Darned Kids with Your Music

It sounds as though people in the program are starting to read this blog. Eep. I guess I’m not going to run the “Professor So-and-So is a Complete and Total Ass” post. I want to make something clear, even though Jen told me not to. “It will ruin your rebellious and ruggedly manly mystique,” she said. Maybe those weren’t her exact words, but I know that’s what she meant in her heart. Anyway, the school asked me to do this blog as part of my assistanceship with the MBA office. I only bring this up because I don’t want people thinking I feel like everyone needs to hear the stuff my brain craps out. So Sam, as much as I’d like to follow your suggestion and talk about Dan and the furries, I really can’t in this forum. All I will say is that I always thought of Dan as a bunny. Turns out he’s a squirrel. Who knew? Isn’t that bushy tail just a nuisance?

One would think that a week before all my giant projects were due and 2 weeks before I face waking up with no school and no internship, I’d be working on those things. Not so. I chose to indulge in University-Related-Extra-Curricular good times. First, Grand Kerfuffle. Holy crap. Spellcheck just fixed “kerfuffle” for me. But now it’s telling me that that’s not how you spell “spellcheck”. Odd. Anyway, Grand Kerfuffle is an annual out-in-cold campus concert. Girl Talk opened for Lupe Fiasco. Kick. Push. Coast.

Good show, but disturbing. Kids these days. I heard that the 80s had come back, but I had no idea. Pinks, yellows, neon greens…all striped together. Ill fitting tops. Stretchpants. Dear Lord. It’s what all the kids are wearing. And I totally know why. They’re not old enough to remember the first time this tragedy took place. Flock of Seagulls, Qbert…meaningless to them. So they don’t understand the pain of looking back and remembering you once wore that stuff. Pictures of me from 5th and 6th grade no longer exist. I made sure of that. No one wants to see me rocking my Miami Vice pink/grey look. Crockett and Tubbs rolled up into 75 lbs. of skinny white kid was completely against God’s plan. It’s ok, though. I was the cutest toddler ever and my parents had me in leisure suits up through 3rd grade. So there are plenty of cute little Tony pics out there. And no, that's not me in the green. That's Girl Talk.

And with digital media and Facebook and MySpace and the interweb and all, well, stuff doesn’t disappear anymore. So don’t do it. Don’t wear that stuff. Especially if you’re a guy. One day, your son’s not going to care that your clothes were hip. He’ll see the pics and all he’ll know is that one day his Dad woke up and thought, “I think I go with turquoise today. Oo, and hot pink!” There’s only one person I know that can pull off super colors, and that’s Samantha. Hi Sam! And I’m sorry everyone else, but you are no Sam.

So the concert was Wednesday. We also had an Attitude Adjustment on Friday. I wrote about them once before. This one was uneventful relative to the last one. Let’s just say the after-party of the prior Adjustment involved the cops and we all learned a valuable lesson. That pilot that landed the plane the water? Is he a hero? Turns out that the real hero is me. But that's a different story.

But one thing I want to reiterate about the Attitude Adjustments is that they are paid for by Dean Brittain. Thousands of dollars, I’m sure. And he’s leaving! We’ll miss you Dean Brittain. And not just because of the free booze. I mean, a lot because of the free booze, but not totally because of the free booze.

I must say, I'm really enjoying the contrast between the Dean Brittain pic and the Girl Talk pic.

Made-Up MBA word of the week…"imitability". Frankly, it’s stupid that that isn’t a real word. I just used two "that"s in a row. Can I do that? Again, English majors, we ain’t. Thank you, Jen, for that.

My Classmates...How I Hate Them

So I need to write about Jen. She is my bff in the program. My bmbaf, I suppose. And as long as I’m writing about Jen, I need to write about Jessie. One of my other MBA friends. These ladies are hags. Hot Accountant Girls. It’s a very interesting phenomenon. I discovered it in my undergraduate career. Accountant women are just knockouts. A dozen years ago in my undergrad it was Allison and Stacy. Now it’s Jen and Jessie. Even the one MACC (Masters of Accounting) student I know, Lauren, is crazygorgeous. Yes, I meant that as one word.

God’s cruel joke, really. Their poor boyfriends. Sure, someday your wife will be beautiful. But eventually you have to ask her about her day. Then it’s “debit” this and “credit” that. Oy. Talk about a Catch 22. Listening to that’s gotta be a kick in the teeth. I’ll take the homely sportscaster or peg-legged brewmaster any day.

I kid.

Jen (the blonde) and Jessie (the brunette) are phenomenal individuals, really. Jen heads up the MBA Womens Association. I don’t know the exact name of her group and I don’t care. Ouch. That wasn’t nice. I suppose I’m bitter because she picked the one group I can’t join. Where I’m persecuted for my parts. Some bmbaf she turned out to be. Jessie put together an MBA Wasatch Back Team. The Wasatch Back is a 24 hour relay super marathon race thingy. If you like running up mountains in the middle of the night, boy howdy, does Jessie have just the thing for you.

Anywho, point is, they’re awesome little overachievers. Which comes to why I hate my classmates. They’re all awesome little overachievers. They keep showing up to class in suits and pantsuits. I know what they’re up to. Interviews. Jobs…internships…silently, they’re snatching them all up. I learned to stop asking about their plans for the summer. It’s depressing. “I’m interning at Goldman’s.” “I’m splitting time between a couple of startups.” “I’m going to China for a month and then coming back to chair the Fed.” Jerks. I should be working on that.

