A Hanukkah Miracle

The true measure of any holiday is not the time spent with family and loved ones, it's not the sharing of rich cultural tradition, and it's not the dispersal of happiness and good cheer towards all living things.

It's the sheer quantity of awesomeness that lies within the gifts we receive.

And on that basis, I had a pretty sweet holiday season so far.

I got Flight of the Conchords on DVD, which was a big win. I also got Mad Men, which I've never seen but have only heard good things about. I also got a bunch of books I've always wanted but never got around to buying for myself (and with four classes about to start, might not have much time to read them).

Oh yeah, and my brother got me a nice tie.

I wasn't sure what to think about that at first, but then I slowly realized that I'm at the age where ties start to make sense as a gift. So for future reference, the tie-gift virginity has been broken and established as acceptable. My future kids thank you for making future Father's Days much much easier.

Anyway, the title of this post was, 'a hanukkah miracle,' and right now you might be wondering where it is.

I found it out at the King of Prussia mall this past weekend...

Walking through the mall, my American cultural heritage welled up inside me, gently tugging at my wallet and begging me to buy, to purchase, to CONSUME. I must admit that for the first hour or so, I ignored the little impulses and chose to abstain from buying crap I didn't really need. Of course, that was until I saw what for many may be taken as a sign of economic hardship but to my eyes, a thing of beauty.

A movie and music store...going out of business.

Alright, so that got me a little excited, but I wasn't just going to fork over some disposable income that I'm not currently earning unless there was something special.

I started perusing the DVDs, looking for a hidden gem or two.

I passed on a direct-to-DVD Steven Segal flick that looked like he was in Japan. $10??? Not at that price.

I almost gave in to a Stallone 4-pack calling out to me from the shelf. "I'm only ten dollars" it cried. "Think of all the good times we could have!!! I've got 'Over the Top' AND 'Tango and Cash!!!"

But Sly couldn't get me to budge.

Even the new director's cut edition of Arnold's Commando couldn't convince me, and that's one of my all-time favorites.

The prices just weren't right (and I couldn't really look at myself in the mirror again if I paid over $10 for a third copy of Commando)

But then, when all hope seemed lost, I found my way past the abnormally large section of soft-core pornography, and stumbled onto a miracle.



1984's Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo!

For those of you who haven't seen it, it's a powerful tour de force pitting a team of rag-tag breakdancers against the evil greed of a rich real estate developer.

Their weapon??? Breakdancing!

I'll try not to oversell it, but it got robbed of Best Picture to Amadeus, although some still maintain the balloting was rigged.

Anyway, that movie, together with a copy of Action Jackson (starring Carl Weathers!), cost me eight bucks!

Miracles really do happen every day.

Sports Media

Just got back to Chicago for the last bit of winter break and am thrilled to see lots of snow out my apartment window. Someone needs to occasionally remind me that I really like school and being here when I'm shaking pounds of snow off of dripping wet socks over the next few months.

Anyway, over the last few months I've been actively obsessing over the Eagles' progress (like every year). And every time the Eagles did something horrendously inept, I proclaimed the season was over, O-V-E-R over. I did this a whole lot, after every Andy Reid blunder, every terrible offensive showing, every time I found myself agreeing with the Philadelphia sports talk radio crowd (which I always assumed would portend the apocalypse)

So when the Eagles entered play this weekend, needing a Tampa Bay loss to Oakland, either a Minnesota loss to New York or a Chicago loss to Houston, and finally, a win over the hated Dallas Cowboys, I wasn't anticipating a post-season off the golf course for Donovan McNabb and the guys. One betting site listed the Eagles at 25-1 to make the playoffs entering the day, other estimates gave them a less than 20% chance.

And of course, to completely make me look and feel like an idiot (albeit a happy one), the Eagles smashed the Cowboys after the Raiders upset Tampa Bay and the Bears lost to Houston.

But it was a writer's response to the game got me thinking about how the media covers sports and why I get so fed up with it all the time (which for a large sports fan, is kind of a big problem)

Excerpted from Football Outsiders, which is a good site if you're a big football fan:

Bill Barnwell: Let's review an alternate scenario here. The Eagles play the Cowboys at 1 p.m. instead of 4 p.m. Every outcome is the exact same, except the Buccaneers beat the Raiders 31-24. The Eagles still destroy the Cowboys 44-6, doing so at the same time as the Bucs game, but because Tampa Bay wins, the Eagles don't make the playoffs.

The Eagles still have the best DVOA (Note: a stat these guys have invented to measure the true level of play) in the league on Monday morning; they're just not making the playoffs because something that was absolutely out of their control didn't get there. We look stupid, since the best team in the league didn't make the playoffs. The Philly media becries the fact that the Eagles' great game was too little, too late. Andy Reid likely gets fired, Donovan McNabb's out, and the Eagles probably start rebuilding.

If the Eagles make a huge playoff run, every columnist will be falling over themselves to make some sort of argument about how Week 17/the McNabb benching got their momentum going, but it's blindly groping for a narrative in a situation where there isn't one. The Eagles got astoundingly lucky on Sunday when the Buccaneers lost. It was one of the great upsets of the decade. What happens from here on out cannot be removed from that fact -- without that loss, the Eagles' regular season (as good as it was according to DVOA) would have been absolutely irrelevant and disappointing.

If this sounds reminiscent of my tone in the Giants chapter of PFP 2008, it's because it's the same sort of conflation of cause and effect that frustrates me as an analyst so much. The line between success and failure in the NFL is so impossibly thin as to be barely existent at points. The idea that a team is destined to win or a supreme conqueror of the other 31 teams as "the best" is flimsy at best. It's the same stupid logic I read all week about Lovie Smith going on a rant at halftime about the Bears refusing to go down like they were appearing to against Green Bay in Week 16. That was such a good motivator that the Bears needed a blocked field goal at the end of regulation to save themselves. (And for those of you [readers] who would say that it was Smith's words that caused the kick to be blocked, I wonder whether those same words inspired the other Adrian Peterson to commit that personal foul penalty on the kickoff.) Had the Bears not blocked that kick, would we have heard about Smith's words, or would they have rung hollow hours later? How many famous last words, to steal a phrase, do we get to hear? Were the Chargers really the BEST team in the AFC West? Probably shouldn't have had to rely upon an onside kick to give them a chance to prove it.

I think that the Eagles are a great team, one of the league's best this year, and that they'll show it in the playoffs. The fact that they'll get a chance to do so is in spite of their regular season performance, not because of it, but on the other hand, they would have been a great team regardless of whether the Buccaneers lost to the Raiders or not. The backwards definitions of their performance you're going to see because of what happened around them is exactly the reason Football Outsiders exists.

For me, that helped explain a) why I hate most mainstream sports media and b) why I can read any mainstream sports article in 2.5 seconds.

It's the process of taking the outcome from a sporting event, and shoehorning it into a narrative based on whatever stereotypical things have been going on. Reading most articles, teams don't often win because they executed more effectively, or because they were healthy, or god forbid, because of luck (it's never luck!). Teams win because coaches give fiery speeches, because team captains inspire, and because one team just has the will to win. It's not like the athletes have trained their entire lives for the opportunity to play sports and have millions of dollars at stake to ensure maximum effort, right?

I keep wondering exactly why the "analysis," using the term loosely, always falls back on cliches...I have a couple theories...

