Let me set the stage for this short story: I am attending Pepperdine’s MBA program each Monday and Thursdays evening this spring semester. Monday’s class is International Business Law, Thursday’s class is International Marketing. Neither class is easy. There is lots of reading, research, paper writing, and just plain grunt work going on for each class. I am busy all the time, and now I am way behind because I have been sick.
Pepperdine is supposed to be a hard program (it is). Yet I am amazed when I find groups of students using the same peer pressure tactics on me in graduate school as were used in me in High School. Some of my fellow students were actually trying to get me to shut up so they could go home early. They had presented a poor analysis of a Trade Secret case study and expected me (and the rest of the class) to just keep quite. Our instructor, a Lawyer and former Judge, asked a few leading questions… I waited until the silence was tangible, and then answered by tearing apart their analysis (in a nice way). Their argument was wrong point by point, as usual. I got some dirty looks and caught a few snide remarks. They made a poor attempt to defend their position, I countered with further arguments. My position was supported by the rest of the class, and then again by the professor. I felt like I was earning the right to be in B school, while justifying the $70K tuition.
After class, one of the team members tried to talk to me about making them look bad. He had not done the course work, and had not read the material. He proudly admitted he never had. I told him as long as he wanted to put out poorly thought out arguments that I would be around to discuss them. As he walked away I thought, “Well, that is one guy I’m never going to hire (or have on a study group).” People amaze me. I am not going to turn off my brain because some halfwit is lazy. I cannot believe that at his (and my) stage in life, that he would even consider asking.
