Conflicting Views: Working for Local Government

     Like any high schooler, I worked for the local government, in this case it was the Lake Bluff Park District at the beach. The beach was privately owned by the park district, but for years they had let it be used as public property. Anyone who came to the beach could use it for swimming, laying out, sand volleyball, picnics, or just strolls along the beach. Not only was I employed by the park district as a life guard and assistant manager, I had been a resident of Lake Bluff since I was two years old. I had been an employee, a patron, and a resident.

     The suburbs of Illinois I am from are referred to as "the North Shore", which is shamefully characterized by wealthy, pretentious and entitled individuals. For 20 miles south of my hometown of Lake Bluff, there are beautiful homes with wealthy families and 20 miles to the north there are run-down apartments and rampant crime. With such a wide variety of socio-economic individuals, I can't say I was surprised when I saw this issue arise. The majority of residents of Lake Bluff had been complaining about letting the non-residents in. This was primarily targetted at the "low income" non-residents who were notorious for smoking on the beach and bringing large groups who took over the grills and often loitered their beer bottles. The Lake Bluff residents had an unspoken rule to keep the beach clean since it was their tax dollars that went to the beach maintenance. A group of Lake Bluff residents proposed to the city board that no non-residents be allowed down to the beach any more.

    I will briefly break down each parties beliefs so that it is easy to understand how each party holds a stake in the dilemma of to let or not let beach residents to the beach anymore:

• Residents: The residents of Lake Bluff have their city tax dollars spent each year to maintain the up keep of the beach. These tasks include replacing erroded sand, buying new lifeguard safety equipment, and having cleaning/maintenance crews to ensure the beach is running at its best. The group was frustrated to increasingly see more and more non-residents using and abusing the beach that they are paying tax dollars to keep clean. The group wanted exclusive rights for only residents to use the property as they felt it was their given right.
• Non-Residents: After years of being able to use the beach, they felt that they should be able to continue to use the beach. Also, information was not clearly streamlined and they felt the beach was "public property", even though it was privately owned by the Park District who had purchased it for city use years ago. There was also tension with the residents over them believing the residents found them "unworthy" for beach use.
• The Board: The Board is the group of city council government that oversaw park district operations and therefore the beach. However, the Board's primary goal is to maintain the happiness of the tax payers and therefore the residents.
• The Park District (Beach) Employees: We felt both sides due to the nature of our roles. As employees we recieved complaints from both residents and non-residents. Residents constantly complaining and stereotyping that some "clear non-resident" was doing some trivial behavior that interrupted their tax-payer right to have exclusive access, where as the non-residents would speak about how they deserved to have beach access since "they have been coming here for years prior".

   This was more than just a battle over who could use the beach, but rather a battle of power, influence, and socio-economic status. The North Shore is known for being "a bubble", where its residents grow up priviledged and entitled. It was seeing this behavior and class war that really brought to view how pertinent classism is still today.

   The battle began in a series of moves and unintentional counter moves that eventually resulted in a semi-resolution of the conflict.

1. The Board made a decision to ban all non-residents from beach usage. This resulted in us as employees having to have one employee sit at the top of the beach hill and check photo-id to ensure that they were residents. If they had no photo id on them that indicated a Lake Bluff residency, then they were unable to have beach access. Residents are happy to see diminished attendance resulting in cleaner beaches and exclusive beach access.
2. There is a massive influx of complaints by non-residents who drive sometimes from 30+ minutes away to be declined at the entrance due to newly introduced regulations. This resulted in high stress and pressures for the beach employees by constantly being barraded by unhappy non-residents.
3. As an employee, we voiced our concerns for the new regulation. The new rule had left our employees unhappy, stressed, and unmotivated. There was a series of individuals who left as they were fed up with constantly being harassed by non-residents who felt entitled to enter the beach. We propose a $5 daily entrance fee for non-residents so they can use the beach but also contribute to revenue for beach maintenance and up-keep.
4. The Board accepts an implements a $10 daily entrance fee. However, residents are upset that non-residents can still enter and claim that the fee is not enough to parallel their taxes that go towards beach upkeep. Non-residents complain that they should not have to pay after years of free usage. The staff still has occassional arguments with residents and non-residents but the over all stress level from angry patrons has severly diminished.
5. Now, five years from this $10 daily entrance per person fee still exsists and has resulted in some of the first profit turning years from the beach which is usually a tax sink hole. Complaints also still persist.

   I think a lot of times we believe that conflict resolution results in both parties being happy and that compromise gives each party satisfaction to leave the deal happy. However, this example clearly outlines that even in a compromise to give each what they want at a small cost:

• Residents: Less non-residents entering the beach due to a fee that deters X% amount of patrons. Additionally, less taxes are allocated to the beach as profits turned from fee based collections cover maintenance costs.
• Non-Residents: Non-residents regained beach access, although they still do not feel they should have to pay a fee based on historical experience. They also argue that a $10/per person fee is too steep of a rate and that it would cost a family of 5 $50 for a day at the beach.
• The Board & The Park District (Beach) Employees: Both recieved less complaints as their policy reduced some amount of complaints against residents and non-residents. However, in both cases neither had fully diminished complaints.

