What not to say at work...Easier said than...ummm...not said

So...they tell us when we're growing up that honesty is the best policy.  I guess that applies with our parents when we're growing up, but now-a-days it seems like it's not really that good an idea to do it much of anywhere else.  Case in point, here is an article about what not to say at work that I read on Yahoo! yesterday.

It's tough to know where to draw the line at work sometimes.  As the article states, and most of us can attest to, we start to become comfortable with our co-workers once we've been around them for long enough.  Most everyone in America spends more of our waking hours with our co-workers than we do with our families, and this can lead to a level of honesty that can get us into some serious trouble at work.

The article is really well written and offers up some great examples of what not to say and do at work.  Some of them are pretty ridiculous, and would be things that most of us would never think of saying, but some are things that you might mean to be a joke at the time that can turn into a pink slip (does anyone that gets fired really get one of these things anymore by the way???) later on.  My favorite one is the young lady that tells her boss that she hoped he voted for Colonel Sanders instead of Oliver North that got fired...hahahaha...funny, but not funny all at the same time.  The comments at the bottom of these articles can always be fun, as well, and I recommend going through at least a few of them with issues like this one. 

Last week's presentations...

First off, I'd like to say that the presentations from this last week were very well done.  Not that my opinion matters all that much (and I'm sure most of you already know that you did pretty well based on the grades that you all received), but I think there's always something to be said for doing a presentation like that without being able to see how others fair first.    I was actually a bit upset with myself that I didn't just jump on the first day time slots and get it over with right away.  The last time that I got the chance to use that strategy was when I gave my senior seminar in chemistry at West Chester years ago.  I've been trying to work on this perpetual procrastination issue, but I've had pretty mixed results since getting back into this academic environment.  I suppose there's something to be said about being able to perform under pressure, but I think I've got that down to the point where further practice is really unneccessary.    Anyways, one of the topics that stuck with me the most was toxic management.  I'm sure, unfortunately, that it's something that we've all had to deal with at least once in our employment histories, and I guess it stuck with me a little bit more because of my last position and the industry that Jeff was speaking of in particular.    I definitely don't envy Jeff when it comes to management of the industry that he's in, because I can't imagine what it would be like to have to manage, or be managed by, a bunch of Ph.D. scientists, MBA or not.  I think the only way you could manage a crowd like that would be to have a Ph.D. and an MBA yourself, and even then I think it would be extremely difficult.   After thinking about it this week, though, I guess you could say that about any industry.  We're learning in Dr. Rhoad's class right now how difficult it can be to deal with technology people, employees, vendors, etc., as well, and in addition to that, I've often felt like the restaurant industry has it's own cover-up for toxic management since it's traditionally a high-turnover industry.  I guess regardless of the industry, we just need to come to grips with the fact that we're going to have to deal with managers, co-workers, etc. that we could label 'toxic' and make the best of it.   In case you're all interested in reading more about the topic I've found a few more articles out there about it.  The first one deals with recognizing toxic management and crushing it, and the author actually puts together a top 10 list from a book on the topic.  The second one deals with how to uncover a toxic boss, and, more importantly, a few things that they recommend that you do about it.

From the top of the world to prison...and how to make the best of it

Last week, on Thursday I believe, I watched the latest installment of the ESPN '30 for 30' series on Marion Jones titled 'Press Pause'.  Since then I've been struggling with how to incorporate it into something that deals with organizational theory and behavior because I was intrigued by the story and thought that some of you might be, as well.  I've decided that the topic of change is the best way to bring the story full circle into org. theory

 

For those of you who don't remember Marion Jones, she was one of the most famous and recognized athletes of the 90's and one of the most decorated Olympic athletes of the 2000 games in Sydney.  She won 5 gold medals in Sydney, and at the peak of her stardom she was paid millions of dollars a year in endorsements and $80,000 per race.  All of that, however, came crashing to a hault when she admitted in 2007 that she used steroids and lied to federal investigaters about it.

 

As a result, she lost all of her endorsement deals, spent 6 months in prison, and was personally and professionally disgraced.  She was also stripped of all of her gold medals from the Sydney games and wasn't allowed to participate in track and field for a period of two years, which she ended up deciding to retire from in 2007.

