If you hear “Ceeeee Yah!!!!” more often on our corridors, here is the story. That is a term now added permanently into our classes’ lexicon.
Ron Panese, our Operations Management Professor from Module 2, used it to set us free from our classes at the end of the allotted time. He had Francisco keep time for him and promised to drop whatever he was saying and would stop sharp on time. So, Francisco, the assigned time keeper printed out a “STOP” traffic sign, that he held up at the end and Ron would stop whatever he was saying, stretch his hands out to his sides like an airplane, swirl on his right heel while he yelled “Ceeeeee Yah” and Ron was 70. He looked amazingly young for his age and could give us “youngsters” a run for our money with his energy.
Ron is a visiting faculty – past retirement and if you add up all his stated years of experience, he should be atleast 3425 years old J He had some 63 Ron Panesi’s laws and he livened up the class by dropping them once in a while. It was a sight to see him encourage Vlad with some comments like “Vlad, Baby, You are Hot” ( as in …. You are on track – keep going…) while Vlad seemed to apparently take offense, drawing his eyes in, squaring up the eyebrows and cheeks flushing red. That was the first class and then we got used to this and it was fun, atleast for me. It is difficult to cover the whole subject of Operations Management in just 20 sessions. I loved the final exams – One Case Study that took about 1 hour to read and then to describe an Operations strategy for the company in the case. I do not know what will be my grade, but I loved the final exam, nevertheless.
Of course, he also taught us the great Italian Sign Language – the flick under the chin, for those who know what I mean ;)
Thursday, 24 April 2008
Never too early to start learning
Three days into Module 3, I sit up and wonder what happened to Module 2. All the boredom of Module 2 is replaced with hours of pre reads and exercises for Corporate Finance and Industry and Competition Analysis. Yesterday, I had to sit up till 1.30 am to do the pre class exercises for Corporate Finance and the next two days do not look any better - The Crown Case for I&C Analysis, Macroeconomics preread, the Corporate Finance exercises and the Managerial Accounting Individual Exercises. I think this will be my story for the whole module.
In the middle of this, today evening, we had our first Master Class – Ulrich Wilhelm, spokesperson of the German Chancellor. Many were not keen to attend, How is a politician going to add value? But I must say, I came away being very impressed. He was frank, candid and genuine. His matter of fact statement on the Work Life balance being non-existent was so real and immediately, he had opened up enough of him to become, just another You-and-Me doing a top job. The Drinks that followed the meeting was short as I wanted to get back to doing the assignments.
As I packed my stuff to leave, I saw a few die hard football fans cueing in on the Champions League Semis between Barcelona and Manchester United. I joined them as “Tiger” Satya had connected his laptop to the TV and the Stefano, Adrian and Santiago rooted for their favorite team (only of the two, not otherwise…) – Barcelona. Casey joined us soon and we did some Canadian football analysis. We watched this goalless draw over a few beers and headed home.
Our feeble effort at managing a work-life balance
In the middle of this, today evening, we had our first Master Class – Ulrich Wilhelm, spokesperson of the German Chancellor. Many were not keen to attend, How is a politician going to add value? But I must say, I came away being very impressed. He was frank, candid and genuine. His matter of fact statement on the Work Life balance being non-existent was so real and immediately, he had opened up enough of him to become, just another You-and-Me doing a top job. The Drinks that followed the meeting was short as I wanted to get back to doing the assignments.
As I packed my stuff to leave, I saw a few die hard football fans cueing in on the Champions League Semis between Barcelona and Manchester United. I joined them as “Tiger” Satya had connected his laptop to the TV and the Stefano, Adrian and Santiago rooted for their favorite team (only of the two, not otherwise…) – Barcelona. Casey joined us soon and we did some Canadian football analysis. We watched this goalless draw over a few beers and headed home.
Our feeble effort at managing a work-life balance
Saturday, 19 April 2008
A New Dawn
Spring Break - One week at the end of the Module 2. This was supposed to be fun and some of my classmates indeed planned it like that - planned trips to Egypt, Canary Islands, Stockholm, Prague, etc. For me it was supposed to be time for relaxation and some sight seeeing in Berlin with with wife.But I was wronged on two counts - the weather was bad except for Monday and there was so much to read up for the Module 3. The Book on "Strategic Management" was so stressful while being so irritating that I lost my patience with the course itself. If the three stanford professors could write a book that was filled with so much of crap, I am sure that there is still hope left in this world. But more of that in another post.
