Anagrams

I have been having fun playing with anagrams in the midst of a presentation that I was making this morning. As is customary in these events, some people play havoc with the timeline by taking a lot more time than assigned to them. The people waiting their turn are left twiddling their thumbs while waiting for others to read out every word on their over populated slides. What is with these people? You would think that some of these 'bad' presenters would be good at simple presentations after all it is part and parcel of their job.

I wonder if they teach formal communication classes at Johnson? It is as important to learn how to effectively present opinions/vision to people who will ultimately carry it out as it is to come up with an opinion/vision in the first place.

Just in case anyone is wondering why it is that we poor applicants are so interested in getting a MBA and joining the workforce, here is a list of top CEO Salaries for the year 2004: (all salaries in millions source)

1. Terry S. Semel Yahoo! (YHOO) $230.6
2. Barry Diller IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI) $156.2
3. William W. McGuire UnitedHealth Group (UNH) $124.8

Here are the anagrams I was working on for those of you who are interested in such stuff: FLUTA, DROAH, SELING, RUMABI, NITLE, KORJE, BANDOU and DOLITS. Good luck!

Party

Had a good time over the weekend. After a long hiatus met all the bloggers from the Bay Area (and some who dropped in to join the party) at a club in SFO. The club had an interesting concept, art gallery by day and a club by night. Though going by the paintings hung for sale, hitting upon the idea of doubling the gallery as a club was probably the only way they could keep the roof over their heads. It isn't that I am a Philistine, I like art as much as the next guy, but abstract, graffitisque paintings never did anything for me. The music in tune with the paintings was offbeat and noisy, and we ended up spending more time outside the club talking than we did inside.

The more I think about it, the more I feel that it is the people who make up the MBA program and not the education in itself. While learning about accounting and finance is all well and good, I doubt it is something that cannot be learnt at a good community school or out of a well written book. But the interaction that you have with your fellow students is probably the clincher why people should go to business school. I am constantly amazed by the quality of intellect and the accomplishments that everyone associated with business school seems to possess. Case in point the people I met for Destination Johnson and my fellow bloggers. They make otherwise staid evenings lively, the conversation (though predominantly on application processes and future opportunities) interesting and in many cases fascinating.

I am certain the honeymoon period will not last long, but for me, with the people I have met so far, I consider myself ahead of the game.

Resignation?

With the decision on the school out of the way, it is now time to focus on the single largest question, "When to quit?". I have been contemplating the dates for a while now and can't seem to make up my mind. On one side, there is this desire to make as much money pre MBA as I can, (considering the costs of the program). On the other there is this need to make the move to Ithaca and settle in before the rush of Semester one takes over.

The dynamics at work also play a small role in the decision. When you work in a small team like I do, there are responsibilities that you just can't shirk. Having kept my MBA plans a secret from my immediate managers, an abrupt decision will put a damper in the long term plans for my group. But I guess there is nothing I can do about it, I will be quitting eventually, and it is just a matter of a fortnight either ways.

EDIT:
Just stumbled across a pretty cool website BlogPulse and spent some time playing with the trends tool. Extremely innovative, but I can't really understand how their business model will make money, unless their only goal is to be taken over by Google or one of the other bloggerisque companies.

Seething

I am completely and utterly pissed at Avis right now. I am NEVER going to rent a car from them again if I can help it.

The story goes something like this, we left Ithaca around 11:00 am sharp and drove to JFK in NYC to catch out flight scheduled for departure at 5:15 pm. With no bags to check in, I figured 5 hours should be more than sufficient to make the trip that usually maps out at 4 and half hours. Boy was I wrong. While we negotiated Lincoln tunnel and Manhattan with ease as we approached JFK with we were stuck in a grid lock. I couldn't believe that so many people want to go toward JFK. With time ticking down and nerves getting frazzled due to the wait we inched our way up the Van Wyck expressway. The whole experience of people driving any which way they pleased (up the sidewalk, converting single lane exits into double lane ones and blocking the traffic for miles), was just crazy. We ultimately drove into the rental car parking lot at about 4:15 pm. The lack of time available to us and the absolute dearth of gas stations meant I could not fill up the tank before returning the car. With less than one fourth the tank empty, I figured that Avis won't charge me an arm and a leg for the difference and with more pressing things like a plane waiting for us on the tarmac, we ran for the AirTrain. After successfully negotiating a fat obese woman's pile of bags with straps like tentacles lying in wait to trip people and security guards who wanted to pass my poor GPS through the xray several times, and did all but sniff at the bloody thing, we finally made it to the gate as the plane was boarding.

