General
Why Are MBAs Still Popular?
Apparently MBA programs at universities are still incredibly popular. But I’m a bit of a loss as to why. Everyone makes fun of MBA students/graduates. You can say that ‘everyone’ is doing something when that something starts showing up in advertising. Take, for example, FedEx’s advertisement in late 2003 where a co-worker is saying how easy it is to FedEx something. The MBA graduate says ”But I’m an MBA” implying that he’s now trained such that FedEx-ing something is beneath him. The co-worker then responds “Oh, you’re an MBA. Well, I’ll have to show you how to do it then.”
I bring this topic up because Joel posted his thoughts about MBA grads saying that ”there’s too much evidence that MBAs substitute book-learnin’ for common sense or experience. And he goes on to say that he would rather ”hire someone who created and ran a profitable lemonade stand than someone who has taken two years of finance courses at Harvard”. I haven’t had much exposure to MBA students or graduates but I have agree that after getting a Bachelor’s degree, there’s no substitute for experience.
One of the best examples (in addition to Joel’s bakery experiences) is the way the Army functions. Most people don’t understand how the Army works unless they’ve had some exposure to it. But I’ll let you in on some secrets. The Army is like a big corporation split into three groups: the executives and executive track members (the Army calls them officers), the managers (the Army calls them senior NCOs), and the rest of the workers (the Army calls them troops or soldiers). In a corporation you have CEOs and VPs, in the Army you have Colonels, Majors, Captains and Lieutenants. In a corporation you have managers and team leaders, in the Army you have Sergeants and Corporals. Finally, in a corporation you have the rest of the workers, in the Army you have the troops. You still may not get the scope of things but bear with me.
In the Army, the senior NCOs are older, more experienced soldiers. By the time I became a Sergeant, I had been in the Army as a tank guy for 9 years. In that time, I had fired most weapons and driven most vehicles the Army has to offer. I’d dug more slit trenches than I care to admint, done the late night sentry shifts looking for bad guys that never came, eaten cold meals, been on training exercises where I hadn’t showered in 10 days and shaved in the dark in temperatures well below freezing. I hadn’t loved doing those things all the time but I loved being part of the Army. But more importantly, there wasn’t too much about tank stuff that one of my troops could ask me that I couldn’t answer. And there wasn’t any job that I asked the troops to do that I hadn’t done at least thirty times myself.
My initial Sergeant training resulted in my promotion to Sergeant but it was my experience that commanded the respect of the troops. I could have studied all the books in the world on leadership and tactics and executing tasks effectively but it was only through experience (and following the Army’s principles of leadership) that I was able to learn how to properly be a good leader.
In the Army, most ‘junior executives’ start out on the Executive track as 2nd Lieutenants and are placed in charge of a group of senior NCOs and troops. The MBA types immediately try to make things better (even though they may not be broken) because they ‘know’ the best way to do things, which is the completely wrong way to go about it. Instead, the better junior executives start by asking their managers (aka Sergeants) what’s wrong and how things could be improved. They then try to learn as much as they can from their Sergeants; when you have the support of your Sergeants, you have the support of the troops. And in the end those executives who learned from their managers will have more respect and ultimately, in most cases, go on to become much better senior executives.
Back to MBAs; I can’t say I place any value on having an MBA without the experience to back it up. And if you have the experience then I’m not sure the MBA is anything more than a confirmation of your experience. Except that you’ll have that stigma attached.
[…]
Way Behind
I’ve been so busy with work and life in general (though I think I’m pretty typical) that I have fallen way behind in my blogging. It’s not that I haven’t been blogging per se, it’s just that I haven’t had enough time to finish and edit my entries. I have three more entries from my NYC trip which are in various stages (ranging from quick edit required to drunken point-form notes), two entries from my flight to Dauphin and two entries on my first two IFR training sessions. I hope to take a couple hours this coming weekend, polish everything off and post them all. I’ll be keeping the dates as is, more as a reference than anything else even though some of them didn’t really come into their final states necessarily on those days. Not that anyone cares.
