plausible deniability

sophisms to get through the day

Pictures

wtlau on flickr

Blogroll

Previously

Archives

Contact

Buttons

May 19, 2008

So what if I'm sappy?

In the brief moments of learning in my Operations and Technology Management class today*, I had an epiphany about an internship interview that I had last week.

I'll have to say that I felt that the interview was one of the most challenging ones that I've had so far. It was difficult because no amount of preparation could have prepared me for the specificity of questions I was asked. I felt I came up rather short, which was disheartening. Class today made be feel better about the experience.

Perhaps it's not really the case with the company itself - perhaps they really need specific knowledge for the role - but the interview felt symptomatic of some of the issues I've felt plague larger companies: problems are viewed in isolation of the larger picture. Root causes aren't identified and addressed, rather symptoms are looked at. Sitting in class I remembered some of the reasons why I thought I was successful at work before. I could see the framework to tackle the project presented at the interview, and it wouldn't have been captured in the questions I was asked. I've had a few of these moments of clarity lately - I've felt a bit burned out by the work and life, but these little insights are picking me up and showing me that the MBA was probably the best choice I could have made.


* It's not that the learning in OTM is particularly brief, the simulation in this specific class took longer than would be expected to sort out. On another side note, I love how much of OTM can be broken down into computer simulations.

Labels:

Posted at 5:34 PM
Permanent Link