....Kerouac, a fucking drunk............ect.

regret not being more concrete .....i was very young."

Thanks, larry!

Junebug

Thanks to Harry Justman's nephew ...

... for passing on this piece of information about the Cafe Rienzi.

"my uncle harry justman was one of the original owners......he sold his intrest in the mid 60's. my parents spent time there occasionally on sunday afternoons with my brother ands and me. my mom was harry,s only sibling.Harry died approximatley 4 years ago and is survived by his sister, two daughters,and four grandchildren."

Thanks, larry! Do you have any personal memories of the Rienzi? I was pretty young when my aunt and uncle got out of the scene. I have personal memories of Greenwich Village coffee houses, but they're pretty vague.

JuneBug

Beginnings of the Cafe Rienzi ...

Okay, I finally have time to sit down and type out a few notes from my last telephone conversation with my aunt about the Cafe Rienzi. It was started by a group of seven friends who were writers and painters in Greenwich Village:

• Tom and Joan Durant - Joan was a pianist and a writer, and Tom was a painter and philosopher.
• Eva (an Austrian immigrant) and Gert (a German immigrant) Berliner* - Gert was a painter. I'm not sure what Eva's art passion was at that time. Gert and Eva eventually separated and Eva is now a retired professor at an exclusive college in New York City.
• Amy Nakamura* (from Japan) - I believe Amy was an artist.
• David Grossblatt - a painter
• Harry Justman and Gloria Siegal

The Cafe Rienzi opened in June 1952 at 113 MacDougal Street. It was the first popular Coffee House in the Village. It had 25 to 30 tables - and seated 150 to 200 people. It had a back room and a front room. There were other Cafes in the Village at that time - small Italian Cafes, that only Italians went to - and a ritzy Cafe named The Peacock.
From the stories I heard growing up, it was a successful albeit tempestuous start. The original group of friends left one by one. Uncle Tom left after the first few months - actually I recall Aunt Joan told me once that the group (including her) kicked him out - I need to get the rest of that story.
Gert, Eva's husband, was the next to leave, and then Aunt Joan left in November and realized a life dream when she traveled to Europe for the first time. She went over on the Queen Mary.
Eventually Harry and David had the Cafe for ten years.
Almost all the famous writers and painters of the fifties and sixties, the beats and the abstract expressionists, frequented the Cafe - and my Aunt and Uncle had opportunity to meet them before they really became famous. Poets - Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Peter Allosci. Artists and sculptors - Mary Frank and Robert Frank, Franz Klein, Jackson Pollock, DeKooning, Bob DeNiro (the actor's father), and Paul Resika, who painted Aunt Joan's portrait and who lived downstairs from Edward Hopper. Writers like Larry Rubin, Richard Wright, and James Baldwin.
Aunt Joan recalled that they used to have loft parties and that she and Bob DeNiro used to love to dance together to Billie Holiday's music. Aunt Joan was also a counselor and teacher's aid at the Greenwich House for the son - Bob DeNiro the actor when he was a boy.
Well, other duties call, and that's about all I have for now. I'm hoping that Aunt Joan and Eva will be supplying me with more stories as time passes by. Aunt Joan wrote a couple of plays based on the Cafe Rienzi that were performed on Off Broadway.
JuneBug
*Thanks to Artemesia for the corrections on the names!

Memories of the Cafe Rienzi

first in a series of posts on the Cafe Rienzi

There are 11,000 hits when you "google" the internet for information of the Cafe Rienzi on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village, New York. It is mentioned in reminiscences and memoires of famous authors and poets and artists and musicians and even in the speech of a Nobel prize winner (The Dream Machine-Nobel Speech mentions the Rienzi). James Baldwin, Jack Kerouac, Bob Dylan and many, many more well known names crop up in connection with this cafe - as well as memories of many ordinary people who visted it and frequented it. It was a apparently a Mecca for these types of people in the 50's and 60's much like Paris was a Mecca for artists in decades and centuries preceeding.

What seems little known about the Cafe Rienzi is its beginnings - its roots. My aunt and uncle were two of the original group of friends who launched the Cafe Rienzi in the early 50's. I grew up hearing all those stories - the good times, the fights, and how one by one the original group sold their share and left. My aunt said she received $2000 for her share and spent two months or two years in Europe in grand style in London and Paris and Italy. She went over on the Queen Mary.

