No Lo Se

I feel obligated to write, but I’ve got no clue where to start. The active J08 bloggers seem to have everything covered, with pictures to boot.  Classes are moving along at a fairly insane pace, P1 is more than half over, exams are right around the corner and I still have no idea what the hell a T-Account is.

Note to all future intakes: The idea of trying to catch up on the previous week’s worth of work on the weekends doesn’t fly.  Either do it during the week, or don’t do it at all.  Something always manages to come up on Saturday, and Sundays are reserved for sleep and a visit to the marche (food market/flea market) in Fonty center.

Those with an interest in finance have begun the interview process and I seem to have missed the ocean, let alone the boat.  I guess that means I wasn’t cut out to be a financier in the first place.  That, or I’m just lazy.

“Club 16,” one of the nicest big houses I’ve been privileged to see, is hosting their second P1 party this evening.  The theme is Oktberfest, and the email invites have advised people to bring beer.  Seeing that in France, wine is cheaper than water and beer, I’m curious to see what kind of supply they end up with.  Alas, I’m staying in this rainy evening and cuddling up with Ross, Westerfield, Jaffe, Jordan’s Modern Financial Management, 8th Edition.  I hear portfolio covariance calculations make for warm bedfellows.

Bon nuit.

Voiture

I’m still scratching my head over this one.

Seen in the INSEAD parking lot last week:

MBTI

I should really be studying for the Prices & Markets (euphemism for microeconomics *shudder*) quiz that goes down at 0830 tomorrow morning, but I’m going to milk my illness instead and drink so much tea that my bladder is building a little Ark, just in case.

So we scored our Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in Leading People and Groups (LPG) today.  I wasn’t horribly surprised by my neat little 4-letter personality, but some of my peers were shocked.  Hah.  Refer to my previous line about INSEAD MBAs not being able to read people.  Or maybe it’s all an indication of how great of a networker I really am?  If it walks like a duck…

LPG is one of those classes where you walk in not knowing what to expect, and walk out knowing even less.  No one has any clue how the hell we’re going to be tested on the material presented in this class.  Oh, wait, what material?  Let me qualify this rant with the disclaimer that I really enjoy the class, and think our professor is great.  But come on, we’re assigned a serious amount of reading to do before each class, and we end up covering maybe 1/6 articles.  The rest of the time is spent in open discussions about tangential offshoots of the subject du jour.  To make things super-duper crazy, we’re asked to just shout out any and all contributions, which flies in the face of every other professor’s “please raise your hand and wait to be called on like a good 2nd grader” policy.  Madness, I tell you.

A wise old Chinese man once told me that the best pot of tea is not the first, but any thereafter.  It has to do with the leaves being given time to soak, or something along those lines.  I’m moving on to pot number six.  At this rate, the next one should gild my innards.  My mother always told me I had a heart made of gold.

Yeah, this post was disjointed.

Question of the Day:  Are you an E or an I?

Blurb

Necromonger was right; it’s a lot harder to post daily than I thought. I barely have enough time to sleep, let alone half an hour to bang out a half-ass blurb.

This one will be quick, as I feel like crap. There’s a bug going around school, and after incubating for the past few days, it busted out through my throat this morning, like a good little alien. I’m sure the constant substitution of coffee for water isn’t helping, nor is the cold one minute, hot the next weather.

As to school, the work isn’t “hard,” per se, but the schedule is killing me. No two days are the same. Sometimes class starts at 0830, sometimes it starts at 1015. I’m sure this is done on purpose so that our Circadian Rhythms are thrown off-kilter for extra stress.

There has been a company presentation nearly ever night for the past week, and it looks like this pattern is here to stay for a while. Having to dress up every day for either this or that is becoming quite a pain in the ass. I need to buy a set of disposable fancy clothes to keep in my car.

Anyway, it’s time to read about the differences between an income statement and a balance sheet. Shoot me now.

