Thursday, May 22, 2008

5/22/08 Good Karma Continued

This is a long story that ties up last of the loose ends of the Good Karma story.

UMF announced that it was offering vision insurance to its employees. I received a packet with all the information about the program and how to sign up. I decided to sign up for the program but when I tried to follow the steps listed in the packet for signing up online, I ran into technical difficulties. I called the tech support number for the UMaine System and that person referred me to someone on my campus who then referred me to Rick. But my technical issue was not easily resolved and Rick said he would look into it and get back to me. After a few days I called back and the technical issue still wasn't resolved. I asked if it was possible to sign up on paper or some other way because I didn't want to miss the deadline for signing up due to a technical issue. Rick said I could stop by his office and take care of it in person. I didn't get over that day and in fact, it was a few days later before I remembered to stop by. When I arrived, Rick wasn't there but the woman at the desk next to his said she could help. She asked my name and then smiled and introduced herself as Kathy, the woman who had seen the article with my quotes and had passed it on to Laurie who passed it on to the provost et.al. Ah! So now I could ask how she ever found it. I had guessed that perhaps it was her job to be on the lookout for UMF's name in the media or that UMF had hired the services of a modern-day "clipping service" and she was the contact. But in fact, it was simply that she had msn.com as the default home page on her browser and when she got to work that day and turned on her computer, in the list of headlines for the hour was an article involving technology and higher education and that intrigued her so she clicked on the headline to read the full article. What wonderful serendipity! Good karma really does rule!! And that, as Paul Harvey says, is the rest of the story.