I register for classes tomorrow. One mandatory management course, a field study, two finance courses, and two information systems courses. Did I mention I’m in marketing? Hm. Not a whole load of marketing in that line-up. Isn't college the time for experimentation? It's Prof. Schaefer’s fault. The finance course I took from him was just a gateway course leading to harder, more dangerous finance courses. My HP 12c calculator is basically paraphernalia. It’s an after school special, really.

Made-Up MBA word of the week…”depercentalize”. English majors, we ain’t. We can thank Dan for that gem.

Prof. Austin...in 300 Words or Less

Bonita Austin teaches my Business Strategy class. She used to be a big city securities analyst. Senior Vice President at Lehman’s Bros, among other impressive things. But she missed the open spaces where she could ride her horses and train her show dogs. So she traded in the power lunches to be a professor. Now she’s pulling hay out her hair minutes before facing down 65 graduate students. Basically, she’s a character out of a chick flick. …strong, successful woman taking on new life to follow her heart. Shouldn’t Harry Connick Jr. be the janitor or something? (I don’t have a pic of Prof. Austin, so here’s the trifecta of chick flick crap I’ve had to endure in the last few months.)



There’s a very tricky element to Prof. Austin’s class, the Position Outline (or PO as the hipsters call it). We have to write up 4 POs over the course of the half-semester. These are 300 word case write-ups. The key here is “300”. Verrrrrry short. When I first read about the 300 words I thought, “Sweet.” No. Not sweet. Not sweet at all. Sour, actually. Some of my classmates have spent their 20+ years of life mastering a sort of refined eloquence. For them, I’m sure 300 words is no problem. Me, I’m all about barely coherent rambling. I drop 300 words in about 4 seconds. So POs and I don’t get along. I write out my thoughts but by the time I wrestle them down to 300 words, the mangled corpse of a paper that remains bears no resemblance to what I intended. “…competitive advantage good barriers to entry purple monkey dishwasher.” …and words like “the” and “a” never make the final cut.

So the POs are tough, but they force you to be succinct. Which is good. And they force you to choose between a myriad of issues and focus on just a couple. Which is also good, especially for someone like me. It’s interesting because so much of the class is just common sense, but it’s surprising how many elements of a situation one misses when thinking about things. This is a core class and that’s good. I think it will make us all better business professionals.

If you’re one who worries about grades, word of advice. Sit on the right side of the classroom in Prof. Austin’s class. Participation is 1/4th of the grade and her hair sometimes falls over her left eye. I’m convinced that Brittany doesn’t get called on because peripheral vision doesn’t exist when it comes to the left side of the room. Got to get out from behind the blonde curtain. Besides, all the cool kids sit on the right. It’s like the back seat of the school bus.

Speaking of the cool kids, we 1st years beat the 2nd year and MACC students in the annual basketball game. We rule the school. (When I say “we” beat them, I should point out that “we” is not “me.” I played basketball in 8th grade and scored 2 points all season. That’s my career.) Apparently Dmitri hit the game winner. Hardwood assassin. It has come to light over the course of the year that our class is so much better than all of the other classes at absolutely everything.

300 words exactly. (Not even close.)

Dmitri, in the Student Lounge, with the Candlestick

Since I’ve written about professors, it occurs to me I should probably write about classmates. They are people, too. And what better place to start than the international students? My class holds folks from all kinds of strange and exotic places…China, India, Russia, Brazil, Taiwan, Thailand, Wisconsin, Poland, Czech Republic, and Georgia (the country, not the peaches.) Granted, you have to sift through a lot of white bread like me to find them, but they’re there.

We’ll start with the Brazilian. Our resident Brazilian, Aline ((uh-LEE-nee) I have no idea how to spell things phonetically) is…well…you know that stereotypical view of Brazilian women as beautifully fit girls dancing around on Carnival floats? Aline does nothing to dispel this stereotype. So what type of man gets a lady like Aline? Two words. Pediatric Neurosurgeon. Her husband is a pediatric neurosurgeon. If I ever pull a George Costanza and lie about my career to impress strangers, I’m not going with architect, I’m going with pediatric neurosurgeon. You could introduce yourself by saying, “I’ve dedicated my life to saving children,” or “I’m a brain surgeon.” Either way, you’re golden. Pediatric vs. Marketing. Neuro vs. Data. Surgeon vs. Analyst. Every aspect of what he does is so much more impressive than every aspect of what I do. Grrrrrrrrrr.

Then there’s Dmitri, the Russian. He’s straight out of a Guy Richie movie. Best dressed guy in class by far. Jackets, hats, scarves, hip shirts…he’s got it all. Total slightly formal Eurochic. Just enough to make the every other guy in the class look like a complete no-style Neanderthal. I can’t decide if he’s a spy or an assassin. He's just too laid back. Too sophisticated. This is no MBA student. What’s more, I can’t decide who in the class he is spying on or planning to kill. I worry about David. Dmitri’s always sitting right behind him. If Dave goes missing and Dmitri suddenly drops out of class, remember that I called it.

Both Dmitri and Aline share the same two characteristics I find in every single international student. Super friendly and super smart. Without exception, I find this to be the case. It’s to the point that if you look like you’re from around here, I’m probably assuming you’re a little dim. That was a joke. But if you look you’re from around here and you’re wearing a Cowboys jersey, well…