For the first time in my life, I felt that it was indeed nice to be rich. Sitting at the SONY center at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin on the only day we could move around Berlin, I felt an inspiration that I should be rich. This may sound so trivial for many but for me that is profound since money has never been a motivation for me - infact I have chosen paths that took me away from money consciously. Not to say that I will do anything for money - my upbringing and morals will not allow me to do that. But to be able to create something big and to have the ability to do something as liberating as the SONY center, I need power that can come from being rich and powerful and not from being a middle Manager. Coming home, I changed my desktop image to a picture that I took of Ritz Carlton at Potsdamer Platz to remind me of my new change - I want to be a guest at the Ritz, not as a perk but as a matter of fact :)
Berlin is beautiful and very inspirational. I Love this city
Friday, 11 April 2008
Berlin Half Marathon
St.Hedwig’s Catholic Kirche in Berlin Mitte is located behind the Opera house and across from Humbolt University. It is also just a few minutes walk from ESMT. The Church is the seat of the Berlin Archbishop. I would have expected such a church to be multilingual. However, they have Eucharistic celebration only in Deutsch. My wife and I are particular to attend a Sunday service where ever we are. So, we continue to attend this church though we do not understand the sermons by the priest. But the beauty of the Catholic church is that the rituals are the same in any part of the world and that makes it easy for us to follow the priest as he says his prayers and we say our response in English as we are used to.
So, last Sunday, we attended the 10 am service and when we stepped out, I remembered that it was also the date for the Berlin Half Marathon. We walked over to the start point of the half marathon at the Berliner Dome, just across the street from ESMT. The race had already started much before the time we reached there and the city staff was clearing out the road blocks, etc. So, we spent some time looking at the Flea Market along the spree – checking out some paintings and some nice small leather pouches shaped like sea shells, etc. The day was a cruel one for running – it was bitterly cold and felt like below Zero. As we walked to the end point – the Rathaus, on the opposite side of the Dome, We could see people lining the street and the excitement building. We could hear clapping and general noise levels rising as the winner of the woman’s marathon - Peninah Arusei crossed the finish line. The Kenyan clocked 68:22, which is the third fastest times this year so far.
Stefano and Martin from ESMT were also running the half Marathon. So, we decided to see if we could find them among the runners reaching the end point. We found a place just opposite the cheering band and the cheer girls doing the routine. The trickle of runners reaching the finish line began to increase in momentum – one followed by another, then soon groups of 5 runners running together, then, 6, then 7, then 10, steadily increasing till all we could see were a torrent of bobbing heads into the distance. A record number of 20,660 runners from 86 nations had entered Germany’s biggest and best quality half marathon. 17,733 runners finished the race.
Looking out for Stefano and Martin in this flow of runners became very difficult. There were a few false alarms. People looking like Stefano came in all shapes and sizes. I must have waved at many of them. They would have thought I was just cheering them on. I was only one of the 150,000 spectators who had lined to see the marathon.
Martin is the class manager of our batch. He is quiet, unassuming and sponsored by the MAN group. He is also the German junior canoeing champion. With this kind of sports background, he had gone onto the marathon without much practice. His past experience with running a marathon was the Berlin Half Marathon about 4 years back. Stefano was better prepared – running atleast twice during the week preparing for this half marathon … He, of course, has other reasons to keep himself fit - to run away from girls (or someone in particular?) who were chasing him J. He is this popular Italian whom the girls cannot seem to have enough of. He had done a marathon about 2 years back.
With passing time, I began to lose hope of being able to identify my friends among the runners. If there is one lesson I learnt from this marathon, it is that, never run alongside a beautiful woman runner. If you do, no one ever notices you. Maybe I did miss them!!! I was also looking out for Santiago, he was to join Martin and Stefano from Potsdamer Platz to run the last 4 Kms to motivate them through the last leg. As the stream of runners continued to flow, I could see women runners and then children. I was sure that they were definitely faster than letting kids overtake them. I later got to know that it took them over 3 minutes to move from their position to the start line after the start of the half marathon – so packed was the race. Soon the crowd of runners became very tired looking men. I must have definitely missed them.