Now while all that drama was taking place Avis representatives were rubbing their hands with glee, "Ah! Fresh meat today!" said they and promptly charged me 56 $ for a one fourth tank of gas. That was almost one and a half times the cost of the rental and enough to almost fill one fourth the gas tank of the plane we took to California. (Yes I exaggerate but you know what I mean).

Damn damn and double damn. I am taking my business elsewhere. This is daylight robbery and I will make sure I bitch and moan about their company till I loose them that much in business.

Kool-Aid

Just got back from Destination Johnson yesterday, and as I dragged my sorry ass into bed Sunday night I realized that I had been continuously on the go for 3 days. But all in all I had an awesome time. I guess at events like this, the school broaches the emergency stash of kool aid and merrily drenches all prospectives to the skin in a rain dance.

Having said that, I have to admit I loved it. I walked away feeling really wanted, pampered, reaching out for my check book before I knew it to sign away a hundred thousand dollars and two years of my life. Cutting through the kool aid, I met some of the nicest people I have had the pleasure to interact with. They were all super smart and without the slightest air of self importance about them. I went to DJ with questions about recruiting and the program but the news out of Cornell was reassuring and I found all my questions answered.

The current batch of prospectives were simply fabulous to say the least. Other than maybe one idiot (I could be jumping the gun here) who shall remain unnamed, it will be a pleasure to winter with these folks when Ithaca freezes over. I was completely blown away by the qualifications and backgrounds of my future classmates. It was intimidating to say the least.

Coming to the subject of Ithaca, it wasn't half as bad as I thought it would be. To the contrary it was an upbeat town, and a lot larger than I had expected. Its distance from civilization and cold winters are still points to be bitched about, but no longer in public! :)

More individual details about DJ tomorrow. I will sign off by saying, I am quite happy I was granted admission at Cornell and will certainly be attending come fall. I think it is going to be a great two years.

Sloan

Here is the full extract of one of the classless letters MIT sent out. (Credit: Anonymous comment left on my blog)

March 10, 2005
Dear XXXXX:

The Admissions Committee of the MIT Sloan MBA Program has considered your application and concluded that we cannot offer you a place in the incoming class.

The tentative decision to deny your application was made before you were identified by ApplyYourself as an individual who utilized information to gain unauthorized access to a section of the ApplyYourself system that is reserved for MIT officials.

We regard this unauthorized access as a very serious ethical offense and breach of trust. Honesty, sound judgement and integrity are critical characteristics that we seek from our students. Accordingly, due to your actions, we are denying you admission into our program and releasing this decision in advance of our April 4 notification date.

Sincerely,
Rod Garcia
Director of MBA Admissions

Cacophony

The sound of dings have finally stopped echoing in my ears, and it is now time to move on. Got back from my vacation and long hiatus from the blogging world and was plunged into a maelstrom of activity. What with all the piled up work waiting for me on my desk, I also had a couple of tests to take in my accounting class. I am over my jetlag but still suffering from post vacation blues. I just hate being back.

For all my patience, effort and investment into the Wharton community, I was rewarded by a big fat ding. I also heard the chiming of the bell at Chicago and HBS. The HBS reject, hurts me not an iota, but the Wharton and Chicago rejects sting like a bee. All things considered, I guess I shouldn't have had much hopes set on Chicago considering the minimal amount of effort I put in my application, but Wharton, *sigh* Wharton that was cold. Unfortunately, I have run out of time, besides I don't think I could improve my application there any further, so it is Cornell Ho!

Being done with the entire pre-nup dance with several of the top schools, I am left with a slightly bitter after taste of the entire process. I am strongly of the opinion that if your application doesn't meet a certain profile, which regardless of all the protests and claims of Alex Brown & Co. is extremely narrow and exclusive, you don't stand a shot. There are definitely buckets that applicants fall into by virtue of birth or education which skew the percentage chances of getting into a top school and it is foolish to think you can buck the trend. To prevent my rant from sounding like sour grapes, I will end it right here.

The most hilarious thing that came out of this application season was a letter received by a friend of mine from MIT. This school takes the cake for a complete lack of class. The subject of the letter was as a result of the 'alleged' hacking attempt by applicants that made so much news a couple of months back. The letter was sent out before the deadline for the release of results. The contents of this letter apparently go in this vein:
"You have shown a lack of ethical and moral bearings that are not fitting of prospective students of Sloan. And for this crime you have been rejected by the MIT SOM. Further more, even before you hacked into the system you had already been dinged." - OUCH!

Whatever said and done about HBS, atleast it sent out reject letters in one go without any attempts to moralize. These bastards in the Sloan admissions office instead of accepting some culpability on their part by compromising sensitive applicant data, neatly pass on the blame to the applicant and then further put the boot in while the person is down. Good luck to future Sloanies, is all I have to say.