Jeffrey Alexander Martin

There's a disconnect between our life on the outside and our life on the inside. I've been surprised over the last couple of years when people have told me that they can't let go of things emotionally like I can. It's surprising because some people can be doing great on the outside with their family and career, and yet inside they are doing horrible. And no one notices until it's later revealed that they have a drug, or drinking, or gambling problem. I had an older friend who had a son-in-law with a good family, and house, and job, who completely unexpectedly took his own life. Jack knew I had written on the subject before and asked me why someone would do that. I remember the look of complete bewilderment in his eyes. He couldn't imagine why someone who looked happy and fulfilled on the outside could be feeling horrible on the inside. I don't particularly have that skill. I basically show how I'm feeling at the time. But I've spent a large portion o

County Commissioner Kim Cyr and I were talking about the dangers of a highly political year, like this year, for farms and food access. It will be a year of fear. Not because it needs to be. Not necessarily because there's a legitimate reason for a higher sense of fear. It will be a year of fear because that's beneficial for running political campaigns. It appears to me that the big push will be to use the scare of a virus to shut down small and local food production and distribution. There will, of course, be many other political maneuvers throughout the year, but restricting local food access and production will be detrimental to the country, the state, and our local area at some point in the future, and that's a weakness we should pay attention to and work to avoid. You have to eat to survive. Everyone has to eat to survive. If food access is limited, if local food production is restricted, then you are dependent for your life and health on whoever controls your access t

We make decisions based on feeling from a set of values and our perception of the situation. To the extent that we're unsuccessful at x, y, or z our decisions have been wrong in that area because our values and perception have been wrong. I've been working on correcting for this, which leads me to writing an article on marketing and selling meditation today. I don't have a natural proclivity for selling. I like to discuss ideas, but not to convince or convert people. Often in group discussions if someone is struggling to support their points on a topic I'll help them out and brace up their side of the argument even if it's not the side I think makes the most sense in the end. So I'm better at de-convincing and un-converting people, if you will. I'm better at bringing people to doubt than to certainty. That's my natural tendency. Kind of like Socrates, who people found annoying enough to have executed. The ability to doubt and steelman opposing arguments

A Phenomenological First-Person Case Study of Employee Turnover in a Local Municipal Government by Jeffrey Alexander Martin University of London School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) Centre for Financial and Management Studies This dissertation is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MSc Public Policy and Management of the University of London, September 2023. Word count excluding bibliography and appendix: 9,618 Total word count: 26,838 Table of Contents Abstract Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Research Questions Chapter 3: Review of the Literature Review Introduction Causation Consequences Context and Other Review Summary and Conclusion Chapter 4: Procedure and Methods Methodology Introduction Phenomenology Case Studies Possible Objections to Methodology Addressed History of Organizational Research Change Agent as Researcher Other Methods Compared Chapter 5: Data Chapter 6: Analysis Thematic Analysis Conceptual