By now my aunt and uncle and the other folks who started the Cafe Rienze are quite elderly - in their 80's. But here I hope to start a thread of their memories of this historic and influential Cafe and piece of 20th Century American history. I have asked my aunt to write some of her memories about it, and she in turn has asked her friend Eva, and we will see if those are forthcoming - but for now, my feeble notes will have to do.
More to come as I get the time! My Aunt Joan and Uncle Tom Durant, two of the founders of the Cafe Rienzi, are pictured below.

JuneBug

On Morning Commutes, Job Rewards, and Other Matters ...

Ah, how I've been enjoying the morning drive to work these past few months! Exceptionally blessed are they who get to park in clearings and breath in cool, clean fresh air from the trees that surround them as they climb out of the car, who pull up next to a cardinal perched in a red berry bush and corn blue wildflowers that shyly peek out from their leaves, who travel only country roads and lanes at the edge of town instead of crowded city thru-ways and high-speed four-lane highways, who have only two stop lights to worry about the whole trip, who take only fifteen minutes - more or less - to get to work, who work in sequestered modern office buildings - built of stone and wooden stair rails and big glass windows - in wooded areas off the main drag, and who drive past fields, subdivisions, cemetaries, churches, county schools, and country homes and farmsteads only freshly overtaken by the burgeoning town. And who also must make an easy detour around the train that occasionally crosses the towpath that winds its way through the woods.

Summer Lights

This picture is as close as I've been able to come to the memories of my childhood when the lightening bugs were out in July.

I'm still learning to take decent pictures of lightening bugs. It's hard. =:O

I took this picture on a very slow setting, the camera propped on the arm of a bench to steady it, no flash,and with the multiple spot meter setting. (Hence the streaks) I then "developed" and enhanced it in Photoshop with the curve, saturation, and artistic tools, to make the little guys show up like they normally would to the naked eye. :)

There just don't seem to be as many lightening bugs in recent years as I recall in my mind's eye ...




Click on the image to see it at higher resolution

Fire FliesCome ride with me 'neath fading skies,

past floating fields of fire flies

Like champagne bubbles, they burst and rise,

and steal the star light from the skies.

Now here, now gone, the summer flies,

and fades to autumn before our eyes

So come ride with me in the pale moonrise,

past floating fields of fire fliesJeanne Winstead Copyright 2001 more of JuneBug's poetry


Happy ShutterBugging!

JuneBug

And then it was over ...

Wow, it's been awhile.

I know I said I was going to do a series on job interview questions, as I continued my job search, but guess what? After five years - count 'em, 1,2,3,4,5 - (well technically I was finishing up a masters and doing a graduate assistantship during part of those), I finally found a job in my field. Well sort of. Close enough, anyway. Yippee!!! Woo Hoo!!! I'm finally hangin' up my steel toe boots! :D

So now I don't know what I'm going to use this blog for. :)

Okay, I might still do the interview question series.

Or maybe I'll start a series on work life.

And then there's always the photography.

Right now everything's so new - and so busy as I acclimate myself and learn this new position - that I just haven't had time to breathe or reflect on much of anything else. I love it though! (One of my first duties was attending a week long training by Wipfli on OMB Circulars in Helena, Montana - a pretty far piece for this hoosier girl. =:o)



Anyway ... this is a holiday weekend for those of us in the U.S., so happy July 4th to all those who celebate. And to those still on the job hunting path, hang in there! You will find something suitable - and when you do, remember to extend a helping hand to some other job seeker! :)

Junebug

On Dentists and Technology Obsolescence

Hi, everyone! I've got a couple more articles for the Job IQ series in the works, but this week, on my birthday (and one year anniversary at my stop-gap job), I'm taking a breather to say that I went to the dentist recently and it got me thinking about some things.

I haven't had dental care in a couple of years, which is unusual for me. Unfortunately with my new dental insurance I had to switch from my dentist of thirty years to a preferred provider. My dentist of thirty years is in his seventies and still practicing. He has taken excellent care of me all this time. While he built a beautiful modern office building several years ago, his tools have remained essentially the same over time- the traditional lifting and reclining dentist chair, the spitting fountain, etc. And of course his fingers, his eyes, his intelligence, and his formidable skill.

What's your job IQ (Interview Question)?