A - That's what the public likes to read and hear about, which makes a little sense, but seems way to easy. Plus, I'm tired of always assuming the viewing/reading audience is dumb and/or has no attention span.

B - Writers are under more and more time/cost pressure to get articles posted faster and cheaper as the pace of the media cycle speeds up and the investment in media goes down. I could see writers, on deadlines, hurrying to slap together recaps of games rather than provide deep and probing analyses.

Either way, I really don't like reading that stuff, or hearing it on a television broadcast. That probably explains why I prefer to read columnists/journalists who either talk much more about the intersection between sports and their personal lives or those who operate outside the traditional media sphere of influence.

Of course, until those guys figure out a way to make some money, I guess they'll remain a minority.

NFL in 3D

There are three really really exciting developments going on in the NFL world right now.

Number 1 - The Eagles could actually make the playoffs (and prove me wrong for declaring their season was dead three or four different times over the earlier part of the season)

Number 2 - A potential fantasy football championship for me this year (and the potential for a large cash prize that would give me all the excuse I need to buy an iPhone)

Number 3 - NFL games will soon be broadcast in 3D!

Granted, that last one is probably the most exciting for everyone that's not me or an Eagles fan.

Just imagine sitting in a theater and seeing a Donovan McNabb pass come out of the screen and look JUST LIKE it's going to hit you in the shins! Or maybe you'll see Bill Belichick as if he's cheating six inches in front of your face instead of on a TV screen.

It's got potential, that's for sure.

http://dvice.com/archives/2008/12/nfl_game_broadc.php

"It's amazing ... technically they obviously have a little ways to go, but once they work out all the kinks, it's definitely the new era of television." Said another reporter, "The experience wasn't jaw-dropping, but it was noticeably better than a conventional broadcast. The game was drama-free, yet the novelty of 3D made it hard for me to take my eyes off the screen... The effect was subtle at times, but just as compelling as in "U2 3D," 3ality's concert film of the Irish rockers. The most striking thing in both cases was how much more you could see in three dimensions than in two."

Who knows how it's actually going to look. I know I wouldn't want to watch an Eagles game for my first 3D broadcast (too much risk of a technical mishap) I'd have to watch some random AFC match-up or something.

But, I'm also reading that the company is planning to roll out its initial theater experience for this year's BCS championship game. ( http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/3ality-Digital-Follow-Groundbreaking-Live/story.aspx?guid={B1739B26-D8FE-4C3E-9DA0-D453F6F6FB83} ) That game will feature....umm....well.....not Penn State (thanks Iowa)

But because Penn State will be occupied with the Rose Bowl, and because I couldn't care less about the outcome of the BCS game, that would be the perfect opportunity to check out this technology. I can't figure out if it'll actually happen (my guess is it could), or if it would be in Chicago (my guess is it would), but I'd really want to check it out.

3D NFL cheerleaders? How could you go wrong???

Embarrassment of Riches

I'm three days into my winter break, and it's quickly become apparent that I'm going to return to Chicago having seen about three dozen movies and with three dozen extra pounds.

I love coming home to Philadelphia and seeing the family, don't get me wrong, but its pretty clear that all I'm really going to do while I'm around is eat, sleep, eat, watch TV, and eat some more.

As one of four brothers, there's always been a lot of food around the house. But now that we're all in college, working, or in my case, college 2, you'd think my parents would dial the quarterly grocery spend down a notch. Not the case.

Come to think of it, that's probably why our dogs are a little overweight...

I've also been doing a lot of TV watching, primarily because I can't get over the sheer number of options when you order Comcast's super deluxe premium package. I thought I had a lot of choices in Chicago, but it's really hard to turn off the TV when there are 8 HBO's, 5 Cinemax's, 7 Showtimes, 8 Starz', plus multiple Encores and Movie Channels. And that's not even scratching the surface of the basic tier.

Then there's On Demand, which gives me just about every premium network show (including Flight of the Conchords...woo-hoo)

So I've started to catch up on some of the movies that I meant to see or had a passing interest in but never got around to. It's no wonder Netflix is working so hard on developing its streaming technology options...DVDs are dead (which I probably figured out two years ago when I stopped buying them)

Saw The Invasion...the remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers...not great. I also checked out Clerks 2, given that I really liked the first one and never saw the sequel for fear of legacy tarnishment. Also not great, but a couple of pretty funny bits, the Kevin Smith over-writing is always a little tough to deal with given that's not how people ever talk. That and I don't really get why people like Rosario Dawson...maybe it's just that I saw her in Alexander...which remains in my opinion the worst movie in the history of cinema.

I did however, also check out Zodiac. That was really good. It almost made me want to invent a time machine to travel back to 1970's San Francisco...of course the Zodiac killer would be on the loose, but I think I'd be alright.

What a Difference a Global Economic Shutdown Makes

Ugh, such a long time since my last blog post. If this blog were a plant, its leaves would be all shriveled, stem wilting from neglect. If this blog were a fish, it might be floating upside down in the tank, no longer content to hang out with the little scuba man instead of eating.

Fortunately for us, the blog doesn't have feelings or physical needs. Starve it or leave it without water, and it will have no idea.

Anyway, now that I'm on winter break, I'm thinking it would be a good idea to really get back to blogging consistently, maybe even to the extent of a 12-days of Xmas type blogging marathon. Only instead of calling birds and french hens, you'll get curse-filled diatribes on people/things/life philosophies that get me riled up. Might happen, might not, it really depends on whether there's anything good on TV.

But with that said, I thought that since it has been quite a while since our last chat, I'd let you all know how my fall recruiting process went. (In a word: underwhelming, with a little sprinkle of soul crushing)

You'll be happy to know that I'm past the point of being sad that I couldn't get any of my "dream" jobs. I also blew through denial, anger, and acceptance. Where am I now? I'm in what I would describe as a post-acceptance re-attribution state, where I take absolutely no responsibility for failure and instead blame macroeconomic conditions for my situation.

It's quite nice, just try it yourself, say things like the following:

It couldn't possibly be MY fault...

Companies were really just interviewing to keep up appearances...

Alan Greenspan should personally write me a check for screwing up my livelihood...

Anyway, to keep a series of long stories relatively short, I only applied to five other firms this fall after my internship in management consulting. I really liked my internship, but had a couple of concerns that precipitated dropping a couple of resumes. Of the five first rounds, I got final rounds for four of them. At the time, it seemed like a pretty good start.

Then, as is usually the case with me, when things start going well, the wheels completely fall off.

I nailed my first final round, but the firm refused to listen to my preferences and offered me a job in a location that I wasn't hoping to work in. The reason I came to business school was to have opportunities that really interest me, and while the position would be nice, it was clear the firm wouldn't do anything to accommodate me (something about having hundreds and hundreds of newly interested consultant wannabes makes them less inclined to bend over backwards for you...weird).

Following that, I had three more final rounds with various firms in various locations...ok, two. But every time I flew out to those locations and met with people, things did not go as well as I needed them to. That was unfortunate.

So I'm left with going back to the firm where I interned this summer, and while I'm certainly excited to go back, it's not exactly how I envisioned this whole thing playing out. With that said, I could definitely be in a worse position given friends that have dream jobs that no longer exist. Of course, that explosion caused a trickle-down effect that I think was reflected in my results this year compared to last year ( Last year: 4 final rounds, 3 offers...this year: 4 final rounds, 1 offer...do the math)

But again, I'm not upset...in fact, I'm taking away a lot of positives from all my unsuccessful interviews...