 

She now, however, is a member of the Tulsa Shock, a WNBA frachise, and is currently trying to live out another dream of her's by being a successful professional basketball player.  She is also married and has three kids, she actually made her comeback in basketball just months after giving birth to her last child, and now speaks to kids all over the country about not using drugs and the consequences if you do.

 

I've been through a bunch of rough spells in my life, just like everyone else, but can't imagine what it would be like to go through what Marion Jones has these past few years.  Although I can't agree with what she did, and I also can't imagine what I'd do if I was under that much pressure (especially if so many people around me were obviously doing it), I can't help but admire her for making the best of the hand that she's been dealt...and the hand that she's dealt herself.  

 

In addition to everything that her story can teach any of us about successful, and unsuccessful, change, it also spoke to me about the hypocracy of drug use in this country and the subsequent management of those who have used those drugs.  There are countless athletes in this country who have lied about the fact that they have used performance enhancing drugs and have been allowed to keep their trophies, records, etc.  let alone spending no time in jail for their lies and mistakes.  Management turned a blind eye to the obvious abuse that had been happening for quite some time, and although they've made strides to level the playing field by testing for these drugs more often recently, the damage has already been done to a degree that may never be able to be repaired. 

Paper Abstract - Job Satisfaction in the Restaurant Industry

Spector has defined job satisfaction as "the degree to which people like their jobs."  Therefore, it stands to reason that someone would tend to stay with a job that is more satisfying, and would tend to leave a job that is less satisfying.  As a result, employers are continuously looking for ways to design jobs in order to enhance the level of satisfaction of their employees.  This topic is one of the most widely researched in organizational behavior, and is especially important to the restaurant industry where turnover rates are historically incredibly high. 

This paper will begin with a review of the literature that deals with what job satisfaction is in general, along with it's primary determinants, regardless of the profession.  The review will then continue on to a general view of job satisfaction in the hospitality industry, and, finally, conclude with a more specific view of determinants and characteristics of job satisfaction in the restaurant industry.

This past weeks discussion...

So, I've been thinking a lot about change these past few days since we discussed it in class.  It got so bad that today, after doing it for friendship a week or so ago, I googled quotes about change.  There are a bunch of sites out there, but here is one that I pulled a few from if you're in the mood for a nice quote-pick-me(you)-up.

I'm not sure why, but I've always been okay with change and would actually go so far as to say that I live for it.  Since graduating high school I've lived in about 7 different states, attended 4 different colleges, had probably 20-30 different roommates, and have changed jobs about 10 different times.  Aside from the job thing, and maybe some of the roommates (just kidding if any of you all find this ;)), most all of that changing was done by choice.  I often sit and talk to myself, a lot more than I should probably admit publicly like this, about why all of this happened the way it did and what types of changes I'm going to try to make in the future.  At the time it may not have been the easiest thing to do, but I do feel like changing and starting over as often as I have has done a lot for me.

I find it interesting that all of this changing has taken place in my life since I grew up in an area that is probably one of the least 'change-friendly' that I've seen in my travels.  I laughed out loud when I saw the quote below, and immediately thought about some of the people I met when I was growing up here in Kutztown.

"If you want to make enemies, try to change something."  ~Woodrow Wilson
This is, after all, a pretty old-school Pennsylvania Dutch area, and I wonder if that attitude had anything to do with shaping me to go in basically the completly opposite direction.  I guess I'll never really know, but I think it has something to do with not wanting to settle.  Good or bad, I feel like I should always do more with what I've been given and have always been afraid of complacency.

Before my colleagues and I started at the SBDC we had a reading assignment that we eventually discussed.  I wasn't able to find a direct link to the article, but if you click here you can request it via an inter-library loan if you'd really be interested in reading more.  It talked about German entrepreneurs and what characteristics made them successful.  One of the major characteristics related to success from the study was product-line change.  In fact, product-line change was more of a sign of success than the other two variables that were measured in the study, early-stage business planning and pre-entry knowledge of the type of business they started.