Semana

This post is about a week late, but oh well; life has been busy, and busy is good.  For a full synopsis of INSEAD J08’s Orientation Week, check out Res I(p)sa’s post, or be patient and maybe you’ll get something out of me eventually.

The chateau parties do live up to their reps. Or at least this first one did. So far, the Montmelian party has been the largest INSEAD get together I’ve attended. Barring the long walk from the gate to the house itself, and the “sacrifice a virgin by moonlight” lighting that was going, it was a blast.

The weather held, and it was a perfect night to have an outdoor party.  Music was pumping from one of the residents’ Bose iPod speakers suspended from a 2nd floor (3rd to the Americans) window, the beer fridge was overflowing and INSEADers were mingling by the light of tiki-torches.  I don’t think I saw anyone without a beer, wine, or occasional soda in their hand, and no one was ever alone, unless they were walking to the can, and even then not 100% of the time.

Props to the Chateau Montmelian crew for putting on a great  gig.

Monday kicked off Orientation Week, which has felt more like Cult Initiation Week, with a heaping plate full of mental hazing.  Forms, forms, forms.  Forms in original form.  Forms in triplicate form.  Forms to request more forms.  Forms to fill out so that INSEAD and the French government can take even more of your money so that they can print more forms.  Had the whole fustercluck been a bit more organized, I would’ve felt better.  As it was, the tutorial on how to go through the process was something to the effect of, “Here’s a chopstick.  Now go herd 39 cats in to this cubicle.  You have two hours.  Go!”

On top of handing over another few hundred euro for things like tax stamps and preemptive library fines, there were “introduction” classes held all week, which run through Saturday.  That’s right; we have eight hours of lecture this Saturday.  Why exactly am I paying for this?

Lastly, and by far leastly (a DTLF-coined phrase, yet again), I’m starting to settle in a bit.  I’ve met some great people, firewalled myself from the not-so-great, and hope that I start believing that this is all for real, soon.

Back to my 2am jambon, camembert, baguette sandwich.  Here’s to health and late-night artery-clogging snacks.

Surreal

.

Surreal: sur·re·al–adjective

 

1.	Having the disorienting, hallucinatory quality of a dream; unreal; fantastic: surreal complexities of the bureaucracy

Do you ever get the feeling that you’ve transcended The Twilight Zone and stepped straight in to an Impressionist painting, as the petal of a sunflower? That pretty much sums up the last couple days of my life in Fontainebleau.

Loads of fellow students are arriving in earnest now.  I was on campus the other day and the place was packed.  As “international” and “diverse” INSEAD is, supposedly, the cliques are forming.

The Red Corner is getting together.  Punjabi groups are getting together.  American crews are getting together.  What happened to learning from each other? 

The first chateau party is tonight.  Let’s see if they live up to their reputations.

Cubierta

This post has been languishing in the “Drafts” section for a while, so I figured it was time to dust it off and give it a go. Oh, how very British of me. “Give it a go, ol’ chap. You must be thirsty after that furious go you just had. Fancy a pint?”

A few months back, INSEAD released it’s 2006 Career Report which potential students and new admits eagerly peruse like crones over tea leaves, for indications of how much gold, frankincense, myrrh they can expect to have tithed to them upon graduation.

My issue isn’t with the content (though I have some issue with the potentially misleading numbers, but that’s fodder for another post) but rather with the cover, which I’ve attached below.

Analysis of 2006 Career Report cover

Cover: It’s sunny! There are pretty green trees! Hey, look at all the glass and steel around. This must be a modern building, full of high-tech wizardry and gadgetry, just like our school! It’s shiny, and we know how you all love shiny things. That’s why you’re getting an MBA after all, so you can score that €144K EUR salary and buy all the pretty, shiny things your black, black capitalist heart desires.

Reality: Though I have not seen the Fonty campus, current and past students say that it is constantly under (re)construction, and that any dose of modernity lost its relevance in the ’60s. INSEAD literature explicitly states that Macs are not supported, and that there is no WiFi in the amphitheaters. As Hallonman, NYFrog and other recent student bloggers can attest to, it’s not always sunny in France. Even in late May. Or June, for that matter.