- The opportunity to get much closer with my Ipod on long flights and airport waits. In particular, I used a lot of those flights as a chance to rent ITunes movies I always wanted to see but never got a chance to (e.g. Bullit and After the Thin Man) As an aside, the Thin Man movies always convince me to switch careers and become a rich detective that goes around solving mysteries, drinking like crazy, and firing off one-liners.

- The chance to sample a whole bunch of different podcasts, with the eventual goal of working them into a rotation once I start work and begin ignoring the general public on long train rides/commutes. Rotation currently includes Talk of the Nation, MSNBC Countdown, Filmspotting, ESPN's B.S. Report, and Kevin Smith's smodcast.

- I got to sample a number of hotels...which is always fun. One hotel in Los Angeles actually put a robe in the closet for me when I got out of the shower...what? you say that's normal??? Well, this one was a leopard print robe. Obviously, I had to wear it, even though it felt weird, like I should be in a 1970's porn movie with a giant mustache. I didn't take a picture, but I kind of looked like this guy...


Sweet right?

Maybe Kellogg is more fun...

So it's recruiting season for lots of us down at school, and while that would certainly be a very valid topic for a blog post, I just wanted to share a hilarious message sent around our Northern neighbor MBA program.

Like any good business school, Kellogg has it's share of drunken debauchery...but after reading an email that's been making the rounds all across business schools (and apparently dealbreaker.com), it seems like one of their events may have gotten a little out of control.

Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2008 12:54 PM

To: class09and10@kellogg.northwestern.edu

Subject: Student Conduct at Social Events

Students,

During our time at Kellogg, we have many opportunities to
strengthen the "Kellogg" brand. Our relationships with one another and
the time we spend together, both at Jacobs and away from campus, often
provide great benefits to students and the school. Unfortunately, there
are also times when students' conduct can have a negative impact on the
brand. Since CIM Ball, there have been many rumors about what occurred
that evening. KSA would like to provide clarification as well as provide
a few reminders:

The Field Museum made the decision to shut the bar at CIM Ball
down early because of student behavior, NOT because they ran out of
alcohol. A few examples of such behavior included:

o Students were throwing things at a historic artifact: Sue, the Tyrannosaurus Rex, which The Field Museum purchased for over $8.3 million

o Students were vomiting on themselves and on the Field Museum Floors

o Students were spitting at people

o Students attempted to smuggle in a substantial amount of alcohol (large trash bins full of bottles and cans and flasks)

o Students passed out in high-traffic areas

o Students arrived at an open bar event already too overserved

While these examples apply to a very small minority of students,
it only takes a few negative incidents to tarnish our brand. It is
pretty embarrassing that the Field Museum will refuse to host future
Kellogg events unless they can treat it like a high school prom, with
breathalyzers, high security, and chaperones.

The goal of social and cultural events is to have fun, but a
formal event at historical landmarks in Chicago should not be treated as
a night out at the Keg. Not only will few venues be willing to host
Kellogg events, but this type of behavior can decrease the value of a
Kellogg MBA for us and future students.

We ask that you bear this message in mind at future social,
cultural, and recruiting events, and that you treat students, event
organizers, and the host property with respect.

Thank you

Kellogg has certainly thrown down the gauntlet...but I think we can top that...

Museum of Science and Industry anyone???

A Lengthy Recap

Argh, I know I know, far too much time between posts. I'm sorry...

Last we checked, I was headed off for a series of vacations and wasn't even close to school. Today, I'm knee-deep in all kinds of crazy GSB obligations

For a quick review...

Ecuador - Really cool, mountains were a little too cool (as in chilly) but awesome terrain, while the jungle was great weather (hot, like all the time) and enough wildlife to be really interesting without being too threatening (e.g. we saw a giant snake, but it was dead)

Las Vegas - Vegas is still Vegas, we did a bunch of cool stuff in only a short time...the craziest thing was when REDACTED and I ingested way too much REDACTED, made our way to the nearest REDACTED where I ended up REDACTED all over a REDACTED's REDACTED

Greece - Really neat country, ruins that date back to the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth thousands of years ago (as I understand it). Little known fact, the Parthenon, Greece's most signature ancient tourist attraction, was inadvertently destroyed many years ago when cannon fire set off stores of gunpowder/ammunition the natives stored there. (Note to self: when I have administrative control over a civilization, make sure to keep our military supplies far far away from our most beloved ancient wonder) We also hit up a couple Greek islands, which were very pretty, even if the dollar-euro conversion rate forced me to subsist on the Greek equivalent of street meat (which I was absolutely ok with)


So that was the end of the summer, but that's long gone, as here in Chicago, it's back to business as usual (which means, busy all the time)

Although I've only got three classes this fall, they meet four days a week, without considering group meetings to get HW done. In addition, the GSB application process is also starting to heat up, and as an admissions reader (read: glutton for punishment), I'll have to go through and assess at least 8 applications a week. Fortunately I've solved that problem, I'm just going to take each app and ask the magic eight-ball.

ME: This candidate has a 780 GMAT, a 3.99 from Harvard, and spent the last 4 years digging wells in Afghanistan...but should I recommend him?

MAGIC EIGHT-BALL: My Sources Say No

:::Tears Up Application:::

Suddenly that suggested reading time has been reduced to 2 minutes...such a more efficient process...I'll make a great consultant!

Oh yeah, consulting, I forgot to mention that recruiting is in full swing, and while I'm fortunate to have the opportunity to go back to my internship firm, I still want to selectively look around and make sure I make the right decision. Of course, I'm convinced that one morning I'll open up my door and our head of career services is going to try and pull a Jedi mind-trick on me.

Head of Career Services: "You really want to take your offer now"

Me: "I don't know, I kind of what to take my time and explore all options"

Head of Career Services: "The economy is scary, you really really want to just accept your offer"

Me: "I really don't think so"

Head of Career Services (now pulling a gun): "Look, you have an offer, it's a good one, now we can do this the easy way, or you could explore what options you have with the business end of a .45"

Beyond all that, there's really not a whole lot going on...oh wait...

The Phillies are in the NLCS! Penn State hasn't lost yet this season, the Flyers are about to start their season, and the Eagles have completely destroyed their shot at the playoffs (ok, so 3 out of 4), not to mention we're smack in the middle of the BIGGEST PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF THE LAST FOUR YEARS!!!

All that, plus the Office is back on the air, and 24 will also be returning, there's a lot going on in the world (including some kind of trouble with the economy? I've heard some whispers, nothing concrete, just something to keep an eye on)

With all this craziness, it'll be nice when recruiting is over and I've finally figured out the whole rest-of-my-life thing.

Some not so well deserved R&R

After a long and winding internship road, I'm back in Chicago and just about ready to leave again tomorrow morning.

Why? Lots of busy traveling plans, but let's back up and end the suspense right away.

I did get an offer for full-time employment from my internship, so that's the good news.

It also made for a very interesting last day of work.

With no client deliverables due (thanks to a presentation to the CEO on that Monday) I really didn't have any functional work to busy myself with. That would've been fine, except that my meeting for my 'final appraisal' wasn't going to happen until 3:30 in the afternoon.

That's a lot of time to ponder, and as demonstrated by my last post, giving me more time to think is never a good idea.

