In my last post I mentioned that an adjustment to my new role as a dean has been adapting to a Microsoft cloud computing campus after several years on a Google cloud computing campus. The main component of that transition has been getting used to Outlook mail, which has a lot more settings than Gmail. Additionally, the settings on my desktop client don’t carry over to the web-based client…and they are in different places on the dashboards (!). My wife has used Outlook for over 10 years and says that I will learn to love it. Maybe, but for now I prefer Google’s simpler approach and more streamlined design.

It was also a bit of a pain to select my insurance and health benefits plans, as I was presented with a billion options. Well, maybe not a billion, but I had a lot more choices than when I signed up for benefits at the U of Minnesota in 1999. At that time there was a low- or no- cost option in each area that served as a default choice, but employees had other choices available for specialized needs. I would have loved such a curated approach here at UW-Parkside. Hopefully I will not have to wade into that sea of possibilities again anytime soon to change my coverages.