Ted, it's good writing, but as one of your study group partners, I didn't think you were THAT weird! You were Dana's little brother and he was unique as a poet with a Stanford MBA and a marketing career. At least you could do the classwork, which some people couldn't. I was somewhat an unconventional MBA student too, though to a lesser extent since I had work experience. I think the pressure at Stanford (including the business school) was to succeed at whatever you wanted to do, not necessarily to make a ton of money, and in that you succeeded admirably.
Marvelous story, Ted. It reminds me of my own in that I had a 35+ year career on the waterfront managing longshoremen, while having studied religion early on and thereafter practicing poetry and painting. Most thought I was a flake, which of course I often was. But my career ended successfully because I knew the value of a clever mind. Thinking for yourself matters greatly when you know how to think.
I got a job at the telephone company at age 19, after realizing how hard it was going to be to make a living as a bass player. The phone company trained, promoted from within, and provided a pension. I decided, much like you, to try to move up in the world through business. I survived, though it was close as far as mental health went. But here I am, retired with that pension, now with all the time in the world to write and play music, and it’s good. It was just a rather painful trip getting here.
Been there. After organizing labor unions for ten years, I aced the GMAT and attended Harvard Business School. Having spent a decade hostile to the idea of business and management, most of what I thought I knew about these subjects was wrong.
I loved this story and have many like it. (I did not stay quiet, I had a blast, and learned a ton.)
Business schools would be a lot better if they ONLY accepted applicants who knew nothing about the subject going in. Instead, they are good at admitting people who will succeed anyway so they can take credit and donations when their alum strike it rich.
This turns out to be, as they will teach you, an excellent business model.
I want to read War and Peace now. !! I know you will get many similar responses to this. Wow Oxford and Harvard, Princeton too. Plus amazing piano playing. Enjoying your work as well !! I chose correctly to subscribe to your writings.
Ted ... love the MBA story ... and I think you've given me a gift with your "I have authority issues even when I am the authority. " I have long blamed my "misfitness" on a rebellious inner teenager ... now I think I'll just have "authority issues" ... and perhaps especially with my inner authority.
I grew up with a familial predjudice toward MBA types, inherited mainly from my late paternal grandfather. He’d worked his way up from a Safeway grocery bagger to a regional exec over a 35 year career, and retired a few years before the company became an early victim of the leveraged-buyout plague in the Reagan years. Granddad was of the firm opinion that nobody could trash a company faster or more thoroughly than a crew of MBA kids with zero floor experience at a store.
If anyone could lower my opinion of MBA programs and grads further, you’ve done it. Nice work, dude. A+.😎👨🏼🎓
Touché, my friend -- I am not as good at literary references, but you sliced and diced that class much the same as Errol Flynn dispatched Basil Rathbone in "The Adventures of Robin Hood." Long live those with out-of-the-box solutions to textbook answers! Job well done, sir!
You were perfect for the MBA program. Expecting students to know a damn thing about business beforehand is like thinking law students already know how to litigate, or med students could take out your appendix in the wilderness without causing you to bleed to death. It's only gotten worse, but mostly the way we knew many schools were relative jokes was when they let you major in business, or pre-law, or pre-med. Nope, you chose a major, and the grad schools decided if they wanted to take you. Could major in French, or comparative religion, or philosophy. Didn't have to be poli-sci or biology. We're much poorer for all of this. My music partner, a dude 20 years older who's been mentoring me, mentioned Carter turned 99? I said all our problems started with Reagan.
I'm digressing, but our current emphasis on STEM degrees and all that is going to be the death of us all. Genius nerds are mostly born, they're not created during their choice of majors. Sounds like that classmate who mocked you was PRObably an asshole who worshipped Alan Greenspan. And folks wonder why we're in such deep doo-doo.
It's be funny assigning MBA students a paper asking why music, movies, and so much more hey how about those for-profit diploma schools that take GI Bill checks- mostly suck so badly. Everyone who doesn't conclude with corporatization fails the assignment.
Great story Ted. While at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute , I changed majors from aeronautical engineering to psychology. One of my courses was in Asian philosophy. I once asked the professor a convoluted ill advised question about the one and the many. He answered by telling me that I would be better off if I looked at the world through my a** hole.
I have authority issues even when I am the authority.
