Around the world in 7 days

On my KWEST* trip last year I met some amazing people (a few of whom will be a part of my life for years to come), had fun, got some R&R, and brought home a solid group of new friends to wave hello to in the hallways.

This year, I decided to embark on the sado-masochistic, overachieving journey of leading such a trip for incoming first-years. Any first year students starry-eyed from KWEST who are already making plans to lead a trip, beware: it's NOT the same when you're a leader. It's a ton of work, beginning in December, continuing through the school year, ramping up during the summer, and ending only the moment you get back on US soil. It's a true test of friendship within the leader group, as the workload gets distributed and you quickly realize who the slackers/ free-riders are. And it's an exercise in infinite patience as you deal with the Kwestees: perpetual late arrivals, misplaced documents or wallets, various allergies and maladies that seem to crop up during every meal, opinions about EVERY aspect of the trip that they feel you must hear, and a role as the spacegoat for anything that goes wrong. The hotel didn't check us in on time? Bad KWEST leaders. My passport got stolen? Bad KWEST leaders. One of the tours was not that great? Bad KWEST leaders. I got a sunburn? Bad KWEST leaders. .... ad infinitum.

Leadership woes aside, we had a pretty great trip this year. I led the trip with my best friends (aside from one guy, who was mildly annoying the entire time and whom I hope to never work with on anything again) and had some awesome experiences through the week. Not revealing my destination, I'll say that we stayed this side of the Atlantic (and Pacific) which was a great decision because we didn't lose 40 hours en route there and back, and didn't return with ridiculous jetlag. We had a week of sun-soaked goodness, peppered with fun activities, great conversations, and delicious food and drink wherever we went.

Observations from KWEST, from my giant sample size of 2 trips:

- The initial awkwardness goes away very quickly. Once you're in a new country, knowing only each other, you make friends fast. Day 2 was tremendously less awkward and much more fun than Day 1.

- One leader will be a slacker -- I heard this from every trip. There's always someone who shirks work, doesn't put in their share of work or money, annoys everyone else, and doesn't feel a twinge of guilt about it. This is inevitable.

- While most of the people you meet are pretty impressive, there is always "that guy"... the one that makes you think "Who did they have to pay/lie to/sleep with to get into kellogg?" and you're pretty sure you won't hang out with them again. Trust me, you will hang out with them again. This also is inevitable.

- The REAL bonding happens after the trip is over. Once you're thrown into orientation and classes, you look back in fondness to that group of strangers that shared laughs in the sunshine together, your first friends at school, and you look forward to planned reunions and random hallway encounters. My 2008 group grew much closer during the school year, and I suspect the same is already happening with the 2009 group I led.


Overall, despite my bitchin' it was a fun experience and I have the memories (and embarrassing facebook pictures) to prove it.

Adios
La Coguette


* Kellogg Worldwide... something something... Service... something = a pre-MBA trip that most first years take to various worldwide locations, for bonding, debauchery, and the like...

Summer dreams, ripped at the seams... (reprise)

More than a year ago, I lamented the fleeting summer and wondered where it went. Now it's practically September, a year later, and I still haven't figured it out... some kind of f***ed up joke in the space-time continuum that makes summer move SO much faster even though the days are supposedly longer. Every year, I'm dragged into the fall kicking and screaming, clutching onto the last few 80-degree days.

Although, this year I had kind of a crappy summer. I was stuck in a random city, doing a job I initially liked but very quickly got highly annoying, an exercise in patience as I painted on a plastic smile and checked my watch every 10 minutes for 5pm to strike. Hear that crashing sound? Oh yeah -- that was my shattered illusions of a fascinating and challenging internship that I would lap up every drop of, yearning for more at the end.

Nope. My summer was, in one word, boring. On the best days, I was indifferent about the impact that my project would have on the business, mildly irritated by the enthusiasm of the other interns, and lackluster about the networking opportunities to schmooze with the veterans of the company. Those were the best days. Most days, I felt something more along the lines of virulent spite and annoyance by every person and project around me.

I checked email and facebook incessantly, wasted time online, and didn't go to "mandatory" social events, impeding my own progress and success as an intern. It was a fascinating exercise in self-sabotage and self-destruction. And the underlying reason, the real root of my bizarre behavior, was that I really didn't want a full-time job offer. Because if I got one, I might be lazy enough to settle and accept it, and that would be a disaster.

So now I'm pretty sure that I'm going to get the polite decline, and get thrown to the wolves of full-time recruiting, which suits me just fine. It's the kick in the butt I need to get my game together and go in guns-ablazing... steering clear of any job that remotely sniffs of what I did this summer.

Sorry if this post is a bit disillusioning (is that a word?) -- if you're disappointed at my tale I'm right there with you. I always thought that summer internships should be the perfect stepping stone to a perfect full-time job. But I guess it's not always a Cinderella story, and this ugly sister is going to have to start over in a couple of weeks.

On that depressing note, I'll catch you guys later. Enjoy the last few days of summertime!!