So I sat and waited....and waited....and waited. Meanwhile, the other summer associates went in for their sessions one by one, and each emerged with good news (which wasn't really a surprise considering what All-Stars they were)

Finally, one of the senior members of my project team came and escorted me to a partner's office (had it been a security guard, I would've gotten a different impression, although when he yelled 'Dead man walking!!!' it was a tiny bit disconcerting)

So I sat down in the office, and with another 3 people dialed in via teleconference, the partner held up a large manila envelope and joked that it might not be thick enough to be good news.

But it obviously was, which made the rest of the conversation much much easier.

After the meeting, it was time for a last fun night in NYC with the other summer associates, and then a quick exit the next afternoon to Philadelphia to see the family before heading back to school.

Now that I've been back in Chicago for a couple days, I'm already packed to head back out tomorrow morning for a 9ish flight out of O'Hare. And this is only the beginning, below is the summary of my vacation travel schedule (which I feel I deserve after enduring 9 whole weeks of real-world work):

Aug 23rd - Aug 31st: Ecuador, "leading" a group of incoming MBA students deep into the heart of the jungle. Miles and miles from the nearest hospital, rumors of civil unrest and Colombian rebels...what could possibly go wrong?!?

Sept 4th - Sept 7th: Vegas...I really need to win some tuition money...

Sept 9th - Sept 18th: Greece...because why stop at just one continent for vacation

Then I get back to Chicago and have a good couple days before admissions training, I'm assuming all of that time will be spent asleep

I am Abe Vigoda!

at least I might be, if my paranoia is in any way accurate.

I've finished up the majority of my summer internship here in NYC. Things have been going well. The project has been very interesting and has gotten be great experience doing things professional consultants do (e.g., using things like e.g.)

All good things, and the feedback I've received coming into my last week of work has been positive.

And yet....I'm a little concerned as we get closer and closer to this Friday, when full-time offer decisions at the firm will be revealed.

Earlier this week, I was scheduled to go with the senior members of the project team out to our client's headquarters to help present our initial findings to the company's CEO and other senior executives. Sounded good to me, as I haven't left NYC all summer and have never physically met anyone from our client (I like to think of it as like a consultant ninja....slipping in and leaving strategic recommendations without ever being seen)

But I booked this flight out to be there this Monday, booked a hotel, was getting all excited to go.

Then late this week I got a call from the boss.

"Sorry, we ended up needing to bring in another senior guy to present this operational issue, so I'm afraid you won't be able to join us"

But, that messes up all my arrangements....I thought


Which is when I had my Abe Vigoda moment, you know, when he realizes that his plot to kill Al Pacino has been discovered and they're going to kill him

Am I being bumped because they want to kill (read: not offer) me?!? Or am I just being crazy?

We'll know in less than a week.

But other than that sense of impending doom, things are good. The internship has absolutely flown by, and while it's been nice getting a steady paycheck, I'm really much more interested in getting back to Chicago and all the fun vacation stuff I've got planned.

The way I see it, I should be able to spend all the money I made this summer before school even starts again in late September. With trips to Ecuador, Vegas, and Greece on tap, that should be easy right?

5.66.....that's all?

It's hard to believe, but my internship is already more than a third complete.

It's very scary, in part because I feel like I really haven't accomplished anything yet, at least anything substantial.

But there's definitely a lot of good news, the most critical of which is I'm enjoying the work (relatively, let's not kid ourselves, I'd much rather just be a professional baseball player or secret agent or something) It's definitely been interesting, even if it's not the sexiest company in the world. Wholesale distribution fever, catch it!

There's only six weeks left, technically 5.66, and in that time I'm going to need to demonstrate enough capability and/or likability to merit a full-time job offer.

Of course, all this internship stuff hasn't stopped the school from reminding me that full-time recruiting is just around the corner. We've only got three weeks or so to submit our new updated resumes for next year, which sounds totally insane. Then there are the companies trying to pitch us over the summer. I've already been solicited a bunch of times for NYC events for some random companies, which has been a little weird too.

Other than that, I'm slowly acclimating myself to this whole New York thing. After a couple weeks of boring rides into the city from NJ where I'm living, I finally discovered that yes, I too can be one of those people that just wears an iPod and tunes out the whole world around them. The firm's gift really came in handy, although I'm still trying to find the best stuff to listen to.

I bought my first ever item from iTunes (although the concept still seems really strange to me), it was the first episode of Flight of the Conchords, which is an awesome show. Of course shortly after buying it, I stumbled onto all these free podcasts, and have been grabbing tons of them to fill my commute. Turns out there's this thing called NPR, apparently they just give their stuff away. What suckers.

Summer's Here, Vacation is Over

It’s official, I’m finally back at work after a blissful 359 day vacation. I forgot all those little things you miss when you aren’t in the office.

The faint hum of dozens of computers.

The prairie dog looks over cubicle walls.

And of course, the foul stench of your soul and physical fitness being literally sucked from your bones.

Ok, so it’s not that bad. Actually, it wasn’t really bad at all. It was a tiny bit fun.

Yes, technically I started a while ago, but that was just orientation and training, which is less about actually doing work and more about seeing whether you can stand the people you’ll be working with. Fortunately, everyone seems to be really cool. Maybe it’s the fact that we all made it through the recruiting process, or maybe it’s the fact that the company did such a good job of recruiting people that fit well.

Then, of course, it also could’ve been the large amounts of free alcohol. Once you’ve witnesses a bunch of fresh summer associates commandeer a bus for a late-night McDonald’s run at 3am before a 9am presentation, there’s probably a good chance you’re having fun.

Anyway, the first day of real work came and went, and it was fairly interesting. I think I was productive, which is a good sign.

Without going into detail on the nature of my project (because I would have to kill you if you knew) I’m unfortunately not working in the media industry. I’m still kind of miffed about it, but there weren’t any projects hitting at the right time for me to join. I knew there was a serious chance of that when I signed up, and truth be told, I was expecting to not get what I wanted.

Fortunately, I am working for a consumer products company, and to keep it vague, I’ll only say I’m working on growth strategy.

That could really be anything, I could be helping Callaway sell new golf bags. I could be working with Apple to market some new doodad. I could be helping Victoria’s Secret launch a new line of thongs for the elderly.

Anything’s possible, and it’s a completely new experience for me.

Of course, that extended to my out-of-the-office life as well, in that I had the completely new experience of forgetting my keys at the office and making it all the way back to Jersey before realizing it.

Fun times.

Year One In the Books

It’s hard to believe that my first year of business school is just about over.

There’s one final left on Thursday morning, and then a quick trip to the airport to make my flight in preparation for my first day of summer internship work Friday morning.

It’s absolutely crazy how fast everything’s gone by, maybe that’s because it’s been a lot of fun.

But now it’s time for work again (and hopefully some fun too), so I’m trying to get my rules straight for the next couple of months

Rule 1 – Go back to shaving regularly

Rule 2 – Start wearing pants again

Rule 3 – Remember, good consultants try not to swear at the clients

Rule 4 – As the only GSB intern at your office, try to dispel the quant-nerd rep. As such, forget all the math you know and focus on buying people shots

Rule 5 – Try to get excited about your first consulting assignment. Remember that this is what you wanted, even if it is reorganizing a cardboard box factory in Saskatchewan.