While I was discussing with my wife whether to stop this futile search and return home, like a slow motion scene from a Hollywood movie played to the background of the Final Countdown, In the midst of the white sea of people, I see this black stallion – running proudly with the head held up high. The contrast was stark – drooping tired white shoulders all around and this steady head with a sparkling smile and black mane – the head of the Argentinean, Santiago. Following him closely were Martin and Stefano. Santiago was leading the heroes home. The cheering band drowned out our calling out of names. So, we made our way back to the finish line to meet our proud runners. There we saw Elka and Ritesh who had also come to cheer them. We hung around for a while as Martin and Stefano posed for a few pictures along with their chief motivator – the black stallion, before stopping at the stands for their quota of energy drink – a nice cold beer!!!
As they relaxed after a morning well spent, my wife and I returned home as I had to get back to school for a group meeting for Marketing. My group was writing a paper on the marketing strategy of facebook.
I am proud of Stefano and Martin who ran the Half Marathon and not to forget Santiago for his boundless enthusiasm. Hopefully they will also run the Full Marathon in September.
Pictures: Stefano gesturing to Santiago and Martin to join for the picture .... The runners - Stefano and Martin .... the runners joined by the Stallion :)
So, last Sunday, we attended the 10 am service and when we stepped out, I remembered that it was also the date for the Berlin Half Marathon. We walked over to the start point of the half marathon at the Berliner Dome, just across the street from ESMT. The race had already started much before the time we reached there and the city staff was clearing out the road blocks, etc. So, we spent some time looking at the Flea Market along the spree – checking out some paintings and some nice small leather pouches shaped like sea shells, etc. The day was a cruel one for running – it was bitterly cold and felt like below Zero. As we walked to the end point – the Rathaus, on the opposite side of the Dome, We could see people lining the street and the excitement building. We could hear clapping and general noise levels rising as the winner of the woman’s marathon - Peninah Arusei crossed the finish line. The Kenyan clocked 68:22, which is the third fastest times this year so far.
Stefano and Martin from ESMT were also running the half Marathon. So, we decided to see if we could find them among the runners reaching the end point. We found a place just opposite the cheering band and the cheer girls doing the routine. The trickle of runners reaching the finish line began to increase in momentum – one followed by another, then soon groups of 5 runners running together, then, 6, then 7, then 10, steadily increasing till all we could see were a torrent of bobbing heads into the distance. A record number of 20,660 runners from 86 nations had entered Germany’s biggest and best quality half marathon. 17,733 runners finished the race.Looking out for Stefano and Martin in this flow of runners became very difficult. There were a few false alarms. People looking like Stefano came in all shapes and sizes. I must have waved at many of them. They would have thought I was just cheering them on. I was only one of the 150,000 spectators who had lined to see the marathon.
Martin is the class manager of our batch. He is quiet, unassuming and sponsored by the MAN group. He is also the German junior canoeing champion. With this kind of sports background, he had gone onto the marathon without much practice. His past experience with running a marathon was the Berlin Half Marathon about 4 years back. Stefano was better prepared – running atleast twice during the week preparing for this half marathon … He, of course, has other reasons to keep himself fit - to run away from girls (or someone in particular?) who were chasing him J. He is this popular Italian whom the girls cannot seem to have enough of. He had done a marathon about 2 years back.
With passing time, I began to lose hope of being able to identify my friends among the runners. If there is one lesson I learnt from this marathon, it is that, never run alongside a beautiful woman runner. If you do, no one ever notices you. Maybe I did miss them!!! I was also looking out for Santiago, he was to join Martin and Stefano from Potsdamer Platz to run the last 4 Kms to motivate them through the last leg. As the stream of runners continued to flow, I could see women runners and then children. I was sure that they were definitely faster than letting kids overtake them. I later got to know that it took them over 3 minutes to move from their position to the start line after the start of the half marathon – so packed was the race. Soon the crowd of runners became very tired looking men. I must have definitely missed them.