[…]
CBC Is Back
The CBC is back. I don’t know what the average number of hours Canadians listen to CBC Radio is but I know that I missed the CBC on weekday mornings and evenings and on Saturdays. I’m a huge fan of the CBC. In fact, the CBC is the only thing that I get close to fanatical about. I absolutely love the CBC. Ali tried to replace the CBC with Lite 96 but it just wasn’t the same. We both missed the Calgary Eyeopener, As It Happens and Cross Country Checkup, and I missed Go, DNTO and Quirks & Quarks.I think we likely listen to more CBC than the average person but the thing with the CBC is that it’s pretty hard to replace any of the CBC Radio shows with something else. That’s because the shows are so unique and of such great quality.
Take, for example, today’s episode of GO. A big chunk of the show was dedicated to ‘junk mail’, where a guest sent a bunch of weird items, which they considered worthy of Amelia Bedelia, from Toronto to Ottawa via Canada Post. The catch? None of the items were packaged in anything whatsoever. Instead all they had on them was an address and some stamps. So far so good. Except, it gets better. The items were: a can of soup, a hockey puck, a bag of human hair, a feather duster, a hammer, a saucepan and two shoes (sent separately). As it turns out Canada Post delivered everything except the two shoes and to Canada Post’s credit, only the hammer and saucepan were delivered in over 4 days. There is no way you could find a show as creative and entertaining any else but CBC Radio.
And the Amelia Bedelia reference is so quirky, you’d only find that on the CBC. And I love that. Especially when it reminds you of reading that book 25 years ago with your Mum.
[…]
NYC Day Five
Marcos decided that in order to keep his job that he should work today. I guess I can’t blame him as it was Monday afterall. Plus he was leaving that night for a flight to the UK. That meant that Ali and I could enjoy some breakfast while out and about. We chose a cute little place nearby called ’Eat Here Now’. The food was traditional breakfast/diner type food but very good; highly recommend it.
Then it was off to MoMA (or as Marcos insisted I write it: mOmA)… the Museum of Modern Art. A visit to MoMA could easily occupy an entire day; we rushed a little bit and spent a little over four hours there.
We met up with Marcos for dinner at the proper sushi restaurant, Fusha Sushi, before his flight to the UK later that night. The sushi at Fusha Sushi was much better than the other restaurant we landed at on Saturday night. After saying bye to Marcos, Ali and I headed down to the Baker Street pub for drinks. Then we decided to head downtown to get some pictures of Grand Central Station and Times Square at night. We had visited there on the first night, but hadn’t brought the camera. Grand Central Station was full of people and had great lighting, which resulted in some great pictures thanks to Ali’s artistic side. We had similar results at Times Square which was full of tourists wandering around aimlessly, plus a cluster of tourists gawking at what appeared to be a movie being filmed but for which nothing was actually happening.
The night then ended with a mad dash to various stores around Marcos’ place to get some juice for Ali. You know those times when your body just craves something with sugar and you want to indulge but don’t want to settle for a slurpee or other similar bad item? This was one of those times. We found a late-night cigarette shop and decided on some pink grapefruit juice. I’m not sure it was the best grapefruit juice ever, but it was pretty darn close.
[…]
NYC Day Four
We woke up rather early today. Yet, despite the early hour there was no breakfast. Sadness sets in; I’m missing my Weetabix. But Marcos’ home brew coffee helped make up for the missing energy. Thanks to the wonder of the Internet and Marcos’ knowhow, we had a car reserved (with GPS) from the Hertz a few buildings down.
The plan for today was to hop into the rental, drive to Caldwell Airport (KCDW) in Fairfield, NJ where where I had arranged to rent a plane from Mac Dan Aviation and then get the best possible views of the Manhatten area. And after that we wanted to try and check out Cooney Island and drive around Brooklyn and perhaps get out to Harlem and Queens. The plan mostly went as expected though with a few hiccups.