Rule 6 – This isn’t class, so when you participate in a discussion, you really should try to make a valid and relevant point

Rule 7 – Do not, under any circumstances, say ‘That’s what she said,’ regardless of how appropriate the scenario

Rule 8 – No more falling asleep in meetings or presentations…it’s not like this is Investments class

Rule 9 – No one here saw you at Spring Fling or Winter Formal, so you’ve got a clean slate to work with

Rule 10 – Enjoy the paycheck

Googlicious

Google Google Google

Investors want them, other companies want to be them.

And MBA students want to work for them (free snacks and casual dress, duh)

One of the great things about El Goog is that they keep coming out with new stuff. I’ve been messing around with a couple of their new things recently. One is really really cool. The other’s just a little bit scary.

Scary stuff first.

I’ve been using Google Maps on my blackberry since I got it in August. It’s been pretty fantastic, even if it seemed buggy in a couple respects. But last weekend, I went to use it and was asked if I wanted to upgrade to the new version.

Sure I said, bring it on.

I downloaded the new version of the application, and booted it up to start messing with it. There was a new option on the menu.

“My Location”

I clicked on it, and immediately I got a dot on what was nearly my exact position at the center of a large circle.

It said that was my approximate location within a couple hundred meters.

That’s great if I get kidnapped and wonder where I am…but what if I plan on kidnapping someone else? Maybe the Google software can help find me (which would be a bad thing, because I’m sure if I kidnap someone, there will be a really good reason and I shouldn’t get caught by the police).

I'm sure this type of thing may be mentioned in their user terms of agreement. Of course, I did what everyone else does, completely ignore them because they’re a complete waste of time.

So the fact that they might be able to find me is a little scary. Fortunately, I’ve found their other new development cool enough to outweigh that scariness.

It’s a little addition to YouTube called ‘Insight.’

Let’s say you uploaded a video of you moonsaulting your cousin Ed onto a breakaway table as part of some amateur backyard wrestling.

In the past, you had no real information about how your video was playing, you only had a view count, which is a little simple for a data driven analysis of your backyard wrestling ways.

But now with Insight, you can get tons of INSIGHT (get it, the name is what it does) on your viewing audience.

Since I uploaded footage of my TV appearances to YouTube months ago, and since those have been viewed over 75,000 times, I had plenty of data to warm my little GSB heart. (note: this doesn’t count the ~500k viewers watching Kebert Xela clips, as they were uploaded by someone else)

And what a treasure trove of information!

I can look at all my YouTube views and see how viewers are finding my videos, I can see when my views spike across different places in the country, I can even see how many times I’ve been viewed in different countries across the globe (I’m unusually big in Poland)

But a more interesting analysis comes when I look at the demographics of my viewing public.

Below, a graph of my viewing audience by gender.

Females outweigh Males by 26 percentage points! Very interesting…especially for a medium (Internet Video) that we can assume is used more by men than women.

The lesson here, is that chicks dig me.

Of course I couldn’t stop there. Below, is a demographic chart of the age ranges of my viewers. The green and gray together represent totals, the gray represents male viewers, and the green, are my large female fan base.

Upon closer inspection, I appear to have strength in two large blocks.

Boys ages 0 – 18

And Women ages 35 – 55

The final lesson, it seems, is that it’s not chicks that dig me, it’s soccer moms.

I guess I’ll take that.

Learning

I’ve had a couple crazy moments recently, things that were so weird and out of place that I wondered exactly what’s been going on.

I think I’ve been like, actually learning stuff at business school.

It’s been weird, when I’m just minding my own business, thinking to myself, and something from one of my classes pops in my head when I’m thinking about some kind of problem.

As an example, I was walking across campus the other day, thinking about my group project final for my technology strategy class. We’re picked a company to analyze and as a part of that, we’re spending time figuring out the technological forces and changes going on in media content distribution (I know, me working on a media-technology convergence project, such a surprise)

Anyway, I was thinking about the interfaces on most streaming web TV sites and thinking about whether it would be advantageous for any of them to adopt some kind of software algorithms to recommend other programs viewers might be interested in. Because as of right now, I don’t think they have that capability, and it would be really beneficial for some of them that have a couple really popular shows and many more smaller ones to prod viewers to their other content (and ads)

Obviously not a new idea, TiVo does it I think, and I believe Netflix at one point issued a challenge to the internet community for someone to develop just such an algorithm.

And so I started to think about how I would think about doing it, when out of the blue, a perceptual map jumped right into my brain from marketing.

Then I saw something shiny and got distracted, but then I starting thinking about what dimensions would be appropriate on such a map for television/movie programming.

I’m not sure how to deal with this, it’s like I’m building some kind of tool box.

Scary.

Also, today I totally got the chance to do a very UChicago thing and sit and hear a Nobel economist speak. That was definitely pretty cool.

The topic was essentially covering the increasing returns on education across the world as well as male/female splits of people pursuing education.

Most of it I was already pretty familiar with, but I thought the suggestion that the increase in female’s going to college is because the supply of women is more homogenous and therefore, more elastic (and if you ever want to get slapped in a bar…try going up to a woman and saying, ‘baby, you’re so homogenous’)

Anyway, the idea that women are more homogenous was supported by the fact that women in college have far smaller standard deviations in their average GPAs. I’m not sure that’s conclusive, but I thought it was a really interesting argument.

It was also good to hear that I share many of my personal beliefs on the education system with a Nobel economist. Crush teachers’ unions and pay based on merit.

My words, not his.

His probably have a lot more nuance and many more graphs.

This Post Will Provide No More Than One Laugh

Every post on this blog starts out the same way, I really should save it somewhere to reuse it and save myself the trouble of the 'I know I haven't written a blog entry in a long time' paragraph.

Hey, that's kind of different.

So I know I haven't been writing as much as I'd like to. A bunch of stuff has happened since my last entry, none of which involve me finding a place to live in NYC for the summer. Don't worry though, I'm taking care of it. After blogging I'm going to google 'Relatively Clean NYC Bus Stations' and see what comes back. Hopefully something near the office with a nice selection of vending machines.

Anyway. I went on Spring Break. Vegas. Fun, but my stories stayed there.

I also just went back home for a bachelor party/Passover weekend, that's a good combo, although Yom Kippur would've been more appropriate to just put the sins right before the atonement. Spent a lot of time traveling up to NYC to see a game at Yankee Stadium and then to Boston for a game at Fenway.

Verdicts: I still don't like either of their fan bases, but Fenway is way better than Yankee stadium and it's not even close. Of course, neither will ever approach the old Philadelphia Vet for history, ambiance, and foul-smelling concrete.

So I've been jetting around a little bit, and starting wondering about this marketing phenomenon I've been noticing and I'm wondering if it happens far more often than I realize.

The act of underpromising and overdelivering. Maybe that's acts, because it's two things, but I view them as parts of a whole, so we'll go with act.

I fly Southwest when I go back to Philadelphia. I like Southwest because they reward people with foresight. If you want a good seat, all you have to do is check-in online early, and you'll be on the plane before all those suckers in the 'B' class (which gives you a great chance to secure overhead compartment space. That's actually my greatest flying-related fear, no room in the overhead. Number two is 'miraculously surviving a fiery crash into a mountain only to have to eat the dead to survive. Number three is no peanuts.)