While I was discussing with my wife whether to stop this futile search and return home, like a slow motion scene from a Hollywood movie played to the background of the Final Countdown, In the midst of the white sea of people, I see this black stallion – running proudly with the head held up high. The contrast was stark – drooping tired white shoulders all around and this steady head with a sparkling smile and black mane – the head of the Argentinean, Santiago. Following him closely were Martin and Stefano. Santiago was leading the heroes home. The cheering band drowned out our calling out of names. So, we made our way back to the finish line to meet our proud runners. There we saw Elka and Ritesh who had also come to cheer them. We hung around for a while as Martin and Stefano posed for a few pictures along with their chief motivator – the black stallion, before stopping at the stands for their quota of energy drink – a nice cold beer!!!
As they relaxed after a morning well spent, my wife and I returned home as I had to get back to school for a group meeting for Marketing. My group was writing a paper on the marketing strategy of facebook.
I am proud of Stefano and Martin who ran the Half Marathon and not to forget Santiago for his boundless enthusiasm. Hopefully they will also run the Full Marathon in September.
Pictures: Stefano gesturing to Santiago and Martin to join for the picture .... The runners - Stefano and Martin .... the runners joined by the Stallion :)
Saturday, 5 April 2008
Thirty Minutes
What is the difference between a beer and a pee?
Answer: Thirty Minutes
This is the joke from Santiago as a penalty for coming late to a Managerial accounting class by Mario Resse.
Many professors have their own mechanisms to ensure that people are on time for classes. Our class has been fairly very good so far – mostly on time, except for Vlad who goes to bed at 6 am when the classes begin at 9 am. Well, Vlad is an exception; his body is yet to decide when it should go to sleep and when it should awake. He says he slept for 4 hours totally in 4 days during this week and I believe him – he has managed to read up all the material he could on Sovereign Wealth Funds for the Kansleramt Visit and also do his part for the Operations presentation and also write the first draft for the Marketing paper.
During the first module, Konstantin (OB) had a rule – if you were late, you buy a bottle of wine for the Bergfest (our weekly(?) get together) and we collected about 12 bottles. Of course, this includes when you were late even by a minute. So, that is a fairly low number. Eric (Marketing) had us contribute 10 Euros to a charity to be selected by the class and he was kind enough to promise to give a matching contribution to the charity. Now, that is asking for trouble. So, the last day, all of us decided to be late by 2 minutes and we all chipped in 10 Euros each, or 310 Euros for the 31 of us and Poor Eric had to shell out 310 Euros. Eric is definitely a good sport. I am sure that if this message got out, none of the professors would ever offer to match our contribution for coming late.
Francis (Decision Making) was more direct. He said that coming late would affect the class participation scores automatically. I do not know if he went through with his threat but this unknown element was enough to ensure that we were on time. Of course, with Francis, he has this twinkle in his eyes when he says something that we are not sure if he was joking or if he was being a cool assassin with a smiling exterior. Michal (Economics) and Zimmerman (Intro to Accounting) were very nice on this front. – no threats, no penalties… but by now, we were Pavlov dogs and automatically thought there was a loss if we were late.
Second module – there were no threats and there were some signs of the Pavlovian behavior wearing off when Mario Resse decided to put an end to this by saying that anyone who is late had to tell a joke to the class and hence the joke from Santiago. This is counterproductive, as telling jokes took away some of the time of the class. Being an accountancy professor, Mario realized his mistake pretty quickly and has proposed some pretty unique suggestions including having a quiz with the number of questions matching the number of minutes of being late. He may eventually go back to having us buying a bottle of wine but of a brand of his suggestion.
Just a few minutes after the joke, Mario got back at Santiago. When Santiago answered a question from Mario wrong, Mario made the gesture of an imaginary gun and asked what is the difference between the answer from Santiago and pointed the imaginary gun at Santiago and said “pop” – The answer: 2 Seconds!!! The class rolled up in laughter at the quick comeback by Mario. Mario 1, Santiago 0.
Answer: Thirty Minutes
This is the joke from Santiago as a penalty for coming late to a Managerial accounting class by Mario Resse.
