So what is an engagement manager

I was just looking at a listing of America's best jobs.

Table: The 10 best jobs in America

Job	Job openings	Median base salary	Career opportunity	Job score
1. Data scientist	1,736	$116,840	4.1	4.7
2. Tax manager	1,574	$108,000	3.9	4.7
3. Solutions architect	2,906	$119,500	3.5	4.6
4. Engagement manager	1,356	$125,000	3.8	4.6
5. Mobile developer	2,251	$90,000	3.8	4.6
6. HR manager	3,468	$85,000	3.7	4.6
7. Physician assistant	3,364	$97,000	3.5	4.6
8. Project manager	6,607	$106,680	3.3	4.5
9. Software engineer	49,270	$95,000	3.3	4.5
10. Audit manager	1,001	$95,000	3.9	4.5
Methodology: The Glassdoor Job Score is determined by weighting three factors equally: earning potential (median annual base salary), career opportunities rating, and number of job openings. Results represent job titles that rate highly among all three categories. The Glassdoor Job Score is based on a 5-point scale (5.0=best job, 1.0=bad job).

I can't figure out if these are really new careers or just hotsy totsy titles for traditional jobs. Sort of like old wine in new skin.  Nearest I can figure a project manager manages projects. I guess you could call a librarian a data scientist. Next time someone asks me what I do for a living I can say I'm a data scientist. Someone who wouldn't date a librarian might be willing to have a beer with a data scientist. 

Engagement manager I need to research. Is it like a wedding planner but someone who plans bachelor parties? A solutions architect? Someone who plans solutions? I could use one of these if he will shovel my car out this morning from the snow.

I looked up engagement manager. Apparently it is someone who nurses a deal between a vendor and a client. Sort of like if I was selling my car I'd enlist one of these people to mediate the sale and make sure all the i's are dotted and t's are crossed. Sounds like a good job to me. More fun than a ah counter anyway. 

Mother was wrong after all

I am actually quite happy today. Today I learned that I have been (not) doing something that I always believed I should be doing. My mother taught me that I should always make my bed every morning. Today I found out if you make your bed it will harbor mites. The moisture causes them to to grow if they are covered up with neat sheets and covers. Apparently bed mites are very neatness oriented.

Yes if you change your sheets and you can make your bed and have everything look "hotel fresh". However, if you don't change your sheets you should leave your covers sloppily draped around the bed to dry.

The love affairs of Nathaniel P

I have just finished the Love Affairs of Nathaniel P, the book that describes life among hipsters in Brooklyn the way Tropic of Cancer described hipsters in Paris in the 30's, or On the Road described hipsters hitchhiking into the 50's. Older people, long past their own pseudo bohemian youth, like to be kept abreast of such things.

I myself have gone to Williamsburg in Brooklyn just to see what all the excitement is about. Sadly, except for two trips where I saw over priced beer and the viewings of flannel shirts in summer, Brooklyn has remained somewhat elusive to me.

With this book the window is opened to privileged young people trying to make it in the publishing industry without borrowing too much money from Mom and Dad. We now can see what dating is like in this set of people. Hip, post feminist, post modernist people who hang out in expensive dive bars and organic coffee hangouts with wi-fi connections.

Nate is the protagonist of the book. He is in the situation of being a relatively decent male in a world where he is a rarity. He is not bad looking, straight, sexually experienced, and not a total a-hole which I guess makes him a hot commodity in this particular demographic in Brooklyn.

The book is a nice read but en mi opinion, it fails at its central conceit. I don't know why but the book pries into Nate's innermost thoughts and they don't sound like a guy's thoughts to me. Frankly Nate seems to be the image that women might have of a young man's internal workings rather than the actual thoughts of a young man.

For one thing he is too callous. Women are more cynical than men. Men are romantics at heart, at least while young.  Woody Allen movies show men as being more romantic than this novel.  I also thought that, in the real world, Nate's parents would have paid for his health insurance.

Editor's note: Another book about millennials in Brooklyn and the academic world you might like is Bad Teeth by Dustin Long