First Day of Class: MBA

My first class of my MBA program wasn’t quite what I expected. I say that, but I may be lying a bit – I didn’t have fully formed expectations.

I was in grad school before, for English at Kansas State University.  One of the first classes I had to take there was English 801, Introduction to graduate studies in English.  The point of the course, though often unspoken, was to justify the existence of graduate study in English.  The secondary point was to establish skills that may have been lacking from undergrad in terms of research and argument.  It was a good class for me, mainly because I had gotten by my undergrad on brains and charisma, and had in fact only written one serious paper over the course of four years. I actually dropped two classes in part because I didn’t want to write “for real” papers.  I should have, since they were the only philosophy and history classes I ended up attempting.  I guess business has a way of not needing justification in a way that English would die for. 

I digress though.  My first class for my MBA at Concordia University – Chicago, was nice.  It wasn’t lecture and I talked to the people in my class but I remember no names. (That right there is my biggest social weakness, or at least the biggest one I am aware of.)  The structure was more informal than I was expecting. I’m glad I didn’t wear a suit.

The class is leadership, and in it we brainstormed in our groups  about the qualities that made a bad manager; many people shared their stories inefficient, indifferent, and ineffective managers.   We eventually shared that list with the class

But here’s the thing. We then turned that around and looked at the positive qualities a good manager has, and that was harder to put into words.  I have had some good managers, people who were kind and supportive and good at their jobs and who wanted to make me better at what I did, not just for the immediate need of the company, but because they cared about me as a person.  I normally don’t like starkly demarcated gradients of power, but sometimes the people who are your superiors are in charge of you are not there just because they have been marking time longer.  I think I often confuse the person with the position, and as a subordinate I don’t like that when the person is not a fit for the position.  However, take it for granted when they are.  I need to come back to this, as it feels like an egg that is slowly cracking.

On not Selling out: Getting my MBA

I have a confession to make.  The name of this blog is actually a misnomer. I’ll get to that. First some personal history.

I started studying economics and finance seriously after I lost my job in late 2008. I had just started a sales job in September of that year. I was in training when the magic weekend happened.  I made three sales in October. I made none in November. In early December, first thing in the morning, my manager let me go. The only thing I cared about was to make sure that they would not be challenging my unemployment.

I went to McDonalds and tried to figure out what went on. 

Up to that point, I was intellectually curious but I often ignored the goings on in the economy.  I’m thirty-two years old and up to that point for my memorable life, the economy had pretty much just worked.  The business page (of the USA Today) that my parents bought was the one I leafed through first because it was the most boring.

I had been concerned about individual worker’s rights: I was once reprimanded at my pizza place job for talking about unionization; I lost a student election of my English grad student association where I was pro-union and the competition was not as focused on GTA’s right.

But it was 2008, and being without a job or any good prospects rocked me. I had gone to school and done well, and the great American jobs machine had failed me personally. I didn’t like it and I wanted to figure out what had gone wrong. 

I then read as widely as possible, from left to right but with an emphasis on the center to far left. I thought that at that point a heterodox school was built better to explain the failings that had hit. I started writing some, reading books, and posting reviews on Amazon of those books. With no job, it is hard to stay engaged mentally. 

I was unemployed for about two years. Early during that time, I had applied for a position at the education school of the University of Illinois at Chicago. I was waitlisted and then denied.  It was probably for the best. I really liked teaching when I did it, but I had a bad experience and I think UIC’s decision helped me put that part of my life to bed. The problem is that I was still unemployed with few prospects. I kept reading and posting and started following the blogs and twitter personalities. The more I read, the more I thought I could help contribute to the conversation (why I have this here, yelling in the dark). 

So  I went back to UIC, this time I talked to the Director of Graduate Studies in the Economics department. We went over my transcripts and developed a plan of attack. I would need some undergrad classes to get to the point where I would be prepared for the classes at the graduate level. It would take a couple of years, part time because of the progression. 

Did you know that it is hard to find money to borrow for undergrad classes when you already have a BA? I have one, with honors from WVU. The problem is that it is in Creative Writing – Poetry. So basically that dream died on the vine. I kept reading and posting and pestering @noaopinion and @azizenomics and others. I eventually got placed in a city program for job retraining and I ended up working in the finance department of a nonprofit.