Many professors have their own mechanisms to ensure that people are on time for classes. Our class has been fairly very good so far – mostly on time, except for Vlad who goes to bed at 6 am when the classes begin at 9 am. Well, Vlad is an exception; his body is yet to decide when it should go to sleep and when it should awake. He says he slept for 4 hours totally in 4 days during this week and I believe him – he has managed to read up all the material he could on Sovereign Wealth Funds for the Kansleramt Visit and also do his part for the Operations presentation and also write the first draft for the Marketing paper.
During the first module, Konstantin (OB) had a rule – if you were late, you buy a bottle of wine for the Bergfest (our weekly(?) get together) and we collected about 12 bottles. Of course, this includes when you were late even by a minute. So, that is a fairly low number. Eric (Marketing) had us contribute 10 Euros to a charity to be selected by the class and he was kind enough to promise to give a matching contribution to the charity. Now, that is asking for trouble. So, the last day, all of us decided to be late by 2 minutes and we all chipped in 10 Euros each, or 310 Euros for the 31 of us and Poor Eric had to shell out 310 Euros. Eric is definitely a good sport. I am sure that if this message got out, none of the professors would ever offer to match our contribution for coming late.
Francis (Decision Making) was more direct. He said that coming late would affect the class participation scores automatically. I do not know if he went through with his threat but this unknown element was enough to ensure that we were on time. Of course, with Francis, he has this twinkle in his eyes when he says something that we are not sure if he was joking or if he was being a cool assassin with a smiling exterior. Michal (Economics) and Zimmerman (Intro to Accounting) were very nice on this front. – no threats, no penalties… but by now, we were Pavlov dogs and automatically thought there was a loss if we were late.
Second module – there were no threats and there were some signs of the Pavlovian behavior wearing off when Mario Resse decided to put an end to this by saying that anyone who is late had to tell a joke to the class and hence the joke from Santiago. This is counterproductive, as telling jokes took away some of the time of the class. Being an accountancy professor, Mario realized his mistake pretty quickly and has proposed some pretty unique suggestions including having a quiz with the number of questions matching the number of minutes of being late. He may eventually go back to having us buying a bottle of wine but of a brand of his suggestion.
Just a few minutes after the joke, Mario got back at Santiago. When Santiago answered a question from Mario wrong, Mario made the gesture of an imaginary gun and asked what is the difference between the answer from Santiago and pointed the imaginary gun at Santiago and said “pop” – The answer: 2 Seconds!!! The class rolled up in laughter at the quick comeback by Mario. Mario 1, Santiago 0.
April 1, 2008
Making phone calls to spread some rumors or wishing someone happy birthdays are some ways with which we “celebrate” April Fools Day. The uncreative media always writes some article making it appear that something catastrophic has occurred or something long rumored is true. It was funny the first time but its repeated usage, every year is ample evidence to the fact that creativity is almost dead in Media – maybe search for advertisement revenues makes them regurgitate old formulas as if it were Hollywood re-runs.
With an exam on April 1 in Operations, we were not exactly in the mood for being creative. But after the exam was behind us in the morning, we were more relaxed to try a joke on Luc (Advanced Marketing) during the afternoon class. We have long wondered whether professors really knew our names or only called us from the name boards that were in front of us. So, when Stefano came into our rooms and said that we mix up our seating so that we did not sit along with our name boards, we were game! The unfolding drama was unscripted and absolutely hilarious.
I walked into class and sat before Satya’s name board. Other also walked in and picked up their preferred seating. It was completely natural and there was no chaos or unnecessary noise. Luc realized that something was happening but tried to keep a straight face. At 2 pm, he took the floor. He introduced the case study and spoke for about 5 minutes to build the case. Then he opened the floor for discussions. I waited with bated breath to see what would Luc do now. Felix who was now sitting before Shyla’s name board, put up his hand to answer the question. Luc pointed at Felix and said with a straight face, “Okay Shyla, what do you say?”. The class burst out into laughter – Luc knew Felix’s name – well, who did not know Felix? He was the person who spoke the most in class after the professor and if the professor is not careful, could speak even more than the professor!!!. After the answer, Luc turned to the rest of the class and said – “so, who agrees to what she said”. Luc was playing along and more importantly, he was also getting the gender right with the name board, rather than the actual person who was sitting at the seat.