Cover: Look at our crazily diverse student body!  Look at how representative of the world we are!  There are about 19.5 billion Asians on the earth, and growing, and the balance is made up of whites!  Let me present you with our Benetton Ad, Lite:

1) Shorter Asian woman, young-ish, in sandals and casual clothes smiling up at big white man.

2) Big, animated white man in shirt, slacks, dress shoes, explaining something to the younger, diminutive, (dare I say subservient?) Asian woman.

Reality: OK, what the hell. Why not just put her in a cheong sam, throw a pair of chopsticks in her hair and post a thought bubble with something to the effect of “Five dowah, ruv you rong time” and complete the picture?

If INSEAD is going to play the diversity angle to sell the school, at least put a few non-Caucasians on the cover. Would it be so hard to portray up an Indian female or for that matter, a mid-30s Indian male IT professional with 12+ years of post-IIT graduate experience who wants to change careers and be an I-banker or management consultant?  Te he.  INDIANSEAD jokes will never get old.

Maybe a black male? Oh, wait, J08 has all of n blacks, where n is less than or equal to .00314159

To add insult to injury, the big white man is probably a frog too, since the French still make up a disproportionate 10% of the class.

So much for diversity.

Piensas

Status messages seen on G-Chat over the last few days:

You kiss like a dementor.

Pull a Pettigrew and go choke one out.

Your mom’s a horcrux.

—

Up until last night, I didn’t think I was adequately preparing for the imminent departure. Then I realized that I’ve been slowly shutting down, mentally, for a while now. How is this good, you ask? Well, I have a tendency to think, over think, and think some more, with a dash of thinking thrown in for taste. What is it that they say about MBAs? That they’re guilty of paralysis by analysis? Yup, that’s me.

So shutting down is good, in my case. There are non-essential matters that are taking up brain capacity (the delusion of inter-gender relationships, and their true evolutionary purpose, for example) and those need to be put aside, at least for the next year. Anything not INSEAD related is being filed away for future review by that green-visor sporting, vest wearing hamster that resides in my head. Christ on a cracker, we’ve got a nutjob in our class, you say? Where? Perhaps s/he and I will get along.

Epic Pile

Caveat emptor: All gloves are off for this post, and probably for all posts from here on out. Lock up your kids and keep the squeamish away. If you’re riding a moral high-horse, get the hell off now, or be prepared for some real anti-Mongol Tae Kwon Do flying dragon kick dismount action from this blog. D-Day approaches and the rain of sub-par bullshit not to be expected from a “T1″ b-school has begun. And I’m here to write about it.

I had to ditch the Spanish title for this post, since I lack the creativity to express myself how I’d like to in a foreign language.

Search term of the day that drove more than 1 set of eyeballs to my site: “INSEAD unemployed.”

I just threw away an hour-and-a-half of my life and took the “Career Leader” assessment that was posted on NetVestibule. If the results are are accurate at a .0000001% confidence interval, then I’m totally fucked and headed for some INSEAD unemployment myself.

The last skills/aptitude/career test I took was back in the early ’90s, and from what I remember of the content, it was probably written in the ’60s. It did spit out quite a few gems though, amongst which were my ideal career paths: secretary or clerical worker.

The INSEAD test is on par with the Jetson’s era crap, if not even more idiotic.

You have a notable interest in three core elements of business work:

• Creative Production
• Influence Through Language and Ideas
• Quantitative Analysis

In the workplace, you will probably enjoy activities such as:

• designing new products
• developing marketing concepts
• creating visual and verbal advertising ideas
• planning events
• managing public relations

Awesome analysis. Batting .333 in baseball isn’t bad. On a career test, not so much. This test and its results, Harvard author be damned, are an epic, steaming, pile of shit.

