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.