Spring makeover

This morning I told myself I'd study for finals from 10am-1:30pm. It is now 11:03pm and my progress for the first hour is as follows:

# of email accounts checked: 2
# of non-urgent emails about groups/classes written: 5-6
# of facebook walls scanned: 3
# of blogs read: 3
# of pages of Finance or Operations read: ZERO

To add to my procrastinatory (is that a word?) accomplishments, I also gave this page a spring makeover! Bye-bye green, hello blue!

My endeavor completed, I am now going to try to make 11:03AM-1:30PM a marginally more productive period of time. Oops, it's already 11:08. *sigh*

How can one be informative and imaginative?

I have a confession to make. One of my first posts, having just completed the MBA application/acceptance process, was about the anxious-curious-obsessive habit of going through the businessweek messageboards obsessively.

Since then, I have occasionally allowed my curiosity (and tendency to procrastinate) to get the better of me and scanned a couple of those boards every few months… you know... just to see.

Today I found this hilariously absurd post on the famous Sandy’s messageboard, and couldn't resist the urge to share. A few excerpts:

I think so much of your amazingness comes from the way you communicate. I think intelligence and articulation go hand-in-hand, and you have this incredible skill of saying just what you mean, leaving no room for doubt, and saying it in a precise, hard-hitting, or funny/flamboyant way, just whatever you are trying to make it.

Dude, not sure if you know this, but Sandy is not actually an admission committee member. He’s just a blowhard who is besotted by the admissions process and talks about it a lot. Sucking up to him achieves nothing.

But wait, it gets better.

My question to you, as half-a-native speaker of English that i am, is this:

A “half-a-native speaker that I am”? Sir, you’ve just revealed yourself to be a zero-a-native speaker. Oh, and next time while trying to exaggerate your English abilities, take the time to punctuate “I” in upper case. It looks just a tad more convincing.

How can one learn to write better? And I mean writing everything better: from grant proposals, to business emails, to reports, to articles like those in The Economist (their super crisp style. They really economize on words!), to powerful essays, and stories, and dialogue, and non-fiction.
How can one be informative and imaginative? And How can one write in a way that’s inspired?

Hmm… questions to NOT ask a random admissions consultant on a public forum:

• Extremely vague, open questions that don’t even try to be specific: “How can one learn to write better? And I mean writing everything better”
• Questions that require a deep philosophical response: “How can one be informative and imaginative?”
• Questions that are totally irrelevant to the person asked: “…From grant proposals, to business emails, to reports, to articles like those in The Economist…to powerful essays, and stories, and dialogue, and non-fiction.” (in case you didn’t notice, sandy is not an expert in writing grant proposals or powerful essays. Why are you asking him?)
• Questions that really have no hope of being answered properly in a forum like this.

But wait, it gets even better!

Where can I learn little guidelines like: a sentence’s quality can be improved by starting with a verb. For Eg. “Focussed on encouraging women, this project is run by….” Is better than “This project is run by …and it focuses on …..”

Uhm… I dunno… an ENGLISH GRAMMAR BOOK? You know, the kind that a half-a-native speaker might consider picking up now and then, just to brush up.

Finally, I’ll leave you to decrypt the post-script … and ask you my own philosophical question, borrowed from it. Dear readers, “are there things like MBA”?

PS: On the same note: are there things like MBA (focus on communications/marketing - not in the sense of getting business, but in the sense of managing org's PR etc.

Getting schooled on ROI

I was not surprised, but very interested and amused, by the reactions to my last post on SAHMs staying out of B-school.

Not surprised, because I know this is a controversial topic and I didn’t expect full agreement with my views. It’s also a highly sensitive “PC” topic on which people are very, very careful whose toes they step on. (The advantage of being an anonymous blogger, of course, is you can trample on all the toes you want without getting dirty looks.)

I was interested, though, that the couple of people who commented did not just say “OMG OMG you are SO biased, I can’t believe you would say that. You have like, no respect for mommies” (to which I would have said, OMG OMG, i don't care what you think). Instead, they gave sensible, well-thought-out responses that were interesting to read.

But most of all I was amused, because I’ll be the first to admit… I got schooled on the concept of ROI!!!

I had thought about the investment of time and money into a pricey B-school education, the sweat and tears of the GMAT/application process, and the opportunity cost of a salary. And I figured, where’s the ROI if you give up all future earnings and stay at home? It was a throwback to freshman year econ and the rule of Comparative Advantage… if I’m better at business than cooking and babysitting, then I should keep my career and hire help to cook and babysit for me. Like MaybeMBA says: “How do you "have it all"? Buy time. Get some good childcare, a trusty housecleaner and order take out.”

In doing so, I ignored a couple of important points about the ROI of the stay-at-home MBA:

• Maybe she didn’t really make a big investment. If she got a free ride, or her family is loaded, then there is no investment to speak of
  

• Maybe she came to B-school to get the proverbial “MRS” as well as her “MBA” in which case ---hallelujah --- payoff is 100%!

• Maybe she’s had a great post-MBA career already and now, having paid off all her loans and earned her “return”, she wants to be a mom.