I like it here. I do good things for the community. The best thing is that I finally had money. Over the past two years I’ve taken those prerequisite classes. I’ve got A’s in both the intro accounting and both the basic econ classes. So you see that it is not all autodidactic. There’s my lie.  

I have different life needs now than I did when I talked to the DGS at UIC for economics. If I could do anything right now I would be going into a PhD program. If it was on me, it would be at Amherst or UMKC. That’s not going to happen. I’m married; we own a house. Instead at the point I need to be focused on doing what is best for my family, while indulging were I can. That is why I started looking at MPA programs and the like – I can serve the community and learn interesting and applicable things. I was really inspired by the opportunity I had to get a certificate in nonprofit leadership from Notre Dame.  I want more of that. I want to build a network in my community of the western suburbs of Chicago. I still want to take over the world, but I also don’t want to sell out. 

I go to orientation at Concordia University Chicago today for orientation. I’m enrolled to get my MBA with a concentration in nonprofit management. Don’t let me sell out. I’ll get that PhD eventually.  The world will be mine.

Young Money by Kevin Roose: Not enough data points

From where I’m sitting, this came out a couple of months ago. It was the talked-about book of the early spring, but it was eclipsed by Piketty and Lewis.

It is a quick read, as Roose is a good storyteller about these young people and their experiences on the street.  

My quick take though, is that it suffers a problem of focus.  In less than three hundred pages he covers the fictionalized lives of eight or so people. That breaks down to a little over thirty or so pages a person – less if you want to add in some time for analysis and reflection. The depth sits in this middle ground for me.  I don’t know enough about the characters he’s covering. Thankfully he reminds the reader of a character’s defining trait when he brings them back up (the people’s lives are interwoven in the text, not dealt with serially). But the problem is that there is not enough people to be able to say that this book speaks for all young money. It’s just some young money.

The Divide: Taibbi's writing has matured, but the system is still broken

Taibbi’s last book, Griftopia, got to me.  Not like it made me mad, but you could tell the seething rage that was behind his words and it was so heavy that it almost detracted from his argument (The argument that you and I all got sold out).

Here, he’s toned it down.  In the Divide, Taibbi flips back and forth between the malefactors of great wealth that can wreck a planet and a financial system AND then he looks at the people who suffer great injustice at the hands of the law.  It is a class thing, as well as a race thing, and a gender thing.  The concept of the two Americas is alive and well, and Taibbi shows it well.

A couple of notes: if you have followed Taibbi’s reporting in the Rolling Stone, some of these stories will feel familiar, but he does a good job rolling what may be disparate reportage into a coherent argument. The second note I am not sure if it says more about me or Taibbi or the system he covers.  The sections that relate the great crimes the wealthy perpetuate are engagingly told, but they don’t get my lather up.  I did get that lather up when he accounted for individual’s struggles against a racist immigration and justice apparatus. I guess I can relate to those better, since I have been much closer to the bottom in society than I ever will be to the top.  I heartily recommend everyone needs to read this book, but they should check with their doctor beforehand.  

David Harvey: Contradictions have the nasty habit of not being resolved but merely moved around.

By this point, I have read enough David Harvey to know his house style.  Loquacious in person, his prose can feel torturous at times. That’s not a critique per se, but an acknowledgement of Harvy’s desire to be exact in his language.  It also brings about sentences of absolute beauty from time to time.  You just have to be on the alert for them.  I flagged a couple, but I won’t drop them in here without context.  I’ll just point you to pages 91, 125, and 130.

In this new book, Harvey explores 17 different contradictions – not in the sense of opposition, but contradiction where “two seemingly opposed forces are simultaneously present” (1), such as reality and appearance. These contradictions are both points of strengths and weaknesses for Harvey (and others in the Marxian tradition).  He divides up the contradictions he identifies into Foundation, Moving, and Dangerous types.  

Truth be told, I need to reread the book if I really want to get analytical here.  I was just chugging along, and finding Harvey’s points of consonance until I got to the end. My main take-away is that in the face of even 17 contradictions, capital is not going to fall in on itself.  The grave-diggers still need to dig. That is bad news for me because I am normally so passive.  Perhaps I should stop trying to understand the world and maybe go change it. Or Maybe tomorrow.