More than anything I suppose this large amount of rambling about change is me hoping to convince myself that all of this change in my life will eventually lead to something great.  I do believe, though, that we all need to be on the lookout for change in a positive direction, especially as managers, and do whatever we can to get others to understand the value and perspective that change can bring.  Below is my favorite quote from my search.  If you've made it this far I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
 "The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me.  The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them."  ~George Bernard Shaw

Being an entrepreneur and/or rich by age 25...sounds terrible

So, I've been thinking a lot lately about where this MBA is going to take me.  I've had tons of conversations with people that have gone through the program, teach in the program, and are looking at my decision to be involved in the program from the outside.  Don't get me wrong, I definitely feel like the education I'm getting (yes, I guess this could be considered sucking up yet again) is worthwhile.  I guess it's just tough to see the forest for the trees sometimes, especially when there are no defined rewards upon completion of this type of journey.  That being said, and even though it's the second cliche that I'll use in as many sentences, I suppose the real value to be had from this program is in the journey and the people I'm going to meet on my way through it.

All of this thinking has led me on a constant search lately for inspiration in the world of business, entrepreneurship, etc. to keep me motivated about where I'm going to try to go (and I suppose am actually in the process of going right now) in the future.  I thought that the first one would be pretty interesting to fellow MBA students since the article is all about people starting their own business while in school.  Some of their ideas are really pretty interesting, all are successful, and a lot of them have to do with technology so I thought it was pretty appropriate.

The second article is about people who became millionaires before the age of 25.  This one makes me a little ill, mostly because my age 25 ship has long-since sailed, but is another great article about how people became successful and tips they have for we hopeful entrepreneurs/business leaders in the making.  Happy reading, let me know what you think, and let me know if you have an amazing idea and need a partner...hahaha.

Job Satisfaction..."the degree to which people like their jobs"

As I've said before, thank goodness that I took the advice of the Professors that I have this semester and picked topics for the papers that I'm writing that are interesting to me.  I can't imagine having to go through 10-20 articles, books, websites, etc. to find worthwhile information on a topic that I had no interest in whatsoever.

Since I've been in the restaurant industry for the last few years, and since I saw Dr. Weyant's paper hanging in front of the MBA offices while I was waiting for a meeting one day (yes...cheesy, brown-nosing opportunities exist in blog form, too), I decided that job satisfaction in the restaurant industry would be an interesting topic to address.  If nothing else, I feel like it's something that needs to be addressed since turnover can be as high as 75-100% depending on the restaurant sector that you're researching.

I took Dr. Weyant's advice and looked for references that are commonly 'referenced' in the scholarly journal articles that I came across and stumbled upon an awesome book on the topic by Paul Spector called "Job Satisfaction: Application, assessment, causes, and consequences." 

Mr. Spector states that "Job satisfaction is the degree to which people like their jobs.  Some people enjoy work and find it to be a central part of life.  Others hate to work and do so only because they must."  That statement alone took me a few hours to digest as I thought back across my 'working life' about myself and all the other people I've worked with and what category we would fall into.  What category do you all think you fall into with your jobs?  Are you here in this program because you don't feel like you have enough satisfaction in your past jobs, or even your current job? 

I've always prided myself on being a person that not only enjoys their job, but tries to work as hard as I can each day that I'm there.  I used to tell people at my last job that work is at least 80% verb and 20% a noun.  I guess that's just because I was lucky enough to enjoy what I did, even though I may have complained about it a bit more than I probably should have from time to time. 

The best sources for scholarly and peer-reviewed references...at KU, that is

I wanted to put this up sooner to help everyone out a bit that might not have used the search tools available here on campus yet, but I've been about as busy as all of the rest of you lately and just didn't get the chance to until now.  I actually promised Jess that I'd do it yesterday and didn't get to it, but hopefully the fact that I'm doing it at 10:15 on my birthday can make up for it :).

If you've never used the sources available to us on campus I know how frustrating it can be to get the information you need to write a paper like the one we have coming up.  I was talking to a few people in my group about it a few weeks ago, and I know how some of you feel about getting an ID card.  Even though it is a bit of a pain I would recommend that you do it if you haven't already.  It makes using the search services from an off-campus computer easier, lets you gain access to all-night computer labs (which might be the only reason I actually got mine), and probably does a bunch more stuff that I'm not all that sure of yet. 

If you don't have an ID card, or a network ID set up on campus, you can still access the databases available to KU students, however.  You have to go to the library and get a temporary card that gives you a generic name and password that allows you to access the information from off-campus. 