I am not the creative type. I don’t do arts and crafts. I have never worked in any creative industry, nor do I have even a vague interest in doing so. I do not plan well. Impulse and whim rule my existence. I feel that public relations is a bunch of bullshit akin to politics. Innovative? Newfangled? I’ve been driving the same jalopy for the last 12 years. I don’t watch television, and tune out all advertisement I run across, in whatever medium. Shall I go out and buy some festive hats and streamers for our cute little office party?

Give me a fucking break.

I am absofuckinglutely horrid at math. I took the minimum amount required in college to graduate. Yeah, yeah, I’m going to b-school, where quant is king. Actually, no. Refer to the sea of literature about how INSEAD is a consultant mill. If I wanted to be a fucking quant jock, I would’ve applied to fucking Chicago.

Organizational Culture
You would fit best in an organizational culture that is a bit reserved and on the polite side. In such companies, departments, and teams, a lot of the work is done independently, behind closed doors — or at least with some privacy and allowance for focus and concentration. Boisterousness and aggressive behavior definitely run counter to the norm in this kind of culture. People who thrive in such organizations generally view social and business “networking” as a chore to be avoided or minimized, rather than as a fundamental — and fun — part of work. Your tendency in this direction is very strong, so you’ll want to pay close attention to this aspect of any organization you consider working for.

OK, I’m not a big networker. Yay, it got something right. I’ve also never worked for a company that even comes close to the above description. Ever. It would be hard to describe my past gigs as “PC” in the slightest. I’ve sat in on more conference calls that involved pounding on tables, genuinely pissed off people, and winning lines like “Where the fuck is my order, I don’t fucking care what your fucking excuse is; get that goddamn container on the boat tomorrow tomorrow or we’re canceling all of our POs” than the typical, button-downed, Steelcase cubicle BS of, “Let’s touch base on the feasibility threshold tomorrow.”

Sure, tests aren’t perfect. And hell, test results can even be misleading. Having taken the GMAT, scored what I scored, and got in to b-school, I know that for a fact. I can forgive the lapses quoted above. I can even chuckle at them and spew paragraphs of invective in response. But when I read the following, the whole thing lost any credibility it had with me.

You can express this interest through virtually any business career path. But clearly sales is a natural fit.

Wow. Just wow. Let me just say that I hate salesmen. Cold-callers are the scum of the earth. I understand that cold-callers are not representative of sales in general. So let me take this to a blanket level and say that I despise sales as a function and as an industry.

Every negative stereotype of salesmen has been proven and reinforced a thousandfold by my experiences. I see ignorant people get taken by annuity and financial products salesmen all the time. I’ve seen sheisters sell sub-par cars to people who obviously know nothing about automobiles and feign ignorance when the piece of shit breaks down 2 weeks after being driven off of the lot. I watched my parents get suckered in to buying a time-share when I was too young to understand. Now that I’m a little bit older, and a little bit wiser, I’ve got a deceptively simple product I want to sell to these salesmen: a swift kick to the crotch.

Therefore, telling me that “sales is a natural fit” is akin to saying, “Hey, DTLF, you’re the fucking Antichrist.”

INSEAD Career Services is 0 for 2. It’s a tough climb from here.

Noche

I had a chat late last night with a man in an interesting line of work that I once thought I wanted to get in to, but is, according to him, over-glamorized and misperceived by the public.

I hadn’t really thought about that field in a while, except during those occasional bouts of “Is there a purpose to all of this?” but after our talk, the wheels are turning again. Apparently, a MBA may actually help me get in to this field, albeit tangentially.

Amongst the (printable) things that stood out from our conversation is the following edited tidbit.

“There is a price for everything… No one will ever marry an <insert profession here>. You’ll be the three year fling they have before they go and find someone stable to settle down with.”

Would that be so bad?

EDIT:  A reader asked if I could be more cryptic with this post.  Yes, yes I could.  “The Blue Wolf howls towards the chartreuse moon at midnight.”