casual ultimate » it’s a rat race mr. briefcase

miss casual is all over me about blogging, but i am crazy busy thinking of 10,000 ways to procrastinate so i’m going to relate a brief tale that has nothing to do with the bitchin’ week/end i just spent in chicago. that news is to follow shortly, and with pics of tanguay as the new bjorn.

so the day after i got back to school (yesterday) i had my interview for the school of management for an MBA (i’m applying to do the 3-year joint degree program). now i’m usually pretty good at interviews, or so i’m told. this one, however, i would describe as a debacle in three acts.

first, in prep for the big event i reviewed my application (essays, resume, etc.). while doing so i learned that i had made a typo on my resume - who the *@$& makes a typo on their resume for business school?!?! i’ve never made a resume or major document typo in my life. ugh. best of all was the word: “environmental finance” –> “environmental fiance”, with an accent on the ‘e’ and everything. unbelievable. the only thing worse would have been spelling “business” as “biznass.”

next step: the interview itself. there i go, in my fancy suit and all, and my interviewer is a 2nd year student who’s in one of my classes! so the entire time i’m thinking, what kind of comments has this kid heard all year? he had made marks all over my resume and circled my typo, so i had to crack a joke and play it off. he laughed but, you know, like b-school kids laugh: like he was judging me. the interview progresses, who knows how i did, i feel like i sounded like a ditz (carlo, feel free to insert blonde/professional woman/pillowfight comment here).

i have class with this kid 45 minutes after the interview, but in between i managed to grab a milkshake with my friend jed to calm my nerves. i walk into class with the milkshake, sit next to my interviewer, and start chatting with him and the guy next to him (who is a joint degree student). other guy asks how it went, i say ‘ask this guy,’ at which point my interviewer looks at me and asks why i didn’t bring him a milkshake. this is all background so far. fast-forward to that evening, when i email him a formal-like email thanking him for the interview, good to hear his thoughts on the school, etc. the note itself was quite formal, but given the fact that i know this kid in regular life i title it, “next milkshake’s on me.” tonight he wrote back but had changed the subject line - in his response and in the copy of my orig. email - to something generic like “SOM-Thank you.” Then he writes me a second email saying he edited mine because it has to get forwarded to the admissions committee. UGH again.

bottom line is, clearly i am not professional enough to get admitted to the business school. but the only reason i thought this would make good blog material is that he asked, “if you got your dream job but your boss gave you the day off, what would you do?” and of course i responded “play ultimate.” wait, shit, that was horrible. i should have said i would go home, turn on CNN and read the financial times. and i didn’t even tell him how mr. briefcase has an office theme! the more i think about this the more depressed i get. good news is, i’ll be back in chicago in two years instead of three!

wow this was long, i could have just written about this weekend. more to follow later in the week.