This was an outcome, but it was an outcome that still left people angry. Was there a better alternative? Perhaps, but do to social pressures there is little way to say so. This battle was based on socioeconomic struggles, not a genuine desire to keep the beach well maintained. A sensitive topic like this never becomes resolved. There will continue to be tensions between the resident and non-residents groups whether at the beach or not. Everyone has the opportunity to be more mature and civilized, but the culture we live in does not encourage fostering deep caring relationships and results in childish debates such as the one I have discussed above.

Job Uncertainty & Risk

      Senior year is filled with people worrying about where they will work, running from class to interviews in stuffy suits, making day long trips up to Chicago, all in the hopes that you will find a job that fits your wants. I have been fortunate enough to recieve multiple job offers and a unique risk experience.

     I interned for two summers at a biopharma company in their finance department. I really liked that they had a development program that allowed for you to experience four different jobs within two years within different sectors of finance. I recieved a full time offer for their development program, but it wasn't what I wanted. However, with a very competitive job market, I was nervous to turn down a job when I didn't have an alternative lined up. I had a deadline of September 19th and pushed for an extension to see if I could find an alternative I was more interested in. I requested a month long extension and they countered and agreed to two weeks. The company also was hedging their risk by not allowing me to have a long enough extension to find something else, they were putting the pressure on me to accept.

    I was unsure of what the risk was to me declining: what was the probability I would get a job? how many interviews would I have? even if I had interviews what were the chances I had each round? I knew I wanted to get into consulting, but I also knew I'd be competing against some of the best. I tried my best to build assumptions on my chances. I applied to over ten consulting firms in the hopes that I would get enough interviews to mitigate my risk of declining the  current job offer.

   As my October 3rd deadline approached I looked at the following factors when deciding if accepting or declining was my best option.

• How many interviews did I have?
• What was the likely hood of me getting a position?
• How competitive is the position?
• Do I have enough options I like ?

  I ended up getting interviews at every company I liked, but still no offer. I decided to ask for another extension, but correctly knew that my chances were slim. I was decline the extension, the company needed to protect themselves against the risk of me drawing it out so they could accelerate their talent pipeline. I was torn on what to do. I had recieved nine interviews with six of them being companies I was actually interested in. Even though they were competitive I did my research on the companies, practiced my interviewing, and networked to best maximize my chances of getting a position.

   I took a risk and declined the offer, even though I had no certain alternative. However, that decision was driven by external factors. I was going to be living at home for a while anyways and my parents were financially stable enough to support me even if I didn't get a job right away. I had no loans or outstanding balances to pay so I didn't have any pressure to absolutely begin getting income right away. This security hedged against my risk and made it a less risky decision to decline the offer. 

   Luckily for me I recieved two offers the following week so I was left job less only for a short period of time (those three days of unemployement were difficult). I am usually a very risk adverse person but my mom explained to me that by accepting my offer, I was for sure closing myself off from what I wanted to do whereas by declining I was keeping a maybe open to the consulting world. For me the risk paid off, but without the security of interviews and financial stability I would have accepted the offer immediately.

Illini Bucks

    Illini Bucks is a unique concept of a purchasable "fast pass" with a one time use that can be used to cut any line on the Champaign-Urbana campus. Its an ingenious idea to gain revenue by taking advantage of student's impatience. However, there are issues with controlling how Illini Bucks is used that could complicate Illini Buck's intended effects.

   The first thing to focus on is locations that Illini Bucks would use and potential opportunities and issues that can result from each of those.

• Stores: this can be the Illini Union Book Store, County Market, or Urban Outfitters. These can be leveraged in very busy times, however the majority of the time there aren't long lines at these locations. The bookstore during the first few and last weeks of the semesters is a good time or County Market on Sundays, but otherwise there is very little demand for them during the year.
• Resturants: this is probably the most useful market that I think people would use Illini Bucks for. There are always days where the Chipotle or Maize line can be 25-30 minutes long and on an empty stomach that could really lighten your "h-anger". However, this introduces the problem of what if everyone has access to Illini Bucks? The value is diminished if everyone has them and there is no pay off in line reduction.
• Bars: this would be a huge demographic for Illini Bucks but probably the most difficult to control. Individuals who had Illini Bucks may use them to cut the line, but so would everyone. So in order to keep the advantage a level of inethical behavior may be introduced in people selling tickets (similiar to scalpers at a baseball game) outside of the bars for marked up prices to intoxicated individuals who are willing to pay the premium. This creates a black market in essence where things are not being sold by the vendor or at the price.

The Illini Bucks is an interesting concept of creating value that is not there. Illini Bucks is not a product, but a service that allows you to cut lines. However, how can you back the value of Illini Bucks? For example. How can you ensure that Destihl honors Illini Bucks and allows you to skip an hour and a half table wait? They can't. There purely is not the bandwith to support enforcement and Illini Bucks is not a requirement. No one has to provide this services because the Illini Bucks provider would need to voluntarily get the stores, resturants, and bars they use them at to buy in to the program and that would require some sort of incentive that they may or may not be able to cover at a price of Illini Bucks that would make it worth it for people to invest.

    Illini Bucks is a great idea, but the logistics are not there. Pricing would have to be low cost to appeal to the student demographic but high enough so a share could go to all the businesses to use it. To have use at every type of area that has a line would be infeasible in terms of cost. Illini Bucks does not have the logistical capabilities to have a successful launch into the U of I market.