We navigated to the Caldwell Airport using the GPS, but the navigation functionality was somewhat lacking on the more complicated intersections (such as the NJ turnpike). As a result, combined with Marcos’ [crazy] race car style driving, we got ‘navigationally challenged’ a couple of times. Ali suggested that in the future we use road signs rather than the GPS. That also meant that we arrived at Mac Dan a little behind schedule and it was 12:30 by the time I had signed all the paperwork and had the engine started. The weather for the flight was perfect with almost no haze and no clouds whatsoever. We got a great view of all things Manhatten and when I get a chance I’ll do a separate entry about the hour and a half flight.
After the flight we headed back to Manhatten. The drive, though still done like we were rally car racing, went flawlessly and took no time whatsoever. We then headed over to Brooklyn where we headed to Coney Island. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), the big wooden rollercoaster was closed so we settled for an ice cream cone on the boardwalk and called it a day.
We ate dinner in tonight (Marcos led the team with sous chefs Doug and Ali) and topped the evening off by enjoying two bottles of wine and a couple of cigars. If you are looking for a really good wine, check out Lafond 2002 Syrah (Santa Rita Hills).
[…]
NYC Day Three
There was another long sleep in this morning; that’s what happens when you fill your evenings with good food and drink. The day then started off with an intense debate between Marcos and Ali about capitalism, corporate responsibility and marketing. I think there were other topics touched on but I tuned out after the first half and hour; I was too busy catching up on the news back home and reading about the demise of the Murdoch empire in an old copy of ‘New York’ that Marcos had lying around.
Today’s window shopping included a stop at Tiffany’s, where Ali bought a beautiful solid silver necklace. At a reasonable price too. Not like the $1.3 million dollar necklace we gawked at in one of the showcases. At the corner of 53rd Street & 6th Ave we saw half a dozen firetrucks with their ladders up the side of the Hilton hotel there. We stuck around for a bit, not to watch the fire (or lack thereof more like it) but to enjoy the best street vendor hot dog ever. Big hot dog, all the toppings you want, friendly service and all for two dollars. Yup, two bucks. Nice. Then we topped the afternoon off with a walk back to Marcos’ place via Central Park
You can’t come to New York without doing several New York things. We had a hot dog from a street vendor earlier and I covered the ‘have something stolen’ ground on day one so next on the list was to see a Broadway play. We had already decided on seeing a funny musical called ’The Producers’ and had tickets waiting for us at the box office. It was indeed a very funny musical and was probably one of the funniest theatre productions I’ve seen to date. The story is good and the music is catchy. Even Marcos enjoyed it, which is probably something that should be put in the reviews given that it’s typically hard to impress him.
After the show we were starved so we hopped the subway to head back uptown with the intent of going to a good sushi place by Marcos’ place. Instead we wondered around E 64th Street and 1st Ave looking for it. Since we were unsure of the actual address of the desired sushi restaurant, we settled on another one, which turned out to be only a block from where we wanted to be but was of inferior quality and service. And then another post midnight turn in.
[…]
NYC Day Two
Since last night was a drinking disaster, we slept in until noon today. Marcos insisted on working so Ali and I did our own thing. After we walked with Marcos to “ups”, he pointed us in the direction of the subway, which we took to Union Station.
From Union Station, Ali and I walked all the way south to the Staten Island Ferry terminal. Along the way, we walked through China Town, SOHO, walked through Wall Street and sat in the City Hall park. There is a lot of security around key parts ofkok New York. For example, the New York Stock Exchange and the NYC Court building are both surrounded by fences and guards. I’m not sure what things were like before nine-eleven but it’s too bad that things are at the current state. Regardless, it was amazing to wander amongst the beautiful architecture found within New York City. NYC takes advantage of every possible available space and Manhatten it’s neat to see all of the old buildings all connected together, not at all like Calgary where first, we don’t have all that many old buildings and second, all of our buildings are separated and as a result have windows on all four sides.
