Should have eaten my Wheaties this morning

This morning’s interview with the world’s largest software company was one of the more humbling experiences of my second year at Kenan-Flagler. The interviewer began by telling me about her background, which includes an MBA from Kenan-Flagler, a couple of years at a big name consulting firm, and a walkthrough of the various positions she has held and products she has launched at the company over the years.

 

Her questions included what I believe are the major challenges facing a software testing organization such as the one I worked on at AOL, what changes I would make to AOL with everything I have learned at Kenan-Flagler and from my summer internship, she also asked for a ninety second overview of my summer internship. As I was struggling to form words with my mouth, I couldn’t help getting the impression that she was not impressed with my answers.

 

One of the requirements of the interview was for the interviewee to tell the interviewer what divisions of the company he wants to work for. For me the choice is obviously the company’s online division (content portal, internet services, search, online marketing) and coincidentally this is the division she is about to transfer into starting next week. I spent the plurality of my time answering her last question which was if I were to put together a “first 90 day” plan for the online division, what would I recommend in terms of strategic partners, business opportunities, or product changes to pursue. She then handed me a blank piece of paper and asked me to sketch out the high level bullet points of a presentation I would put together.

 

Toward the end of the interview, she told me that the online division is one of the harder groups to get into because there are few openings. I was tempted to try to score a bonus by telling her it’s the division they need to invest the most in and fire off some rehearsed factoids that I forced myself to memorize, but I decided against it.

 

I am a bit disappointed that I didn’t do any better but I wouldn’t say the interview was a waste of 301 bid points because looking back, I got two important pieces of information from it. I had chosen the online division not only because it’s the division I feel most qualified for given my interests and work experience, but also because my industry knowledge tells me this is an area that’s most critical to that company’s future. The interviewer telling me there are few openings tells me either my research is wrong or it was a polite way of telling me I won’t be getting a second round. And while I was attempting to answer her question about putting together a plan for the online division, I came up with something on the spot that I thought was really quite brilliant. While I was explaining this to her, for the first and only time during the interview, she looked at me like I had brain in my head. I am not going to share with you what this idea is, but I am going to do some research on this and coyly bring it up the next time I interview with another company in the same industry. And I should do this soon because knowing the history of the company I interviewed with this morning, my interviewer is probably going to steal my idea as her own.

Job search strategery

Today is the first day of Mod II. The beginning of every Mod is always hectic because I don’t know what classes I want and will spend the first week sampling different classes and getting onto the wait lists of various sections before the Friday noon drop/add deadline when the computer finalizes everyone’s schedule. So far it looks like I will have Monday and Wednesday mornings free, classes on Monday and Wednesday that stretch from the afternoons into the early evenings, and may even have Tuesdays and Thursdays off.

 

I won’t be taking too many classes this Mod (the minimum at Kenan-Flagler for full time status is three classes and 4.5 credits) because I want to concentrate my efforts on the job search. Since the job fair in Atlanta, I have been looking at web sites of different companies and have found myself mentally categorizing them into two categories, “top tier” companies that I would gladly give my right arm to work for, and “other ” companies that would make me happy but not as much. I have decided that since we are still pretty early in the job search process, at this stage I am only going to hunt after opportunities in the “top tier” category. This is important especially since accepting an offer will keep me from looking at other opportunities and at this stage I cannot imagine myself removing myself from the job search process unless I get something that will put a big smile on my face.

 

In other news, tomorrow is my interview with the world’s largest software company. I will be spending tonight catching up on a couple of industry blogs that I have bookmarked. I also found out last week that I made the closed list of three companies, all interviewing for general management rotational programs. The first is a telephone company whose close list I had expected to be able to get ondue to my technology background. The other two companies were more unexpected, the only thing they have in common is that they both make products you use with your car, one is an oil company and the other is a major manufacturer of car tires. So far this year, the rate of return on my cover letters is substantially higher than the one I had last year and the we are still early in the recruiting season.

Sticking it to “the man”

Can someone please do me a favor and take a look at the parking meter pictured above and tell me what the rates are? I swear it saids 15 minutes per quarter but I think my eyes may be failing me lately. I of all people should know that all numbers start looking the same to you when you spend all your waking hours staring at annual reports and SEC 10-K statements.

A couple of weeks ago I went to class early one day and parked at the nearest metered parking spot I can find to Kenan-Flagler. The meter clearly saids 15 minutes per quarter (I checked the week before on what the rates were) and I made sure I left my apartment with enough quarters to last three hours. It wasn’t until I started putting money into the meter that I realized the meter was set at 12 minutes per quarter. I decided since the meter was mislabeled, I was going to … ahem … live life on the edge a little bit if you know what I mean.

So imagine my shock when I returned three hours later and saw a shiny bright white parking ticket on my windshield. I quickly sent an appeal to the Department of Public Safety, explaining that either the meter is mislabeled or the machinery is not working properly. About two weeks later, I go the reply telling me that all meters on campus are 12 minutes per quarter and that I had ten days to submit my $15 payment.

What’s really sad about this episode is how I responded when I received the response to my appeal. Like the feckless coward that I am, I quickly dispatched a check for $15. If this had happened to me when I was a young UVA college student who still had “the fight” in me, I would have put up a fight the like of which you would not believe. I would have dug up the name of the person in charge of the Department of Public Safety (probably the University police chief) and taken him to small claims court to make him pay for my ticket. This goes to show how seven years of working in corporate America has neutered me.

A recent article in the Daily Tar Heels about the huge backlog in parking violation appeals process gave me an idea. From now on, every time, I receive a parking ticket, I am going to appeal it over the internet. And I am going to use the most frivolous reasons such as “the voices in my head told me I don’t have to pay the meter.” The way I see it, if the folks at the Department of Public Safety wishes to employ a strategy of profit maximization, I am going to respond by employing every legal channel available to increase their costs.