Once you've got the card, or if you have an ID card already or are on a computer on campus, I recommend using the ABI/Inform Complete database from this list.  I could have walked you all through the steps from the KU library home page, but it's just much easier if you go straight to that link.

Once you're there you can begin searching away.  The only thing that you need to remember to do while you're searching for this particular paper is to make sure that you check the box for 'Scholarly journals including peer-reviewed.'

Feel free to comment if you're having any troubles, or if you have any other questions that you think I might be able to help you out with.  Happy searching, reading, and writing!! 

Self-managing beer club...

Some friends of mine and I, many of which I used to work with at my last job, got together this week for the first installment of what is going to be our 'beer club.'  We plan are planning on meeting once every two weeks to try new beers we've never had, sample each other's home-made brews (which I plan on starting as a hobby some time very soon), and just enjoy each others' company if only for a few hours.

 

As we were sitting around talking about what we have all been up to the conversation eventually turned to what I've been doing with all of my time in school recently.  So as to not lose my audience's attention, which may or may not be a problem I have due to rambling from time to time, I glazed over most of it pretty quickly.  I did mention, just like I usually do when I talk about school, that I was writing my own blog now, and one of my friends suggested that I blog about what we did that night somehow.  Since I think it relates pretty well to these case studies we've been doing lately, and I enjoy reminiscing as much as I can about the much smaller amount of time per week that I get to spend with these amazing folks right now, I'm taking my friend Lea's advice.

 

One of my last places of employment had quite possibly the best example of a 'self-managed team' that I have experienced thus far in my working years.  I was lucky enough to work with a bunch of amazing people there, but myself and two of them in particular were one of the best teams that I've ever been, and will probably ever be, a part of.  We always got each others' back, picked up each others' slack if one or two of us was having a bad day, and used each of our strengths to produce the best results for each shift.  We actually changed the way that we got tipped out on the days that we worked together from an hourly rate to just splitting it three ways because we respected each other that much and all felt that we each deserved an equal share for each shift that we worked together. 

 

The only issue that eventually broke it all up in the end was management deciding that we should add more people to the team without figuring out a way to supplement our compensation.  I've always felt, and still feel today, that you should reward your top performing, self-managed employees with the best opportunities and compensation possible.  I wish that it had worked out, and management had shared those views, so that we were all still there because I haven't felt that level of teamwork and comradery since playing sports in high school.

 

Since we don't work together anymore the next best thing is starting this beer club once every other week to hang out with each other and drink great beer.  If you're into beer the restaurant that a bunch of them work at is called 'Tap and Table,' and its got one of the most ridiculous beer selections that you'll see in this area.  I'm a huge fan of the La Chouffe (and Mc Chouffe for that matter) if you end up going and need a suggestion that I can't imagine anyone not liking.

 

Managing Myself...not as easy as it used to be

As far as things that some people who I consider really good friends would say that I shouldn't admit openly in public, on the internet, etc. I would guess that admitting that the only CD I listened to for a straight 3/4 months or so when I lived in Arizona was John Mayer's CD 'Room for Squares.'  I could give you some of the reasons why to attempt to justify it, but those reasons would probably fall on deaf ears after reading the previous statement.  I understand...i've obviously been down this road a time or two.

Anyways...one of the songs on the CD is called "Back to You," and I always liked it for the message just like I do with a lot of other music that I've listened to in the past.  The last line of the song says, 'Doesn't it scare you, your will is not as strong as it used to be?' 

That line has resonated with me for the last few years in a couple of categories of my life, mainly because I feel like my 18 year old self would beat the heck out of my 30 year old self for some of the things that I let my self get away with now (and almost justify).  One of those categories is how I treat my body, and I recently decided that it was high time to quit smoking.  I'm definitely doing it for myself, because I shouldn't have ever started in the first place and have always been pretty darn healthy otherwise, but another big reason I'm doing it is for the people in my life that I care about.  There's the one's that hate that I smoke (and still can't understand how I ever started), the one's that don't know what that means yet (because they still can't quite say my name), and the one's that are probably a few years away from arriving.