Anyway, the pilots at Southwest, they always get on the intercom sometimes during the flight. And while the flight time for MDW-PHL is two hours, they always ALWAYS talk about how they'll probably be able to get us in 'ahead of schedule'.

That makes me think about the Seinfeld routine on air travel. Basically, no cops in the sky means the pilots should floor it.

He tells it better.

When I heard that for the first time, I thought, 'Finally, a pilot who gets the fact that being on a plane totally sucks' I really liked that they were trying to beat their expected time of arrival.

Then I heard it again, and again, and again.

I figured there were two possibilities at work. Either Southwest (and maybe the whole airline industry) schedule small delays into the flight plans. Or, they want their customers to think what I thought the firsts time I heard that (and not the cynical feeling I felt on subsequent hearings).

Underpromising and overdelivering, a hallmark of my personal work habits, might have a larger place in the broader commerical markets.

I thought about the Southwest pilot off-and-on, wondering if that happens anywhere else. I'm still waiting for the day I go into McDonald's, order a double quarter pounder, and have them come back saying, 'Actually, we were able to make this a triple'

But I did order shoes recently. And I observed the phenomenon again (which made it significant enough that I thought it was blog-worthy)

I needed a new pair of sneakers, considering my old pair of New Balances were both A) Old as heck and B) worthy of fashion emergency status according to the stylish people I know (meaning girls)

But I kept putting off going to a shoe store, and finally tried Zappos.com when my gross looking shoes outweighed my inertia.

Zappos.com, if you didn't know, sells shoes and other stuff on the internet. They offer free shipping, and after placing your order it will arrive in between 4 and 5 business days. I figured I could wait that long, and placed my order.

No more than a day later, I got an email from the good people at zappos.

"Good news!

Although you originally ordered Standard (4 to 5 business days)
shipping and handling, we have given your order special priority processing in
our warehouse and are upgrading the shipping and delivery time frame
for your order.

Your order will ship out Monday, April 14th 2008 and be given a special
priority shipping status so that you can receive your order even faster than we originally promised!"

Hmm, I thought, that's good news. But as with any good news, I was suspicious.


Special priority processing??? Or maybe they just saw it was my first order and they want to convince me they actually treat their customers well! I can see their plan clearly now, they envision me living my life, wearing my new shoes at cocktail parties...

"Nice shoes, where did you get them?"

"I got them on Zappos.com It actually worked really well and they ended up shipping them to me EARLY!"

"Wow, I should give them ALL my shoe-ordering money!!!"

"If you didn't, you'd be a damned fool. They sure treat you great at Zappos.com!"


But I'm on to them. And it makes me wonder if there are other firms/industries out there that might try to do the same stuff regularly. In that they'll set some initial expectation of service, and then exceed it with what's actually their normal level of service.

One thing's for sure, I'm not going to be telling all my friends about Zappos. I'm not going to tell them about the expedited shipping, I won't bring it up in conversation, and I won't post the details of my experience on a widely viewed medium like the Internet.

Crap.

Signed and Sealed

Ok so we’ve established that recruiting is pretty much over…and now that I’ve officially signed my offer letter…it’s most definitely totally over.

Now that the FedEx is shipped off, I have to start getting ready for my first professional experience as a management consultant in New York City.

That faint cheer you just heard was all the AT&T diaspora living in the area, as well as the family, who are excited that I’ll be closer to home.

It was a pretty difficult decision, but I think I made the right one. And since I’m sure everyone wants to know how I made the decision, I thought I’d write up the breakdown I put together.

I had three choices, all in consulting. So I listed out all the critical attributes and compared them. I focused on the pros and cons of the most critical factors…

1 The city for the office – Because if I’m going to be spending three days a week there, it should at least have a nice skyline or something

2 The respective toys each company gave me – because nothing persuades me more than a $0.05 piece of plastic from the Corporate Oriental Trading Company…except maybe TWO $0.05 pieces of plastic

3 The relative finery of their respective pitch events – Short of finding a nice Chicago cougar, I’m probably not going to get very many free nice dinners for the rest of my life

LOCATION

Firm 1 - Philadelphia

Pros: Free Rent!!! Plus use of the pool when the parents are out of town, and unlimited TV watching after 10pm

Cons: Hard to persuade women that I actually own a five bedroom house and rent it out to a weird family that superimposed me into all their vacation photos

Firm 2 - New York

Pros: One of the media capitals of the world…hard to beat for someone who wants to consult in that industry

Cons: If paying two rents weren’t excited enough, one of them gets to be in NYC. What is especially ridiculous is that my offers for all three locations were nearly identical in terms of salary. What sense does that make given the ridiculous disparity in costs of living? The interns I know in Cleveland have already put down payments on mansions.

Firm 3 - Suburban Detroit

Pros: Umm….they offered me a free rental car and $800/month for rent assistance. I think that might be enough to be mayor

Cons: Aversion to street violence, and allergies to Kevlar would mean the occasional rash

COMPANY TOYS

Firm 1:

Company Water bottle, pens, one of those small drawstring mini-backpack things

Analysis:
Decent, although for some reason, the firm’s water bottle is roughly 1/3 the size of all other consulting firm water bottles, raising issues of size inadequacy. I also tend to drink a lot of water, so maybe they aren’t the right fit???

Firm 2:

At first, didn’t get anything, not even the ubiquitous water bottle. What gives??? Am I supposed to accept their offer tchotchke-less??? (Note to self, Word doesn’t recognize tchotchke…remember to raise issue with Yiddish authorities)

Analysis:
I came home last week to find a surprise package waiting for me. Turns out I get a tchotchke after all. It came in a nice little blue box (which will be excellent for re-gifting!). I had no idea what it could be, but it turned out to be a pretty sweet money clip (I guess because the firm appreciates irony?) Regardless, once I get some money, I might use it. I may also go get $50 in ones so it doesn’t feel unwanted.

Firm 3:

Nothing really, a round tin of curiously strong mints

Analysis:
Surprisingly good mints, they really came in handy in ensuring decent breath for other interviews.

PITCH EVENTS

Firm 1 – Dinner at French/Vietnamese Fusion restaurant

Analysis:
Really good food, plus Tsingtao, which was a nice change of pace from my typical Miller Lite

Firm 2 – Bulls/Cavs game

Analysis:
Got to see LeBron, he’s pretty good. Also confirmed the universal law that all stadium luxury boxes MUST have chicken fingers at ALL TIMES. Good thing chicken fingers are awesome

Firm 3 – Two dinners at different steakhouses

Analysis:
I don’t want to see another cow as long as I live.

So when I broke it all down, LeBron and the money clip won out over the breath mints and water bottle. (Note: everything contained within this post is purely recreational and meant in jest…all firm names have been expunged to protect my employability)

Get ready New York…here I come.

Glad That's Over

I finally can have my life back, now that recruiting is essentially over.

To eliminate any suspense, my trip to LA didn’t go very well. It was a three-interview day, with case interviews with three different people. The first two went pretty well. Then I got in a room with this British guy named Simon and he basically made me feel like a complete idiot.

The American Idol parallels are eerie

But as 50 Cent so wisely reminds me,

‘They ain’t nothing they can do to stop my shine’

My shine will just be in New York, that’s all.

Shortly before I left for Los Angeles, I got a call from one of the firms where I’d done a second round, they made me an offer to work in their NYC office for the summer.