By this time, the class had warmed up. So, when Luc called Maria – Adrian who was sitting at Maria’s place, started to speak as if he were Maria – making the “swinging” gesture that Maria normally makes. Casey who was sitting at Dorothea’s seat, tried to speak like a girl. Aditya tried to speak like Stefano and Shyla, sitting at Yury’s place was trying to attract Luc’s attention using Yury’s trademark left hand under raised right elbow sign. But the person who took the cake and broke the semblance of order that people were desperately trying to keep up, without bursting into laughter, was Dorothea who was sitting at Sachin’s seat. So, when Luc called Sachin. Dorothea started off in classic Sachin style saying “In my previous company…..” and that was too much for the class to take and burst out into laughter and clapping. Dorothea kept a stern face through all this and continued ….”… we did moleculargastronomical study … blah..blah…blah…” Oh! That was hilarious … I was bursting my sides… We could not take this no more …. Luc was laughing – people tried hard not to fall off their chairs. After a few minutes, All of us composed ourselves and went back into our role mode for the whole session of an hour and quarter. This was the best one hour unscripted role play by 32 people (31 students and 1 prof) I have ever seen.
I later heard a comment - perhaps the only person who could have managed all the chaos was luc who had 10 kids – No wonder, he was able to keep a straight face through all this!!!
Now, that is something new for April 1.
With an exam on April 1 in Operations, we were not exactly in the mood for being creative. But after the exam was behind us in the morning, we were more relaxed to try a joke on Luc (Advanced Marketing) during the afternoon class. We have long wondered whether professors really knew our names or only called us from the name boards that were in front of us. So, when Stefano came into our rooms and said that we mix up our seating so that we did not sit along with our name boards, we were game! The unfolding drama was unscripted and absolutely hilarious.
I walked into class and sat before Satya’s name board. Other also walked in and picked up their preferred seating. It was completely natural and there was no chaos or unnecessary noise. Luc realized that something was happening but tried to keep a straight face. At 2 pm, he took the floor. He introduced the case study and spoke for about 5 minutes to build the case. Then he opened the floor for discussions. I waited with bated breath to see what would Luc do now. Felix who was now sitting before Shyla’s name board, put up his hand to answer the question. Luc pointed at Felix and said with a straight face, “Okay Shyla, what do you say?”. The class burst out into laughter – Luc knew Felix’s name – well, who did not know Felix? He was the person who spoke the most in class after the professor and if the professor is not careful, could speak even more than the professor!!!. After the answer, Luc turned to the rest of the class and said – “so, who agrees to what she said”. Luc was playing along and more importantly, he was also getting the gender right with the name board, rather than the actual person who was sitting at the seat.
By this time, the class had warmed up. So, when Luc called Maria – Adrian who was sitting at Maria’s place, started to speak as if he were Maria – making the “swinging” gesture that Maria normally makes. Casey who was sitting at Dorothea’s seat, tried to speak like a girl. Aditya tried to speak like Stefano and Shyla, sitting at Yury’s place was trying to attract Luc’s attention using Yury’s trademark left hand under raised right elbow sign. But the person who took the cake and broke the semblance of order that people were desperately trying to keep up, without bursting into laughter, was Dorothea who was sitting at Sachin’s seat. So, when Luc called Sachin. Dorothea started off in classic Sachin style saying “In my previous company…..” and that was too much for the class to take and burst out into laughter and clapping. Dorothea kept a stern face through all this and continued ….”… we did moleculargastronomical study … blah..blah…blah…” Oh! That was hilarious … I was bursting my sides… We could not take this no more …. Luc was laughing – people tried hard not to fall off their chairs. After a few minutes, All of us composed ourselves and went back into our role mode for the whole session of an hour and quarter. This was the best one hour unscripted role play by 32 people (31 students and 1 prof) I have ever seen.
I later heard a comment - perhaps the only person who could have managed all the chaos was luc who had 10 kids – No wonder, he was able to keep a straight face through all this!!!
Now, that is something new for April 1.
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