Spring break!

I just want to say that I'm absolutely loving my "spring break". I got exactly one free weekend between the 2nd and 3rd quarter. So I did workouts, beach brunches, dinners, girls' day, shopping, reading, movies, and even a bachelorette party - all in one weekend! Just a year ago, every weekend was like this...and now it happens once in 3 months. Oh well, just makes me cherish it more.

Topped off the weekend by receiving surprisingly good grades on the accounting finals. Apparently, the professor graded on effort. Which seems fair to me (ahem), because I really agonized over the cash flow statement even if I did end up thousands of $s off the mark!

Third quarter begins this coming weekend. Marketing Management and International Business Negotiations. A lot of us will sorely miss our economics class (for obvious-to-us reasons) but I'm actually looking forward to the next quarter - the classes as well as the extra-curricular events being planned. 

The importance of being a horse's arse

Last week I attended a business leadership talk by Jason Jennings. He spoke about the 5 secrets of successful businesses and gave examples of Koch, Walmart, Nike, IKEA, and Smuckers among others. He has met with all these CEOs and researched their strategies, styles, and chronicled their success stories. I really envy his job.

Jennings is a very engaging speaker and I took plenty of notes during the talk, expecting to write them down here. But, before I spent all that time typing, I did a quick Google search, and as can be expected, The VAR Guy already wrote an excellent summary of this exact same talk which Jennings gave at the Cisco Partnership Summit last year. The VAR guy's summary covers all but one of the takeaways I noted down. Perhaps Jennings didn't tell that story last year, or perhaps the VAR guy didn't think it was worth writing about, but I think it's worth repeating.

The story came up when Jennings was talking about successful businesses giving up old conventions.
Do you know the width of the US railroad gauges? It's 4 ft, 8.5 inches. Odd number isn't it? Well, here's how it came to be. (And once again, I looked at Google to provide me the typed out anecdote.)


The US standard railroad gauge is 4 feet, 8.5 inches wide because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US Railroads.


Why did the English build them like that?
Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.


Why did "they" use that gauge then?
Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.


Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?
Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.


So who built those old rutted roads?
Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.


And the ruts in the roads?
Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.


The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. And bureaucracies live forever. So the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses!


Now the twist to the story...
When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory at Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to
be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.


So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass!!


If this is not a good enough anecdote to get us to start thinking unconventionally, then I don't know what is. :)

The secret FEMBA

I can't imagine what it must be like to do this program in secret. There are quite a few people who don't want their superiors to know about their MBA pursuit . The need for secrecy is understandable since most people go for the MBA only if they are looking to change their careers. But how anyone could maintain the secret is beyond me. How can you attend weekly classes , do daily homework, study for exams, attend events, and not breathe a word about any of it at the workplace for THREE years?!

I'm very fortunate that my team supports my education (since it ties in to my day job). Of course, I'm very careful about not letting the MBA workload get in the way of my productivity and hours put in at work. Regardless, it's nice to be able to ask my colleagues to explain financial concepts, or occasionally whine about missing my free weekends, or getting permission to leave a couple hours early the day before an exam.

Mamma taught me to be grateful for such small mercies. So I definitely shouldn't complain about the economics and accounting exams that I'm going to be taking back to back tomorrow. Right? Right.

Split or Steal?

We studied game theory in our microeconomics class today. Game theory relates to decision making in the face of uncertain action of your competitor. As part of the lesson, we were shown the following clip from a game show.
Here's the gist - there is a total payoff of around 100 grand. If both players choose the "split" option, they each walk away with 50 grand. If one chooses "split" but the other chooses "steal" then the latter walks away with all the money. If both choose "steal", neither gets anything.

Before we watched the last bit of the clip (which shows the outcome), our professor asked us what we would have done if we had been in either player's shoes. Over 70% of the class voted that they would "steal". 

What would you have chosen?

More than the outcome of the show (which was shocking, even though game theory teaches us to expect it), I was surprised at the class votes. From what they told me, most of them chose to "steal" not out of greed, but because they mistrusted the other party.

I voted to split. Because I believe that if I ever pull a "steal" over anyone in such a situation, I will not only lose credibility, but also my own ability to trust other people. And both of those are equally and deeply important to me, in business as well as personal matters.

A leap of faith

I recently blogged about my wish to set out on adventure trips with fellow Fembas. Today, thanks to an enterprising classmate, I got the ball rolling on fulfilling that wish. A handful of us went tandem skydiving and it was simply fantastic!
I guess the universe really does conspire to help you get something that you really desire. :) (The Alchemist) .


Recap of my experience and tips for potential first-time skydivers:

- You are harnessed to an experienced instructor so it's very safe . I kept worrying that I would hang on to the plane and refuse to jump, but really I had no choice. I was literally thrown out of the plane.

- It helps that you're not given time to think about it. You get inside the tiny plane, don't get to look out much, and you're kicked out within seconds of taking position at the door. I'm pretty sure if I was given time to take a deep breath before jumping, I'd have just stayed there taking deep breaths.

- Even when it's 75 degrees on the ground, it's collld at 12500 ft. so dress accordingly.

- Falling freely from that height clears your head like nothing else. Believe me.

- After around 45 seconds of free-fall, the instructor (or you) pulls open the parachute. This is the slightly painful part - you get uncomfortably pinched in the privates, but just for a bit. You then float around for 5 minutes or so admiring the views, contemplating life, mentally congratulating yourself, or simply wondering where to get lunch.

- Speaking of food...we were afraid to eat anything before going up in case we, uh, projectile vomit on the way down. It was a good call, because some people got nauseous after a few twists. The rest of us were simply ravenous by the time we were done.

- Skydiving is an excellent team event. I just wish we had all fit in one aircraft, although we did get to spend a ton of time together before and after the dive itself.

- Do get the pictures and video of your first jump. Worth the extra money. :) It is especially cool when you have a dedicated photographer filming you as all three of you (you, instructor, photographer) are plunging down at 120mph.

My instructor and I, as we exited the aircraft from 12,500 ft above ground.
That exact instant was the scariest part of the entire fall.

It's funny how until a few days back, skydiving wasn't even on my bucket list. Since I've always been slightly afraid of heights, I was pretty sure nothing would induce me to jump from an airplane. But something changed last week when after a very hectic work+school week, I suddenly felt an overwhelming need for an adrenaline fix. The rest, as they say, is history. ;)

Go jump out of a plane soon! It is thrilling, frightening, calming, humbling, and ridiculously fun - all at once. :)