Relationships

So here is the position I've found myself in recently. I'm going to keep it as vague as possible wrt to details. This comes on the tail of discussions about agent duties in my law class.

One of the things I do is manage an enterprise support relationship with one of our vendors. We pay them a big sum of money, and in return we get access to a variety of support resources, including some guys who come in and help us out for a limited number of days. The latter are contracted by the vendor to provide support.

A couple of months ago, I had a couple of projects going. I talked to the vendor about one, and to the contractor about the other. Ultimately, we later learned that the second impacted the first. Unfortunately, neither party brought it up, and after completing the second project, we found that in order for the first to be completed, we would have to redo the second. This was all completed using days on that contract.

So, I'm asking for my days back. I've gone back through emails, stamped my feet, and said, basically, give me back my days, or I'll find someone else and next year, we won't use their services. But now the vendor is going back to the contractor and pressing them to cough up the days. I shouldn't care, but I do, because the contractor is who I work with regularly, and I also think that the communication and management is the vendor's responsibility.

So, now there's this tension as I go about my business. I don't doubt my position, but I need the help to get this all sorted before I can go any further.

Law

Well that was kind of a surprise. My law professor encouraged me to retake the LSAT up to two more times, with some prep, to get my score up. He said I could probably get in to a top 20 school. I'd love to but man, the opportunity cost, on top of an MBA.

In any case, the last two weeks of the semester is NOT the time to think about more school.

Round Two

The spring semester is drawing to a close, and I welcome it. While I have really enjoyed my classes this term, the combination of work, school, volunteer work and improving weather have steadily derailed my resolve. I need a break.

In some ways, I get that break either sooner or later. Classes end the first week of May, and in the third week of May I will be studying abroad in a program in Koblenz, Germany. It is a two week program that ultimately counts as a single course credit. Having lived in Germany as an adolescent, in the days before the Euro and the unification of Germany, I am truly looking forward to this opportunity to see firsthand how Europe has changed, and learn about Eurozone approaches to regulation, marketing, and monetary policy. Especially now, monetary policy.

I have greatly enjoyed my law class, though it has only clarified how deep the law goes, and how little we MBAs will understand it compared to a lawyer. Contracts, torts, Intellectual Property, and a bevy of legal terms (promissory estoppel and respondeat superior vie for my favorite) have been thrown at us for almost ten weeks now. Is it seeping in? Yes. Will it seep out? Yes, until of course it matters.

I have also enjoyed my strategy class, in particular the turn it took this week. After a semester of studying frameworks and case studies, this week we talked about how to engage non-market forces, such as the government and "activists". We studied the case of Shell's disposal of an oil terminal in the early nineties, and came up with a few alternate strategies that might have ended better for Shell and for the environment.

This summer, after a few weeks off after returning to the US, I'll be studying emerging markets. I notice a lot of references to the Long Term Capital Management crisis, and it turns out the prof worked for LTCM at the time of that event. Suggested reading includes FA Hayek, who is already on my long-term reading list. Maybe I'll catch up on the plane.