The other great thing about NYC is their support of the police and fire department. In the span of an hour we saw people (regular looking New Yorkers; whatever that means) doing hands shakes and high fives with officers. And the NYPD beat cops are everywhere; you can’t throw a stone within a city block without hitting at least two of them. And the support is reciprical also. In City Hall Park we saw a beat cop carrying an old lady’s shopping bags and holding her hand as he escorted her through the park. Simply amazing.
We got to the Staten Island Ferry terminal just in time to catch the 4 o’clock ferry. It’s a free ferry ride and is a great way to get up and close with the Statue of Liberty. At least as close as you can get for free. It’s 30 minutes each way and there’s not a lot to do on the ferry but there’s no better way to see the Statue of Liberty and the Manhatten skyline.
For dinner, at the incredibly late (for dinner anyways) hour of 10pm, we headed down to the meatpacking district and had dinner at ‘One’, a dining experience that’s supposed to be all about sharing but we didn’t do much of that. After the dinner hour, One becomes a bit of a dance club but not at all a good one; so we left at half past midnight. I would recommend One for the food but not for the club.
On our way home we encountered ‘Marcos in the raw’, much like the Bitonic days, and it will undoubtably have me laughing for the remainder of the trip. As we were cabbing back from the meatpacking district to the Upper East Side, where Marcos lives, we passed by another cabby with a girl hanging her head out the window. In a seemingly paniced state, Marcos rolled down the window while simultaneously telling us to “check this out!” This was then followed by a loud, Marcos-patented “Whoo!” in support of the girl and what Ali and Marcos have now coined the ’Manhatten Clam Chowder’. Nice. It’s funny how no matter what city you’re in, there are always young, drunk people heading home in cabs.
Update: there is a better way to see the skyline and the Statue of Liberty. See the day four blog entry.[…]
NYC Day One - part 2
Now that I’ve rested up I feel better about things despite the fact that I discovered this morning that my nice Diesel belt is also missing. I still feel violated and I still hope the luggage thief is equalized by karma (some sort incident involving tripping down some stairs while wearing my shoes would be good) but I’m now laughing about the incident.
Last night, other than worry about the state of my luggage which had yet to be delivered, was an amazing night. We started off with some dinner at a small pub one and half blocks from Marcos’ apartment. It’s a great little pub and happens to be the pub featured at the start of the movie Cocktail. Neat. Then we walked down to Times Square, took the subway into Grand Central Station and then headed to an area Marcos called ‘Alphabet City’. There we hit this cool reggae bar and I tried a shisha pipe, which was a rather cool experience. Then after leaving there shortly before 2am, we went in search of a hot dog vendor but settled on a late night pizza place.
The pizza was one of the best slices I’ve had to date, but the best part about the pizza was being mistaken for homeless people (Marcos’ blog tells the sotry best) while eating the pizza. Yes, it’s been a bizarre day. Fun, but bizarre. It seems that in NYC if anyting can happen, it will… good, bad or bizarre.
[…]
NYC Day One
The day started at 5:30am when the alarm went off and I didn’t feel like getting out of bed. I should have known better. The flight to Ottawa was uneventful except for some light chow (a little turbulence) just after takeoff and just before landing at Ottawa. Oh the landing; forgot about that. My best guess is that the crosswind was at least fifteen knots (the wind sock was horizontal) at about 30 degrees off the runway. The landing was hard; hardest landing I’ve experienced to date. Even harder than the landing Westjet did at Kelowna.
After entering the terminal at YOW, we needed to collect our bags and clear US customs. That’s fine. In the past, I’ve always collected my bags at the carosel like everyone else and then dragged my bags through US Customs only to place them back on a baggage conveyor belt. Not at Ottawa. At Ottawa there’s a secret room that only a few people know about and that’s where your bags end up. Why doesn’t anyone know about the secret room? Because in order to access it, you need an Air Canada escort. Nice. Then what do you do? You drag your bags forty feet, put it on another conveyor belt and say by to the bags. Then you proceed to US Customs without your checked luggage. WTF?