I applied for New York because that’s where much of their media work is based. A few days after my initial offer call, I got a call from one of the firm’s partners, who apparently is my point of contact, or advocate, or buddy, or some other officialish title.

Anyway, he works exclusively in media and entertainment, so it was good to talk to him and get the chance to make that preference as clear as possible.

I was also really excited to attend the NYC office’s ‘celebration event,’ which consisted of some nice meals and activities designed to help you meet people at the firm and ideally sign on their dotted line.

But the wonderful weather gods apparently had other ideas.

I was scheduled for a 7am flight out of O’Hare into NYC to make it well in time for the noon lunch kickoff. I even skipped the regular Thursday night drinking event to go to bed early to make sure I could wake up in time.

So I woke up at 4am, which was surprisingly easy.

I got to O’Hare and the gate by 5:30, which made me contemplate my obsessive need to be early for everything and whether it was ever really a good thing.

And there I sat, waiting for the plane to arrive for the 7am departure.

Only it didn’t come. They announced it would be delayed until 10:30.

I soon realized my plane entertainment survival kit, which for flights less than 2.5 hours consisted of just my MP3 player and a pen to do the in-flight crossword and Sudoku, wasn’t going to cut it.

So I bought a book and settled in at the gate, disappointed at not only the delay but also at the fact that I was the only GSB’er there (which to me indicates I’ll be the only Chicago intern there this summer).

And then the book turned out to suck, and then my flight got cancelled.

I called the travel agent to see what options I had, only to find that all later flights into NYC were either already cancelled or booked up.

No celebration event for me.

I’m really kind of bummed out about that. I really wanted to meet people at the office before jumping right into the internship pool. I also wanted to know what the heck I should do for summer living arrangements.

But the office is near Grand Central, and I think I can always sleep there.

The more important aspect of this whole story is that with that trip now out of the picture, I think I’m officially done recruiting. I have a dinner here on Tuesday for a different firm, but I don’t think that really counts. Barring some complete apocalyptical disaster (at which point I think I’d stop thinking about internship prospects), I’ll be in New York for the summer.

So yay, I’m sure you’re all interested to hear that, but maybe you’re wondering what else has been going on in my life?

- Tonight’s our GSB formal event, featuring business students in all their finery getting hammered. I had to go out and buy a mask today for this masquerade thing. There were lots of choices, but I ultimately settled on one that would leave my lower face largely unencumbered to make drinking as efficient as possible. The location looks pretty swanky, and I’ve heard the phrase ‘top-shelf liquor,’ which at $80 a ticket, I’m pretty sure I’m owed. Should be a good time.

- I’m currently in the process of applying/waiting to hear from various leadership positions across the school community. Not exactly sure how it’s all going to shake out, but I’m going to have an interview for a graduate assistant position in the next week or so. What is a graduate assistant you ask? They’re the ones who get to read applications and interview prospective students. I’ve got a whole bunch of reasons why I want to spend my time doing it (and they don’t include ‘obsessive need for power’). I’m sure you get to see some complete off-the-wall stuff, some of which can go into my new compilation idea, ‘MBA Applicants Say the Darndest Things’

- I’m still going to class, so that’s good

- The official ‘visit me in Chicago’ floodgates are now open with recruiting over. Several discussions have already commenced, act fast and book your weekends now before its too late!

- With that said, consider when exactly you want to come out here. It’s still ridiculously cold here most of the time.

So That's Where I've Been

The last two weeks have been relatively insane and have included constant rollercoaster type swings in my mood and mental state.

Looking around the apartment, I see that there’s still a ton of wintry slush outside, my cable bill is still sitting on the table unpaid, and my textbooks and school stuff are still scattered all over like the UofC bookstore stumbled back after a hard night of partying and vomited all over my living room.

So the material aspects of this apartment are the same, it’s just me that’s been flipping out and turning and twisting in all kinds of ways (including but not specifically limited to waking up at all parts of the night).

That’s what we know, or rather, what I knew, and what you now know.

And now it’s pretty close to being over, or if not completely over, at least approaching its final destination.

With that, I wanted to make sure I blogged about a couple business school truisms that have come to light.

1 – Recruiting completely sucks

2 – Hmm…I don’t have another universal truth right now, so just go back and re-read #1, that’s a big one

Just to give you a sense of how the process has been for one MBA student (me), here’s a basic timeline of my recruiting activities over the last couple weeks. And a point of clarification, each one of these interviews generally include 45 minutes of discussion focused on prior experience and business problem evaluations.

Tuesday – Two first-round interviews with Firm A, where I analyze a grocery store company, followed by the fictional nation of Elderstan (which is apparently not nearly as funny as the Borat version of Kazakhstan). Hit a rough patch in the first interview when interviewer responds to my first answer with, ‘would it help to think of another example?’

Wednesday – Two first-round interviews with Firm B, where I analyze a Women’s Products Catalog company, followed by a fictional city called Contrivedville. Turns out I know something about Women’s Products.

Wednesday Night – Reception for Firm C, who’s interviewing tomorrow. They don’t have food, so I just drink a good amount…seemed like a good strategy

Thursday – Two first round interviews with Firm C, where I analyze a food products manufacturer, followed by a chemical distribution company. Did you ever think that a $5 billion market segment with 10% CAGR would be an industry where you DON’T want to spend more marketing dollars? I never would have guessed.

Thursday Night – Reception for Firm D, they interview next week, but since I know almost nothing about them, I really think I should go. They also don’t have food, so we simply re-apply the strategy from last night.

Thursday Night – Voice mail from Firm A, ‘Thanks for playing! But kindly get the hell away from us.’ My soul hurts

Thursday Night (20 minutes later) – Call from Firm B, ‘We’re intrigued…come tell us more.’ Soul rebounds

Friday Morning – Two first round interviews with Firm E, only one of which requires me to analyze an airline business situation. Unfortunately the other one focuses on me. Drag.

Friday Afternoon – Suspicious voice mail from Firm C that doesn’t ding me. Could be good news right? I return the call. Nope, turns out they want to make sure to ding you directly. I also would have accepted an exploding telegram.

Friday Night – One first round interview with Firm F, where I analyze an insurance company. Interviewer’s hobbies include quilting and horses, so lots of common ground with me.

Saturday – Phone call (wait, consultants work weekends???) Firm F appreciated my interest, and if there was one problem, it’s that I was too good with numbers. I debate complimenting them on the quick turnaround, but am generally too distracted by the sound of my internship dreams bursting into flames

Monday morning – Two interviews with Firm G, where I analyze a tractor company followed by a cable company and their potential wireless strategy. Given my background in the industry, I’m instructed to forget what I know about the area. Surprisingly, this is not difficult.

Monday afternoon – Two interviews with Firm D, remember them??? Just one business problem, this time it’s an appliance manufacturer. Biggest takeaway: if you call and complain about a damaged product, the company will probably pay you to shut up and keep it. I am now eagerly awaiting my first refrigerator so that I can scratch the hell out of it.

Monday afternoon – One interview with Firm H, where we manage to discuss no business issues. Part of the session actually focuses on me explaining what Jeopardy is and as a follow-up, how I know so much stuff (the answer: complete luck, or I’ve just got some kind of random fact gene, which I guess would be luck too). Anyway, interview ends with an invitation to a final round interview. That was unexpected.

Monday afternoon – Phone call from Firm G. Recruiter sounds upbeat, maybe she enjoys crushing MBA students? Put another ding on the board.