Insert pictures of people I'm talking about here:

Since I've been talking to a lot of people about the fact that I'm quitting lately, as I'm a bartender in a smoking establishment, I was interested the last few days in doing a bit of research about how long it really takes to break/establish a habit.  I've found some research that says that it takes about two weeks, but there is also some out there that says that the average time is about 66 days/2 months.

I haven't smoked an actual cigarette for a week, so I guess I have a ways to go to making sure that I have acually broken a habit that will lead to managing my life more effectively.  I guess right now I have to take it the same way Bill Murray did in "What About Bob?"  Baby steps...

Teaching Entrepreneurialism...my first scholarly research paper

So...I've done papers for classes other than the sciences, but I don't think that I've really ever had to put together the types of papers that are required of us this semester before.  Hence, why I haven't blogged at all this week, and why I started writing this one at 3:30 in the morning as I was still try to put the finishing touches on a paper that was due today.

 

I will say that I'm glad that I picked a topic that was of sincere interest to me, which all of my professors this semester have wisely suggested, or it would have been a rough road from research to conclusion.  I chose to do this paper for Dr. Rhoads class on the effects of educational programs on entrepreneurialism.  I know a few of us have talked about the kind of crazy people entrepreneurs are supposed to be in our blogs before, and I wanted to find out if there were a lot of people doing studies that supported programs that encouraged us to be/turned us into crazy people at the university level.  Sure enough, a good amount of the research I found suggested that there are a certain set of traits, sort of, that entrepreneurs possess, and that those traits could be groomed and cultivated with the proper training programs.

 

I think it's an interesting proposition to profess that you can teach someone to be an entrepreneur at the university level, since most people believe that certain skills/characteristics possessed by entrepreneurs are one's that are unable to be taught.  I do believe that a lot of the skills that I've developed, however, that are pointing me towards an entrepreneurial career have very much been influenced by the very fortunate upbringing and educational experiences that I've enjoyed up to this point.

 

On a related note, November 15 to 21st is global entrepreneurship week, which I just found out since I am a follower of the Kutztown SBDC's Blog.  You can click here to be taken to the article on the Kauffman Foundations website that describes what that week will be all about.  We are actually going to be doing a lot of work to improve our blog over the next few weeks, and I think it would be worthwhile for a lot of you to check out (click here to be taken to the site).  If you're interested in becoming an entrepreneur, and receiving some of that education that I just talked about for free, definitely keep us in mind over the next few weeks.  We're going to be constantly looking for ways to impove, too, so feel free to let me know if you have any suggestions in class.

Facebook Founder 'Wastes His Money' on Education

Even if you don't read this post please do yourself a favor, like I did today, and check out this link to an upcoming movie about education in our country.

 

I'm sure that most of you have heard about the fact that Mark Zuckerberg, the 24 year old that founded Facebook and just passed Steve Jobs by seven places on the Forbes richest people in America list, donated $100 million to the Newark Public School System on Friday during the Oprah Winfrey Show. 

 

In most of the articles I've read it seems that people have written this off as Mr. Zuckerberg trying to distract the swarms of movie-goers that are going out to see The Social Network from believing that he in some way stole the idea for Facebook as the movie, and the book on which it is loosely based, suggests.  I had a few discussions with some of my co-workers the other day, however, that has changed my perspective on the issue and I think it relates pretty well to our objectives in this class.

 

One of the few articles that I've read likens the idea of donating money to the public school systems to flushing money down the toilet.  They also talked about it being this decades new 'Live Aid,' when everyone donated money in the 80's to help starving children in Africa, type of quest that influential celebrities and philanthropists are now taking on in this country.  After reading all of this I was, quite frankly, appalled by the idea of people believing that donating money to fix public schools in this country would be considered a lost cause, but after our conversation the other day it seems like there's a possibility that they're not too far off in that analogy.

 

The public school system's in this country have been broken, as a whole mind you, for years and nothing has been done about it.  Our country ranks near the top in the amount of money we spend on education, but much lower in achievement.  One study I just looked at placed us 18th of the 36 industrialized nations in secondary education.  This is obviously a problem that needs to be addressed.  The issue is that it may take a complete overhaul of the system to make it all happen.   