Ted, it's good writing, but as one of your study group partners, I didn't think you were THAT weird! You were Dana's little brother and he was unique as a poet with a Stanford MBA and a marketing career. At least you could do the classwork, which some people couldn't. I was somewhat an unconventional MBA student too, though to a lesser extent since I had work experience. I think the pressure at Stanford (including the business school) was to succeed at whatever you wanted to do, not necessarily to make a ton of money, and in that you succeeded admirably.
Marvelous story, Ted. It reminds me of my own in that I had a 35+ year career on the waterfront managing longshoremen, while having studied religion early on and thereafter practicing poetry and painting. Most thought I was a flake, which of course I often was. But my career ended successfully because I knew the value of a clever mind. Thinking for yourself matters greatly when you know how to think.
Wish I had been there to see the looks on the faces of the self anointed illuminati. Well done Ted!
I got a job at the telephone company at age 19, after realizing how hard it was going to be to make a living as a bass player. The phone company trained, promoted from within, and provided a pension. I decided, much like you, to try to move up in the world through business. I survived, though it was close as far as mental health went. But here I am, retired with that pension, now with all the time in the world to write and play music, and it’s good. It was just a rather painful trip getting here.
Ted, Sun Tzu had nothin' on you man.
Been there. After organizing labor unions for ten years, I aced the GMAT and attended Harvard Business School. Having spent a decade hostile to the idea of business and management, most of what I thought I knew about these subjects was wrong.
I loved this story and have many like it. (I did not stay quiet, I had a blast, and learned a ton.)
Business schools would be a lot better if they ONLY accepted applicants who knew nothing about the subject going in. Instead, they are good at admitting people who will succeed anyway so they can take credit and donations when their alum strike it rich.
This turns out to be, as they will teach you, an excellent business model.
I want to read War and Peace now. !! I know you will get many similar responses to this. Wow Oxford and Harvard, Princeton too. Plus amazing piano playing. Enjoying your work as well !! I chose correctly to subscribe to your writings.
I just started an MBA program, having taken nary a business class beforehand, so I needed to read this.
Ted ... love the MBA story ... and I think you've given me a gift with your "I have authority issues even when I am the authority. " I have long blamed my "misfitness" on a rebellious inner teenager ... now I think I'll just have "authority issues" ... and perhaps especially with my inner authority.
I grew up with a familial predjudice toward MBA types, inherited mainly from my late paternal grandfather. He’d worked his way up from a Safeway grocery bagger to a regional exec over a 35 year career, and retired a few years before the company became an early victim of the leveraged-buyout plague in the Reagan years. Granddad was of the firm opinion that nobody could trash a company faster or more thoroughly than a crew of MBA kids with zero floor experience at a store.
If anyone could lower my opinion of MBA programs and grads further, you’ve done it. Nice work, dude. A+.😎👨🏼🎓
Touché, my friend -- I am not as good at literary references, but you sliced and diced that class much the same as Errol Flynn dispatched Basil Rathbone in "The Adventures of Robin Hood." Long live those with out-of-the-box solutions to textbook answers! Job well done, sir!
Your best post yet. Love it.
You were perfect for the MBA program. Expecting students to know a damn thing about business beforehand is like thinking law students already know how to litigate, or med students could take out your appendix in the wilderness without causing you to bleed to death. It's only gotten worse, but mostly the way we knew many schools were relative jokes was when they let you major in business, or pre-law, or pre-med. Nope, you chose a major, and the grad schools decided if they wanted to take you. Could major in French, or comparative religion, or philosophy. Didn't have to be poli-sci or biology. We're much poorer for all of this. My music partner, a dude 20 years older who's been mentoring me, mentioned Carter turned 99? I said all our problems started with Reagan.
I'm digressing, but our current emphasis on STEM degrees and all that is going to be the death of us all. Genius nerds are mostly born, they're not created during their choice of majors. Sounds like that classmate who mocked you was PRObably an asshole who worshipped Alan Greenspan. And folks wonder why we're in such deep doo-doo.
It's be funny assigning MBA students a paper asking why music, movies, and so much more hey how about those for-profit diploma schools that take GI Bill checks- mostly suck so badly. Everyone who doesn't conclude with corporatization fails the assignment.
Great story Ted. While at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute , I changed majors from aeronautical engineering to psychology. One of my courses was in Asian philosophy. I once asked the professor a convoluted ill advised question about the one and the many. He answered by telling me that I would be better off if I looked at the world through my a** hole.
The Napoleon comparison was a stroke of genius. Thank you for that excellent story.