(For more information on this topic, using sham proceedings to harm a competitor, see Noerr-Pennington doctrine.)

On the streets of New York City

This is fall break week at Kenan-Flagler. A ton of first year students are in town for the finance, marketing, and real estate career treks. Last night I was at a Kenan-Flagler reception at the Westin New York at Times Square. The alumni reception was very well attended. I saw a lot of students who graduated this past May as well as a couple alums who make frequent recruiting trips to Kenan-Flagler. After the reception, me and a couple of first years went to a bar called Kevin St. James on Eighth Avenue.

But the most unexpected thing happened on my way to the reception. I arrived at Times Square a bit early at around 6:30 and decided to walk to the ABC News studios on Times Square to catch a glimpse of Charles Gibson doing his World News broadcast. It wasn’t until I got there that I realize that there was nothing to see for World News doesn’t come out from that building but from the main ABC building on the west side.

My disappointment quickly dissipated when I looked across the street and saw a small crowd had gathered around a TV camera. The man being taped was none other than broadcaster sensation and Fox News Channel superstar Sean Hannity. I was just listening to him in the car a bit more than an hour ago before I got into the subway system. I crossed the street to observe the spectacle. He was doing for his television show something that he does regularly on the radio program, asking random people off the streets to identify the most well known politicians today. I saw him interview a man in a Green Day shirt who looked at picture of Dennis Hastert and said he was “the guy from Seinfeld.” There was a man from Canada (I will return to this later in the week and post the picture I took with my cell phone) who correctly identified the Speaker of the House and the audience applauded when Sean pointed out that he was the first person ever to get that correctly. A producer kept asking me if wanted to be interviewed and I told her that because I am a huge fan, I don’t want to ruin his act by correctly identifying most of the pictures on the stack he had with him.

Looking back, I sort of wish I had volunteered for the Sean Hannity piece. Earlier this afternoon I heard him talk on the radio about the upcoming elections and he said “I taped something last night that I am going to air on television later this week, it goes to prove that no one knows who Nancy Pelosi is.” It would have been worth it just to see the look on his face when I correctly identify the San Francisco Congresswoman whom he so utterly despises.

Mickey's suspicions were correct

Did anyone hear about this? There are rumors on the internets about a divorce in the Disney Kingdom. Supposedly Mickey Mouse had a conversation with his lawyer about suing Minnie for divorce. Lawyer replied “you can’t divorce her because she’s crazy, her attorneys would paint you as husband abandoning his wife in her time of need.” Mickey then said “I am not divorcing he because she is crazy, I am divorcing her because she is f**king Goofy!”  

 

Apparently proof of the alleged infidelity has now surfaced.

The week from hell continues

Your second year is suppose to be much easier than your first. So far I have found this case to be mostly the case, with some exceptions. This current week has been on big exception.

Most second years take fewer than five classes and many classes do not give finals. This Mod not only am I taking five classes but I have a final in each and every class. So far this week I have had one take home (complex deal) due on Monday, an in class (customer relations management) yesterday, a second in class (fixed income) this afternoon, and two other take homes (advanced topics in accounting and mergers and acquisitions) due on Friday. The last time I had five final exams was Mod II of my first year.

The hardest of the five exams is clearly fixed income. As I was studying for it last night, I divided the class’ content into two halves, the half that I can remotely understand and the part that I do not stand a snowball’s chance in hell of figuring out. I spent most of my preparation time on the half that I knew better. This may sound counterintuitive, but it’s the equivalent to a politician campaigning in “friendly districts” rather than in neighborhoods more inclined to support the opponent. The goal in both cases is to identify the areas where you are strong and more likely to generate a larger marginal unit of outcome per effort exhausted.

 

As I was leaving the library at 2:30 this morning, I thought I had a good plan mapped out on how Iwas going to master the remainder of the material in time for the 1pm exam. That was until I got into my car and turned the ignition key. My car has had this problem with the battery not starting ever since last year when I bought a new battery from Sears (in case you are wondering, I made a conscious decision to name the company where I made the purchase and had the installation done).  While I knew exactly what the cause of this problem was, I had trouble understanding why it came back again after more than six months in remission. I ended up bringing the car to the garage, taking the P2P to as close to my apartment as possible (P2P can only pick up and dislodge students on university property), before walking into the front door of my apartment at 4am.

The complex, complex deal exam

My complex deal professor invited his students to an Easter egg hunt this past weekend. No it wasn’t the type where you have to dress up as a bunny and run around someone front or back yard looking for wrapped eggs. This was the type where you sit at a desk for hours, flip through page after page of financial documents, and find the one or two nuggets of information that will earn you a respectable number of points toward the final.

 

He gave out the final exam last week and we had until yesterday to hand it in. Someone told me that a student who graduated this past May described the professor’s exams as “an Easter egg hunt” and that’s exactly how I would describe this past weekend’s exercise. I spent hours pouring through pages of financial disclosures regarding the bankruptcy settlement of Loral Space and Communications. One question asked why the company’s long term liabilities declined so dramatically between one year and the next. After spending an eternity trying to come up with an answer supported by the many paragraphs of notes and footnotes, I was ready to throw in the towel when I noticed that the current liability (current being anything that expires within one year hence not considered long term) went up substantially during this period. I simply wrote down that many of the long term liability became current liability.

 

As I was doing the exam, I remember something my professor said one day while talking about his exams. In his unique, Bushman-esque style, he said “hey if I were going to make it simple, I’d name the class simple deal.”