Monday Night – I’m on the other line and ignore call waiting. Good instincts, it’s a ding call from Firm E. Almost forgot you were even there Firm E, now you’ve ensured I’ll do everything I can to truly forget you.

Tuesday Morning – Very enthusiastic phone call from Firm G, almost like she was looking forward to dinging me. Why would that make an HR person happy??? A great mystery.

Tuesday-Wednesday – No interviews, I actually go to class and stuff. So I’m taking marketing this quarter? Really???

Thursday Morning – One interview with Firm I. This is actually a large corporation looking for a strategy analyst. A nice change of pace, until it turns out the interviewer just joined from Firm C. Would I mind a consulting-style interview??? Funny you should ask…

Thursday Afternoon – Two interviews with Firm J, one focused on analyzing a lubricant manufacturer, and one focused on me. Much of the first interview centers around me battling giggles regarding the lube company.

Thursday Night – Phone call from Firm J. ‘That didn’t totally suck, come in tomorrow.’ I didn’t want to have any free time on Friday anyway.

Friday Morning – One interview with Firm J, with two senior consultants, about a media company. Did I mention I was in the Media & Entertainment Group??? An opportune time to put my ‘passion for media’ money where my mouth is.

Friday Afternoon – One interview with Firm K, another corporation focused in a pretty cool industry. Did I say I didn’t like the routine nature of my historical corporate finance roles? I meant I loved it. I would marry process-oriented corporate finance roles if I could, that’s the world I want to live in.

Friday Afternoon – One phone interview with Firm L. Take everything I said in every other interview and reverse it. ‘It’s a pretty weird situation, but yes I did come back to business school to get a job doing EXACTLY what I was doing before school.’ One bonus, tap-dancing doesn’t show over a phone interview, or so I hope.

Friday Afternoon – Two interviews with Firm M. Can’t figure out if the first interviewer likes what I have to say or if he just thinks I’m cute. Could be both? Second case, focused on car battery technologies, goes better, without any semblance of homoeroticism. I am much more comfortable in the second interview.

Friday Night – Phone Call, it’s Firm J, do you want a summer job??? Partner informs me that I was on the bubble, then they saw the Jeopardy thing on my resume, and that pushed me over the top. Ha-ha, is he joking? Half-joking? Frankly, I couldn’t care less. I use the opportunity to bust out my ‘Got a Job Dance.’ Thank god the blinds are drawn.

Saturday Morning – Phone call from Firm M…are you free to come back in on Monday? When it rains, it pours.

Saturday Afternoon – Try to remember everything for a blog post.

So that’s where I’ve been over the last couple weeks. It’s been a long strange trip, and one that’s not over for another week. I still have the big Firm B opportunity, which has been my focus since day 1. Firm H might force me to rethink any aversions I’d have towards the city of Troy. Who knows what Firm M is thinking. But what’s struck me about the whole process is how much of it is dependent on complete random luck.

Two identical candidates could interview with the same firm, and because of different interviewers, time slots, case questions, what they had for breakfast, or any other such thing, could get dinged or passed through. No rhyme, no reason. And yes, certain people who are more well prepared are significantly more likely to do better on average. But really, it all comes down to whether you click with them or not.

So if an interviewer ever makes eyes at you…I say go for it

Inside the Recruiting Machine

I have a couple minutes to breathe, so I thought I'd post a blog before I get swallowed up by this giant recruiting tide. It's incredible how efficient it is, devouring just about every first year MBA student.

We all want summer internships, and if there's a hoop we need to jump through, just tell us how high (and then maybe light it on fire for some extra style points)

Let's take me as an example...how has the recruiting scene been treating me???

Well....I'm pursuing a lot of really good opportunities (thanks to the GSB and it's pretty decent pull)

My first choice, as just about everyone knows, is to join a leading management consulting firm. I have a lot of good reasons for this, which I will not detail here. But suffice it to say, I've cast quite a few nets in that industry's general direction. Beyond that, there are a number of intriguing potential opportunities in various corporate functions.

So I'm applying for a lot of jobs, but there's two subsequent elements to this story, actually getting an interview, and doing well in that interview.

Getting the interview can happen in one of two ways. You can be pre-selected by a particular firm for one of their 'closed list' spots...which means you applied and they definitely want to talk to you. If for some reason they don't realize how awesome you are, you can bid for an 'open list' slot. Open list slots are fewer in number, obviously, and each student only has a fixed pool of 1000 points to work with for the entire internship recruiting cycle.

Many of the top firms interview a lot of students. The three biggest names in consulting are close listing 70-100 people a piece, and many of the other major firms are close listing between 30 and 60. Now you might be saying, 'then just get on the close list and don't worry about bidding'

Not so fast. Remember when you wanted to go to a top-tier business school and surround yourself with really intelligent and accomplished people. Well, some of them want jobs too. It's totally unfair.

So you craft the best resume you can, and you try to build relationships with members of the firms you want at networking events. Etc. Etc. And then you apply (which we did over break), and you wait.

Oh, and if you thought it was just the 125-150 students who were interested in consulting that were applying against you, you were wrong. I forgot to mention that tons of bankers, investment managers, marketers, private equity privateers, and god knows who else threw their respective hats in the consulting ring. Lord knows why, I think the guy at the security desk got a McKinsey interview slot. Maybe they think consulting seems cool, maybe they think it makes a great backup for banking, who the hell knows...but there are more applicants than you expect.

With that said, the first week of consulting interview invitations have come out, and I'm fortunate to have done alright. Of the five firms interviewing, I got close listed for three of them. Then, this morning I got an email that another firm has bumped me up off their alternate list to a closed list spot. So I'm four for five, and remain on the wait list for the last firm (so if you're a banker and reading this, and you have a consulting interview that you insist on keeping because you can...just remember that I will definitely know exactly who you are...and I'm not one for threats, and I can't say what I'll do, but it's going to be ugly)

Anyway, I'm really pretty happy with how things have worked so far...but there's still the little problem of getting ready to not completely freeze up in the interview. In that regard, the school has a pretty robust support system for making sure their students don't come off like total tools (or so they try, I'm sure some bad apples still squirt through)

I've had two school sponsored mock interviews, both specific for my intended field, both recorded on DVD for my viewing pleasure. That's in addition to all the students helping each other.

In particular, the consulting interview is its own class of awkward interaction. There's still some room for standard questions like, 'why do you want to work here?' and 'walk me through your resume' which isn't really a question, but you know what I mean.

Then they have this thing called the 'case portion'

For those not in an MBA program, the case portion is basically challenging the interviewee to answer a general and usually open-ended business question.

A typical prompt might be...

"Our client is a large national chain of coffee houses. It's revenues were $1 billion last year, but it has not matched the growth of its competitors. The CEO wants to know what the problem is, and how it can be fixed"

Then you just kind of go for a half hour or so, asking questions, trying to gather evidence (which the interviewer usually has in their notes or in their head).

There's a whole process to it, and honestly, I think it's pretty interesting to do...definitely more fun than telling leadership story after teamwork story after accomplishment story.

Anyway, the vast majority of my life is now spent either preparing for generic interview questions, case questions, or worrying about getting interviews.

It's a fun life here in Chicago, where the temperature is supposed to feel like its below zero this weekend.

Apparently that's what they meant when they said it got cold in Chicago