If Murphy went to B School

I guess when Murphy left a legacy of cynical laws which he believed the world follows, what he didn't realize was that he was creating a cult. Some people as a rule of nature are born with a very cynical view of life. I have been trying to put myself into their shoes and look at Management education.

This sprung up from a discussion with Eric, when he asked, "So, who are the people who want to go for management education?"

He probably just asked me the question on the wrong day. I thought and thought some more until I came up with a perfectly legitimate (Murphian legitimacy theorem - As long as its a grim , pesimistic, cynical view of life, its legitimate) profile of such people. This is how the list goes :-

People who are really money minded and have no other concerns/likes/dislikes in life. These are people who don't understand that money is just the means to an end, but apparently they dont understand that, because they have no end in mind. Money seems to be end of their quest.. Such shallow b******s who dont even deserve to get primary education are the first to be selected in B schools.

The argument that Eric gave me was backed up with substantial data. We looked into the class profiles of major schools in US. His highlighted points were -

The selected people have diverse backgrounds
Most of them have had some social work experience or the other
Most have socal enterprise as a goal in life
They are achievers
They have had a significant contribution in whichever field they are from

So these people are not really money minded, but also have other purposes in life. On another day, these would have been my arguments. Anyways, I felt like I was forced on to the back foot and was running out of pessimism eventually. Thats when I murmered to myself. Hail Murphy..,and asked him what would you say if you were in such a situation.

I am not sure if it was Murphy or was it just some innate pesimism, but suddenly I had a perfectly logical explaination for all of these.

Diverse backgrounds - How does that help? Such money minded and socially blind people exist in every nook and corner.

Social Work experience - I do know most of the people who are applying to B-Schools this year and have no idea what those words mean. Most of the poeple do that to fit the profile.No one cares about the dying children in Africa becaue the rebels cleared out a whole village, neither do they care that Mongolia is becoming the next big power struggle after Afhanistan. People in Somalia are dying because of hunger and povety - which reminds of a joke one of my freinds (now in Columbia) told me about Somalians where he compared a Somalian tiger to a small house cat elesewhere in the world. Not that Idont have a sense of humor but I wouldn't consider people like that as the ones who give a damn about the social situation.

A group of people in my office have started a campaign to save trees, whereby we are supposed to not use unnecessary paper, reduce our carbon footprint and infact they got rid of paper cups in the office. What do we get in return, plastc mugs and plastic bottles, which will probably be in environment polluting it for atleast 5000 years as cmpared to paper, which can e remade by planting more trees. Not that I intended to get carried away, but I often see such people taking unnecessary printouts when no ones loking, go for bike rides, do everything possible in their hands to increase the carbon footprint just for leasure.

Anyways, back to Eric's qestions : Most people have social enterprise as goals . But ofcourse that just until they get to the B school. But there have been so many social entrprices that sprung up from these schools. Really, didnt they get a corporate job? Eventually you do have to make a living dont you, be it with donations to your NGO or from the big fat salary from an office at Wall Street.

This is when Eric decided to just give up and walk away. I have been thinking a lot about why I want to do an MBA. Maybe, next time I eneumerate those reasons.