After arriving at La Guardia (LGA), Ali and I waited for our bags. Ali’s bag came out first, followed by my garment bag and then what looked to be my suitcase. Only some guy grabbed it. So I assumed it was he and I had similar bags. Only we didn’t. He had no bags and was a low life thief and was in fact stealing my bag, which would explain why I couldn’t find him after I lost sight of him. You see, when someone grabs a bag that looks like mine I’m immediately sceptical. It’s the result of 13 years in the Army where everyone’s kit and clothes look the same. What I should have done was grabbed the guy and checked the bag but he looked well dressed and was carrying a small leather case. In order words, he fit in and lokoed like he belonged. But in actual fact he was a low life thief. Did I mention that part?
After reporting my bag missing to Air Canada and catching a cab to Marcos’ place, Air Canada called and told me that my bag had been found by NYPD in the airport as an abandoned bag. The reason it was returned to the Air Canada desk? It’s Air Canada luggage. Thank goodness we got new luggage this year and decided on the AC line.
The whole time Ali was convinced that the luggage simply missed the plane but my gut feeling was that I watched it being taken away. And I was vindicated. Just now. My luggage was just delivered by AC’s lost luggage (er, delayed baggage) delivery contractor. As I was sitting here writing this blog at oh-dark-stupid I thought perhaps I should check my bag to see if anything was missing. Because I’m a pretty care free guy I didn’t take an inventory of what I packed. I do, however, know for sure that my dress shoes are missing. Yes, my crappy dress shoes. The poor quality ones from Aldo with the soles I had replaced mere months after buying them and that I had to colour in parts of it with black felt. Yes, overall, the quality of those shoes was crap. Perhaps worse. Yes, 100% crap shoes from Aldo. And I paid a decent penny for them. Lesson learned. I hope the thief is forced to wear those shoes for all eternity in Hell. Yes I feel violated that my luggage was rifled through and the only thing deemed worthy of stealing was a crappy pair of Aldo shoes. Or perhaps that’s a sign that it’s time for a new wardrobe.
The only other casualty that I’m aware of at this late hour is my trusty Dell mousepad. In his haste to steal something good, the thief crumpled my ever so thin mousepad while checking through all the pockets. It’s been with me on all my Zymeta trips but now will find it’s final resting place in an NYC landfill. Final score today: NYC Thief 1, Douglas 0. But karma will get him in the end; I’m sure of it.
And yes, Mike, I man should not remember his passwords after drinking. Especially in NYC after having his luggage stolen.
Update: my nice black Diesel belt was also stolen. Ali figures the thief knew something about ‘accessorizing’. I still think he’s a low life moron. Or perhaps he was just lucky.
[…]
Hockey Pool 2005
With the return of hockey comes the age old Canadian tradition of the office hockey pool. This will be the second annual pool here at Zymeta and everyone is looking to unseat Dean who come out of nowhere last year and stole the title. With respect to this year’s pool, here are some predictions that I’ll pull up next June and have a laugh at how wrong I was.
Mike has the most pool experience, so much so that he was twice champion at his previous job. But that overconfidence has hurt him in the past and I expect a poor showing. Not as poor, though, as the four people who missed the staff meeting and had their selections done at random (you all know who you are). Charles will do well despite the fact that it seems like half his picks are over the age of forty. Dean will come in second and though he won’t say anything, he’ll be grumbling about it all summer. I suspect a top five finish for my superior picks; I would have come in first but it’s inevidable that at least two of my players will catch an edge, do a triple cow-sow and land on their head only to be run over by the rest of the their team as they cross the blue line on a rush. Sports fanatic Bill will also be in the top five… until the last couple weeks when he’ll drop down a couple spots. Of course Bill’s list is rather random so he might drop more than a few spots. And in spite of us all, the girl from the UK will take first place and we’ll not hear the end of it for all of 2006.
The predictions for everyone else are rather shady. The jury’s out and the eight-ball says to try again. I think that’s a sign that they should just give up now while they have their honour intact.
[…]