 

I suggested a similar solution when it came to the Treadway Tire Company for this weeks case study, but these suggestions are, after all, easier to bring up than to actually put into action.  The money that we spend on education in this country and the results that young people get out of that education are obviously not where they need to be.  I thought, and still think today, about going into the field of education eventually, but it seems like an area that I may want to stay out of for quite a while.  The structure of this enormous organization in this country needs to be changed, and managed more effectively, or we may continue to be out-paced by the rest of the world...and more importantly, opportunity that should be there for everyone will continue to not be.

Portable Careers and Football

I've been spending a lot of time recently, just like a lot of other MBA students I know, doing research for two papers that I'm currently working on.  I've come across a lot of articles during all of this research that have nothing to do with what my papers will be about, but are intriguing and I end up reading anyhow.  I guess that's yet another form of procrastination that I have to some how tackle in the future.

The one that I just got done reading is about the value of a 'portable' career, and recruiting 'star' players for your organization based on research done by some Harvard folks on the NFL.  If nothing else I figured it would make for a good segway from watching football to making some school work happen on a Sunday.

I would have liked to be able to read the actual study, but you have to pay for it and I'm not all that excited about paying for any more articles, books, etc. at least until next month.  It is, however, a pretty good overview of what the study was all about with a quick question and answer question.

It actually got me thinking about the Treadway Tire Company case study, because it talks about when you should actually go out and recruit star talent or cultivate that talent from your current crop of employees.  I think many companies believe that they should be looking elsewhere for their next star manager, sales person, etc. when they could be training the people they've already got to eventually be that person.  After all, anyone who is a star somewhere else, unless they are ridiculously lucky and extremely gifted, has had to grow up through the ranks of another organization and fail over and over again until they eventually became that star.  

Not to bring too many sports into the mix, but I think that the Phillies are an excellent example of a good balance of this.  They have cultivated most of their now big-name talent through their farm system, but have also gone out and gotten that star talent for certain positions that has propelled them to the top of their league yet again this season.  I wasn't going into this post trying to reference as many sports as possible, but I think it'll make for a nice Sunday blogging theme for the rest of the semester. 

New York Times Article on Entrepreneurialism

As I've been researching, for the paper for which I still have no idea what it is I'll really be writing about the night before the topic is due, I've come across some very interesting topic ideas and random articles that I thought everyone might find interesting.  The one that I read today, though, was one that piqued my interest quite a bit because it deals with the topic of entrepreneurialism. 

What's funny about this post is that as I started to write the intro paragraph I figured that I'd go back to the article so that I could include a link and reference some of the particular things that they were talking about.  The only problem is that apparently not enough people on Yahoo! today thought that the article was interesting enough for them to keep it up on their site....hahahaha.  I think that it was replaced by the first cut on dancing with the stars.....appropriate.

What it basically had to deal with was the fact that most entrepreneurial characteristics, which I still think I have pretty many of and it gets scarier every time I read these articles, resemble characteristics of crazy people.  It relates back pretty well to the article that Luke posted the other day about entrepreneurialism being like a disease that can't be helped.  It went into detail about a young man who is only 19 years old who dropped out of Princeton after convincing a venture capital firm to give him $750,000 to start his own business.  Even though he may be close to crazy, he still convinced that firm that he was the kind of person that they were excited about investing in.

These kind of stories inspire me to keep letting everyone around me think I'm crazy.  For now I'll go back to making myself crazy trying to find this article and put it up as soon as I can find it in case you all are interested in hearing more.

Central City Case

This is the first time that I'll actually be doing a case study at any level so I thought it appropriate to ask all of your opinions, all help is genuinely appreciated, on the best way to tackle such an assignment.  There are obviously different things to talk about with this case but I'm unsure if I should focus on my own ideas, the questions that are presented in the beginning of the case, or some combination of both.

Since this is only being done for practice I'm not necessarily all that worried about how it turns out, however I would like to make the most of this practice time and learn what it is that's expected of me early on in the process rather than later.

Thanks for all your input, and I hope that you're out enjoying this gorgeous day instead of sitting in the library doing homework.

