New Industry Expert Discovered in EC Class:
EC student Ed Lander has recently been wowing classmates and faculty alike with his keen insights into the real estate industry – insights cultivated and gleaned over the entire eight weeks he spent in the industry this summer.
From the first day of Real Property, Lander has awed those around him. “As I’ve learned from my time in the real estate business, there’s one key rule I’m going to share with you. Hey, Susan? Are you paying attention? You might want to get this down. Anyway, as I was saying, some real estate wisdom I can give you, free of charge, is the following: It’s all about location, location, and price.”
“Um, isn’t it supposed to be ‘location, location, location’?” asked classmate Mandy Yee.
“Excuse me? Hello?!” responded an indignant Lander, “Don’t forget: I’ve worked in real estate!”
Yee, whose father owns vast amounts of land in Hong Kong and is one of Asia’s wealthiest and most respected property moguls, responded by rolling her eyes and sighing in exasperation.
Misinterpreting the sigh as one of defeat, Lander continued: “Maybe next week, if you’re lucky, I’ll introduce you all to a special real estate inside concept I learned this summer called ‘buy low, sell high.’ It’s kind of tricky, but once you know as much about real estate as I do, you might be able to pick it up.”
The professor, attempting to shut Lander up, asked him, “Well Ed, have you considered going to work for a REIT after graduation?”
Responded Lander: “A what?”
Sectionmate is “Totally There”
Mistakenly thinking that the lives and fates of his 89 section-mates hinge upon his every move, Jeff Brownlee graciously hit “reply to all” to a recent section event e-mail, announcing to all of his peers that he’s “totally there”. The message put to rest a firestorm of speculation that had previously been engulfing the section. Said section-mate Keith Kowalski,
“It normally takes an awful lot to convince me to go somewhere where I’ll meet lots of interesting people, drink lots of free beer, and have lots of fun. I would normally prefer to spend my Saturday nights either staring at the wall, or watching my screen-saver go ’round and ’round. But hey, if Jeff is going to be there, I can now make the sacrifice and force myself to go to this ‘party’ and to have a ‘great time’.”
Section-mate Sharyn Dreyer added, “As soon as I saw that our Social Chair had sent out an e-mail announcing a party, I could think of nothing else other than, ‘Will that Jeff guy in the second row be there?’. For days, I’ve been unable to sleep or eat – I spend all night tossing and turning, and every time I try to eat something, I realize that there’s no point in introducing life-sustaining nutrients into my body, if it will be a body that goes to a Jeff-less party.”
“Thank God he finally replied to all of us to let us know his plans – now I’ll be able to move on with my life.”
Continued Dreyer, “I just can’t wait until recruiting season starts, and Jeff tells all of us who he’s interviewing with and which offers he’s considering! My entire day hinges upon these vital facts. If he doesn’t get a great internship, I know that I, the section, our professors, my entire extended family, and the city of Cambridge will be devastated.”
When asked for comment, Brownlee responded, “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that, and I realized that it might be seen as a bit tactless to just brag to everyone about how awesome I am, so instead, I’ll disguise my overwhelming narcissism and immaturity with cleverly-worded questions like, ‘Can somebody help me manage all of the recruiters that keep giving me job-offers against my will?’ or, ‘Does anyone here have any advice for how to let Bill Gates down gently?’ That way, even all those losers in my section won’t feel so bad.”
Added Brownlee, “I’m such a genius!”
Dean Kester Taps TOM Students:
Dean Kester recently selected a group of top-performing RC students, based on results of the recent TOM midterm and Shad Factory exercise, to tackle several of the University’s most pressing operations issues. Team lead Indira Rathmanadanitran (NK), who earned her B.S. and M.S. in Industrial and Operations Engineering before coming to HBS, reported on the SWAT team’s initial findings, remarking, “clearly, the operations department was not consulted before the Aldrich coffee cart was put into place. We calculated wait times of up to 19 minutes between classes, and that’s after accounting for the 7.3% of students who dropped out of the queue after finishing their pastries before the line had even moved. We also found that the incidence of coffee spills reached 24% during peak periods, and we observed more than 13 instances of ‘Aldrich-cart-rage’ at the condiment/flatware station.”
Fellow team member Tom ‘bottleneck-breaker’ Brown (NP) found similar chaos at the Spangler salad bar. “I was shocked to discover that congestion rates frequently escalated to well over 90% of capacity for sustained time periods. Even more surprising, we were able to quickly isolate the problem to a few key variables.” He continued, “namely, after running a sophisticated statistical analysis, we discovered an indisputable correlation between the salad bar inefficiency and the number of small, thin, blond women participating in the process. Not only do these women frequently build their salads one leaf at a time, but they also carry extraordinarily large bags, making it impossible to bypass them in line.”
The team’s recommendations to the Dean included obtaining a corporate sponsor to fund free morning coffee and pastries, and implementing height and weight requirements at the entrance to the Spangler salad bar, similar to those used at amusement parks. Dean Kester was unavailable for comment.