Happy April, folks! Spring is coming on fast and strong, and all kinds of things are waking up and greening up and growing up. They need planting or cutting or trimming or weeding or feeding. My husband Benny is on the mend from open heart surgery in January and is starting up with his furniture refinishing sideline business again. After a slow winter, three good job opportunities have come up within the last two weeks, so I have my applications in and am keeping my fingers crossed. My hopefully temporary factory job has been fun lately. I have a brand new pair of eye glasses, thanks to the company I'm working for. After 5 years, I can see again - yes! We've been spending a lot of time out on the lot at the factory inspecting new cars - and since the new car lot is so big, they buy us lunch. You can't hardly beat a deal where they pay you and feed you to get exercise and a sun tan! :)

Anyway, thinking back to all the job interviews I've gone to in the last few years, I thought it might be fun to start a series on some of the interview questions I've encountered. I got out on the web and searched for other sites that might deal with this topic. I've found tons of expert advise, but not much where people share their own experiences and offer their own thoughts. So I thought I would deal with one question a week, as time allows, and say how I would answer it, and hopefully, other readers will chime in with their own thoughts and experiences.

Let's just have fun with it! :)

As I come across useful sites, I will post links. Here's another job blogger that offers some really great insights into job-hunting from her own personal experience! And she's a photographer to boot! :)

So here's my first question. In several positions I have interviewed for, I've been asked,

"What's your idea (or definition) of customer service?"

That question seems to come up a lot, even in companies and in positions where you don't necessarily deal directly with the outside customer. At the University we had a lot of professional development seminars on Total Quality Management and identifying the internal customer, who could be your boss, your colleagues, or other departments in the company. So I guess a place to start may be to ask the interviewer to comment on whom they think the customers are, with regards to this position. In addition to demonstrating general human consideration and courtesy and responsiveness and professionalism, I think I need to know who my customer is, and what may they be "buying" from me, before I can give concretely helpful answers to the interviewers on how I would approach giving the best possible customer service. The other thing I would ask myself is why the interviewer is asking me this question - what information is he/she trying to discover. For instance, do I seem service-oriented? Am I flexible (interruptable) and responsive (quick to get back to people)? Am I easy to get a hold of? Am I a good listener and adequately analytical so that I understand and deliver what the customer wants? Am I attentive? Am I courteous and diplomatic? Do my products work correctly and are they reliable and do I give good customer support for them? How do I deal with realistic and unrealistic customer expecations?

As a programmer/analyst with a background in education as well (and with a bent toward constructist and cognitivist learning theories), I believe the involvement of the customer is essential. And even though we may have limited access to the customer's time, the success or failure of a particular design project may hinge on how well the customer feels that he is able to put things together in his own head. Modern systems design and analysis techniques with their emphasis on systematic and methodological approaches would do well to consider the customer cognition component as well. Part of customer service is scaffolding that process, as I did with an agency in town who were trying to match their business requirements to an off-the-shelf piece of software they had previously acquired.

One unusual twist to this question that I had in an interview was,

"Tell me about a time you absolutely over-joyed a customer."

In my line of work I have had opportunity to make people happy - I told about the time when I developed a "kick ass" service and salvage program to do exactly what my customer wanted in their favorite low budget software package which at the time was Filemaker Pro, or when I developed the Order System and cut a labor intensive task that took a week down to three days every two weeks - and the users loved it because it was soooo easy ... and there are other stories as well. But sometimes you have to stop and really think because while the customer may be very pleased, he may not be a gushing personality, or you may not hear the positive feedback first hand.

Well, that's all for now. One advantage to blogging about interview questions is that I can just tell my interviewers to read my blog. Ha! (Just kidding). But sometimes it would be nice to have more time to consider one's answers, wouldn't it?

Stay tuned for more job IQs (interview questions). ;) And in the meantime, happy spring and happy job-hunting! And here's some May Flowers for you. :)

JuneBug

April Sunshine

Time for another photo post! I picked my first bouquet of daffodils in my new home this week. It was a special treat because I never had much success with daffodils at my previous residence of twenty years. But the former owner of this place sure did, as you can see.

One of my favorite blogs is entitled November Sunshine. Indiana springs are often as cold and sullen as Novembers are gray, but if yellow maple leaves are November Sunshine then surely the yellow daffodil is March and April Sunshine. :)

Nothing really revolutionary here. I applied the Photoshop palette knife filter to this photo. (I often wonder what my late great aunt Firma Philips would think of desktop computers and programs like photoshop. She was an artist and often painted from photographs from a client when she couldn't paint from a live scene.)

Anyway, here it is! Click on the image for a 1024 version if you want something larger, like for your desktop.




Happy Spring Shutterbugging!

JuneBug