Today's Discussion

I have to say that today's discussion was awesome, and one of the main reasons that I got into this MBA program in the first place.  Not to talk down on the curriculum (especially before I've received my first grade...hahahaha), but I really came here for the internship and the people.  Discussions like the one's that we had in class today are invaluable to me because of the perspective that everyone brings.  The different jobs, backgrounds, cultures, and personalities in our class are going to make for an incredible learning environment for me and I want everyone to know how much I appreciate that at the onset.

I'm in a very interesting spot with the age range, or generation, in which I fall in terms of today's topic.  I've always been intrigued about how people grow up and how what they're exposed to affects the way that they view their world, and consequently their relationships, jobs, employers, etc.  I'm lucky to have an increased perspective with the age, cultural, and experience differences that our class brings to the table.

All that being said, there were two things that I'm really still thinking about after being in class today.  The first one is how much respect I have for the International students that we're so lucky to have in our midst.  It's hard enough for me to offer up my opinion being able to understand (for the most part that is) our crazy culture and language, let alone if both of those things were to be completely foreign to me.  I've had language classes in the past, all Spanish, and I've always been apprehensive to share at points just because of my own perceived inability to even just speak the language effectively.  Let me be the first to say that I hope you all share more of your opinions and perspectives in class because I'm very interested in learning more from you.

Secondly, Tom's statement about 'giving us those trophies' was incredibly insightful.  I've been really impressed with Tom since meeting him again, I met him only once prior when he was 14 (I think), and that statement struck a chord with me today.  As we've moved to being a society where people spend so much less time actually raising their kids, hanging out as a family, etc. we've overcompensated in categories like that one to try to hide some of our inadequacies.  Not everyone falls into this category, don't get me wrong I've seen some amazing young parents, but a lot of parents of the current younger generation seem to blame others for their children's problems instead of themselves.  I can't imagine how hard it must be to raise kids, so my opinion might not be all that valid, but I wish everyone got the opportunity to have a family like mine growing up so that they could earn those trophies instead of being given them to cover up for something that everyone deserves.

Hello, again, fellow MBAers

Where to begin?  I guess the best place to start is that I'm actually from Kutztown originally.  Technically I grew up in a tiny, middle of nowhere town called Lenhartsville.  I'm sure some of you are familiar with it, but as I traveled around the country I was lucky if people knew where Allentown was when I talked about where I was from (most usually said they knew the Billy Joel song, but had no idea where it was).

I was very lucky growing up, mostly because I had amazing parents, and was able to do whatever I wanted as long as I stuck to it and did it to the best of my ability.  My Mom, Karen, is a school nurse for the Hamburg Area School District, and just might be the most amazing woman I've ever met.  My step-dad, Jon, is the owner of the Kuhnsville Carwash in Kuhnsville, and has been inspirational in my going back to finish my undergrad chemistry degree last year and my MBA this year. 

I'm the oldest of three brothers.  My brother Matt is 29, is a graduate of Bloomsburg, has been married for almost 5 years, and has an awesome little boy, Jack, who is 15 months old.  Hanging out with him and playing Uncle is probably my favorite hobby right now.  My brother Dan is 27, graduated with two degrees from Kutztown, and is currently going for his masters degree in music from Rutgers University.

I played three sports in high school, was involved in a bunch of clubs and societies, and am an Eagle Scout.  I still enjoy playing basketball, frisbee golf, and baseball or football when I get the chance.  One of my bigger goals for the next few years is to get back into sports and/or scouts as a coach and a volunteer.  Right now, though, most of my time as spent as a student, grad. assistant, and bartender.

I actually went to four different colleges during my undergrad career, which sounds crazy but was a pretty awesome journey.  I spent at least one semester at the University of Delaware, Kutztown, West Chester, and Salisbury State (which is in MD).

The last 7 years or so I've lived in a bunch of different places, as well.  I've lived in Phoenix, Omaha, Newport Beach, Los Angeles, San Diego, Orlando, and moved back to Kutztown about 3 years ago.

I'm here because I've always wanted  to own my own business, and I'm really excited about the MBA program and the Graduate Assistantship that I was lucky enough to obtain working at the KU Small Business Development Center.

I should have stopped writing a long time ago, so I guess I'll wrap this up by saying that I'm very interested in getting to know everyone in the class a little bit better and in seeing where this whole MBA experience can take me.

Take care, and see you all on Wednesday.