Travels with Grumpus

Our Dean was in town for a mixer today, and having rediscovered my love for my alma mater, I decided to head over and, you know, mix.

As many of you are no doubt aware, Grumpus not least, I have no problem yapping. Not everybody finds this charming, of course, and sometimes I have to stop myself when I notice my target’s eyes glazing over. I couldn’t really think of what I wanted to say to Dr. Hubbard though, since I do have some residual bitterness over how ill-prepared our Career Services office was for the crappiness of the job market in 2002, and deep regret over how poorly I have used my degree since then. No matter, the inner yap always takes over once I set it free.

With one of my classmates in tow, we headed over to chat.

“Maya,” I said, pointing to my name tag. “We’re both ‘02 grads.”

“Very nice to meet you,” said the Dean graciously.

“We just missed you,” I said, “Chris and I had the extreme misfortune of being there in a really bad job market.” It’s all about the job market for this type of degree, you understand. No point beating around the bush.

“I know!” he said. “You guys came in at the top and left at the bottom.” Chris and I nodded sadly in unison. “The market is much better now. Starting salaries are at an all-time high. It’s even better than the late ’90s.”

I paused, thinking of something to follow that. “Well we also do think we missed out on a lot of fun…” I turned to Chris, “Have you seen the videos?”

“You mean ‘Every Breath You Take?’” asked the Dean.

“Yes, that same one!” I said. “I have a close friend who’s an ‘05 grad who told me all about it. It’s brilliant!”

“Yeah, I’ve seen that,” said Chris. “That wasn’t really you, was it?”

“No, it was one of the students,” said the Dean. “But he looks so much like me that I’m thinking of sending him to some of my speaking engagements. And it’s funny, but the day that went up on the Business School site, we had about a million hits. One of our consultants said, ‘Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it!’ I said, ‘It’s the video, not anything I’m doing!’”

“Wow, a million hits!” I said.

“And that same day, I got a call from Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke laughing about the video. I got calls from all over the world - the Governor of the Bank of Japan called me too.”

“That is absolutely hilarious!” I said.

“I thought so too,” he agreed. “Well Maya, Chris, it was nice to meet you. Thank you for coming,” he said as he shook our hands.

“It was my pleasure,” I said. See? You can always find something to say.