T G I F

This phrase could not be more appropriate. It’s been a bit of a rough week and though the blog hasn’t really entertained the masses, this should cure insomnia.

Monday

I participated in an all day simulation, Foreign Investment Negotiation Simulation (FINS). For FINS, I was a group negotiating on behalf of the government of Paradiso. We were interested in bringing high technology companies to the area in order to lower the unemployment rate. We had the ability to back out of bargains and use the military as leverage if companies didn’t do what we want. It was rather interesting, but took too long. There was also a five-page paper due for the project, but thankfully our team knocked that out during the course of the day. And oh by the way, this was worth 10% of my grade.

Tuesday

We had a panel of Supply Chain experts visit us at school, two of which were from Lexmark and Toyota. They talked a lot about the changes they have witnessed over years at their respective companies. It was pretty interesting except that our instructor kept chiming in with comments and questions. After the panel, we went to Lexmark to collect some data on our project. We sifted through emails and data for about three and a half hours. We also had some work to do for our presentation on Thursday. Oh by the way, we had a paper on negotiations due later on that day that was worth 10% of my grade.

Wednesday

We went to Lexmark in the morning to finish the data collection for our project and prepare for our presentation. During the afternoon, we spent about an hour discussing the current professors and the Supply Chain module. We followed that with another hour of lecture on metrics. Seems like an easy day, but that’s not all. After class was over, I had to work on the Lexmark presentation as well as a presentation for LINKS. The LINKS simulation was another business simulation, but it was much more difficult. Our team did well, but we came in third this time around. So we had an hour long presentation for Lexmark and a fifteen minute presentation at school due tomorrow. Oh by the way, the CATS played a little game down in Knoxville that went down to the wire.

Thursday

The morning was spent doing the final preparation for the Lexmark presentation. We’ve been working on the project for six weeks, so I wasn’t too worried about the content. We did a practice run with the Six Sigma Black Belts that we’ve been working with on the project. They were pleased with it, but now we had to it in front of several VP’s as well as the director of the MBA program and our professor. No sweat. We were well prepared and easily handled the questions they posed at the end of the presentation. Everyone was pretty impressed with how much we were able to cover in six weeks. The presentation was worth 20% of our grade, so it was nice to have done well on that. We still had the LINKS presentation that afternoon. So we grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed off to school. We were the second presentation and I interjected my usual charm into the situation. We were confident going in that we had finished second, but found out after all the presentations that we were third. The presentation went well and everyone was happy to get done with class early, even though I had to go to work. The LINKS results and presentation were a total of 10% of my grade.

Friday

Which brings us to today. We have a little exam this morning that I should be studying for right now. It's worth another 20% of my grade. We also have to come back this afternoon for a panel and a wrap up discussion about the module. This is one of the many bad habits the program has. They think they have to fill every day with a bunch of crap and they don't plan it out well at all. There was another brown bag lunch scheduled for yesterday, but since we were presenting for our company we were excused. Why schedule brown bag lunches on Thursdays when 80% of major presentations and tests are on Thursday and Friday? Okay, back to today. After the test, I should have a nice leisurely lunch and then come back for the panel. Afterwards, I will most likely be headed straight to work.

If you hadn't noticed, 70% of my grade for this nine week module comes during this week. Yet another example of how poorly the planning has been for this year. At least I am done after today and can take the next two weeks off from school. I may have to do some drunk dancing Saturday night and Sundays the big FL game. That's about the extent of plans for the weekend. Hope you enjoyed.