• Maybe she truly feels like her life is best spent at home. I find it hard to understand this… but sure, people change, and maybe when I have kids I’ll be overwhelmed with maternal sentiments and change my mind. If I’m still blogging then, I’ll have to eat my words :-)

But most of all, there’s no reason why she should consider the impact on other women while making her decision. If there’s anything that you can learn from the rational application of a theory like ROI, it is that the return is purely your own, and “externalities” should have no impact on your decision. This is what amuses me the most, because I’ve spent 2 quarters learning about rational analysis of independent actors, ignoring externalities and focusing on one’s OWN return from one’s OWN investment… and given the first opportunity to apply these theories, I clearly failed to do so properly!

I still wish women didn’t take these scarce MBA spots away from other women, and then spend them at home instead of at the workplace. I wish they were becoming business leaders and paving the way for future female business leaders. But then, I also wish people recycled, didn’t drive SUVs, didn’t store firearms at home, and didn’t kill each other for religion. And clearly, that’s not happening. Because clearly, people don't consider the impact of their actions on future generations... they just do what they want. So I guess all I can do is dream, and you know, complain a little every now and then.

Thanks for listening :-)

Staying at home? Stay out of B-school.

Continuing on my recent thoughts about the role of a wife, I started thinking about a recent phenomenon I’ve seen in the media, of top MBA graduates becoming stay-at-home moms.

As a fellow blogger articulately points out, being a housewife/ SAHM is a choice. And I respect an average woman who decides to make that choice.

I do NOT respect a top MBA graduate who makes that choice. And here’s why.

First, having gone to an outrageously priced private college and now an outrageously priced business school, I can’t imagine spending 6 years and $300K on higher education, only to spend the rest of my life in playgroups and PTA meetings and minivans. Where’s the ROI? Where’s the payoff? Because let’s face it, you don’t need an MBA to cook and clean. And yes, having a good education makes you a better parent, but that certainly doesn’t mean an advanced degree in business.

Second, each MBA woman who makes this “personal decision” makes things harder for the rest of us. There is already an unfair stereotype against career women, and especially career moms. Of the 30% of top MBA grads who are female, 100% of us should be actively dispelling this stereotype… we should be out there making waves in the workplace, being leaders, charting a path for generations of women to follow, making the most of this amazing education and these opportunities that so many others do not have. So whenever I read about women like this Harvard MBA whose “life now revolves around her four children”… it makes me sad!!

Not that we business types can’t be parents. I’m all for having kids and even taking time off to raise them, or working part-time, or switching careers. But what really breaks my heart is seeing these women turn away from professional life altogether, to permanently become housewives.

For each woman who steps away from a promising MBA career and stays home, there is probably an eager man who takes her place. So what does this do for women in business? Nothing. In fact, worse than nothing… it hurts us. Because if she had not gone to HBS, some other girl would have got that education and probably used it to accomplish something great in the business world… and that didn’t happen.

To whom much is given, much is expected. If this seems oddly socialist, well, maybe it is. Maybe I’m saying that because we’re a minority in business school and in executive leadership roles, we owe it to ourselves and each other to pursue those careers and live out the ambition that got us into top MBA programs in the first place.

So maybe it’s not such a personal decision after all.

Wife = Maid = Slave?

I was browsing in Borders today and this novel caught my eye. The basic plot is that a working woman decides she needs more than a housekeeper – she needs a 24/7 caregiver who she can trust… a housewife.

This got me thinking about something I blogged about way back when. As a single working gal, I was annoyed by my male peers who had stay-at-home wives that took care of their every need outside the office… as a result these guys could focus 100% on the job and obliviously expected the rest of us to do the same.

It seems like I am not alone in this sentiment. Scattered throughout the femme blogosphere are references to this same phenomenon, the idea that we too need this special someone to pack our lunch and feed our kids and iron our shirts and buy our groceries.

In some places she is known as a wife:

Admit it, ladies, you've secretly wished you had a wife of your own to do all the things you don't have time for during the day.

In others, a maid/ housekeeper:


And in still others, a slave!!

I have finally solved the problem of the occupation line on school forms. I write “slave.” Then, under hours, I put “24 hours a day, 365 days a year, on call at all times, no vacation.” My daughter read her form and told me, “But Mom, you’re not a slave. You are more like a maid.” I patiently explained that a maid gets a salary, has regular working hours, and gets not only time off but also gets vacations, has opportunities for pay raises and can change jobs, if things are not satisfactory at the current position. After my explanation, her younger brother looked at his form and then told his sister, “No. Mom’s right. She is a slave.”

Hilarity aside, isn't this a little disturbing? I mean, does wife equal maid equal slave? Is this what we see housewives as? Maids who slave away at home for their families for no money or gratitude?

That definition seems a little 1950’s for my taste. As annoying as it is, housework is the job of everyone living in the house. EVERYONE. The wife, the husband, and the kids. Yes, it sucks to do dishes and iron… but that is everyone’s duty as members of a family living together in a home.

And hey, if you can’t deal, hire a housekeeper. A PAID housekeeper, whose job it is to clean and cook. Because this is not the job of a wife.