Blog category: Ross School of Business

MBA in Hand and Back to Chicago | May 3rd, 2010

My two-year stint in Ann Arbor is now over, but we went out with a bang:

Chicago: let’s do this.

The Greatest (And First) Mustache I Have Ever Grown | April 4th, 2010

Here’s the end result of my Rosstache efforts. I drew inspiration from my forebears in South Charleston, Ohio:

Thanks to everyone who donated to the Penrickton Center — the event was a hit, even with masses of hideous facial hair like this beauty floating around.

Mustache for Charity | March 22nd, 2010

I’m right in the midst of Rosstache, the mustache-growing charity contest here at Ross, and I need your help. With my beard now at four weeks, I’m trying to plan out a final mustache strategy for the competition on April 1. Here’s your canvas:

And if you want to help me out in my efforts by donating to the Penrickton Center for Blind Children, here’s how:

1. Go to http://rosstache.wordpress.com/
2. Click “Donate”
3. Make your donation through PayPal. If you don’t have a PayPay account, click “Continue” under “Don’t Have a Paypal Account?” to donate by credit card. Just before you donate, there is an option to answer “Which Rosstacher are you donating for”. Indicate my name there. Big or small, all donations are helpful.

Time to 1982 it up.

Gotta Admit, Obama Beats Kofi Annan | February 11th, 2010

And I thought we had a prestigious, rub-your-face-in-it speaker at NU in 2002:

President Obama to deliver U-M spring 2010 commencement address

Yet before I think this is too cool, it’s only for the undergrad graduation, as the b-school graduation is April 30. Regardless, that is one serious publicity coup for UMich. Way to go, Blue.

UPDATE: Seems grad students get four tickets after all. Sweet.

Ross Follies Time Crunch | January 25th, 2010

With Follies 2010 coming up in a few weeks, I have mad video editing to do. In the meantime, here’s a quality Ross video from 2008:

Final Semester at Ross | January 10th, 2010

Big events in the next 3.5 months:

• Acting/directing debut at Follies 2010
• Entertainment + Media Club leadership changeover and panel-discussion planning
• My last set of classes
• Disorientation Week
• And, of course, graduation

Crazy times, amigos. Time to Go Blue for the final quarter of my MBA education.

Go Rent “American Dream” | December 4th, 2009

After a Ross Southern Club blowout last night at Diamondback Saloon, I’m taking it easy tonight, but that gives me a chance to tout a documentary everyone should see: American Dream, directed by Barbara Kopple.

I’m not exactly on the ball here, as this movie was released in 1990, but the prof screened it today as part of an all-day MO 512 negotiations class simulation that was based on the events depicted in American Dream. I must say it was a pretty tangential thing to watch in negotiations class, but the movie was, in a word, real. It’s all about the strike at a Hormel processing plant in Austin, Minn., in 1985-86 and the relationships and conflicts that take place between management, the local union leadership, national leaders at the United Food and Commercial Workers — in a random personal fact, I was once a member of the UFCW — union rank-and-file and other interested parties. It’s tragic and sad to see, and yet by avoiding taking any particular side in the story, the film is more effectively illustrative of the Reagan-era decline of unions and the real-world impact that had on workers and their families. The meat-processing scenes will also make you want to take some time away from pork, but appetite for bacon is a small price to pay for one of the best documentaries I’ve seen in a long time.

Too many people here at b-school like to stereotype union members as greedy, obstructionist ogres, which gets old fast to a dude from Pittsburgh with union family and friends. (This is at one of the more liberal and friendly b-schools; I can only imagine the vitriol going around elsewhere.) I’d recommend this movie to them: unions can go too far and have self-interested leaders, just like management, but there are real people on both sides of the divide and that’s an important thing to keep in mind as a future business leader.

So go rent American Dream; you’ll be glad you did.

Megabus and the Real-Life Ethical Dilemma | November 9th, 2009

Damn, I felt today like I was in the boat scene from The Dark Knight.

Most of you dudes know I split my time these days between school in Ann Arbor and home in Chicago. The best way to get back and forth is Megabus, which I took yet again today.

(For anyone interested, here’s a quick cost-benefit analysis of the transportation links between Ann Arbor and Chicago:

1. Megabus – Cost averages $25, mostly comfortable, takes 4.5 hours including stop for food — though sadly, only at Hardee’s. Nasty.
2. Amtrak – Cost is $29 on weekdays but $75 on weekends. Most comfortable option, but delayed so often that it averages six hours per trip.
3. Driving – Cost depends on MPG (about 3/4 tank when I take the VW) but you can’t really do any work. Takes about four hours, and you then have to find parking.
4. Greyhound – Hellz no.)

To finally get to the point of my post, today we hit the food break at the Love’s truck stop — the one with the Hardee’s — at mile marker 110, which not only has just one fast-food option but also plays Fox News in the dining area. (Megabus used to stop at the truck stop in Sawyer, Mich., which has a Popeye’s, BK, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut Express. Now that is a quality junk-food spread. I think Love’s must have started paying them to subject us to Hardee’s.) I ate a Thickburger anyway and we left 30 minutes later.

Next up was the exercise in group morality: The driver came on the intercom about 20 miles past Love’s and announced that a passenger was left behind at the truck stop. Whoops. The driver had made several announcements when we stopped that everyone had to be back on by 3 p.m. EST, but whoever this person was somehow failed to note the time. The driver initially said he was going to turn around despite his anger and pick up the person, which would have resulted in us being about 40-50 minutes late in arriving. A bunch of passengers told the driver to keep going anyway — because hey, screw that anonymous guy — so he then announced he was not turning around.

I and the passengers around me found this a bit heartless — anybody who plans an urgent event based on a bus’s on-time arrival is an idiot — so I went downstairs and told the driver he should go back, and despite us both being pissed at the passenger, I could tell he felt the same way. He went on the intercom one more time and said he was turning around, but then enough people howled in protest that we ended up heading to Ann Arbor as scheduled, leaving the unknown passenger to fend for him/herself until the next Megabus comes through. With that bus not leaving Chicago until 4:45 p.m. CST, that comes out to an almost six-hour wait at the truck stop if there isn’t some other ride available. Ouch.

So what was the right course of action? After all, the passenger was at fault for not paying attention to the multiple announcements about being back to the bus on time. How would have you voted? Drop some ethical knowledge in the comments section and let me know. Also, give me a ride next time so I can avoid these philosophical quandaries.