Muschamp Rd

My Sauder MBA Class

January 9th, 2007
Sauder School of Business logo

I’ve written a lot about my MBA, how it didn’t work out the way I would have liked, how some people who said they were my friend decided they weren’t and let me know it through the administration and by shunning me and maligning me. There were a lot of people who saw this all happening and who said and did little, partly because their hands were tied and they like me were blindsided, shell-shocked, stuck in the middle not wanting to take sides, confused.

I still don’t understand, but I apologized. I apologized even before it happened, not knowing what I did exactly, but knowing things were suddenly very strange, very uncomfortable.

I tried to keep things a secret, stay quiet, go away, not cause any more problems. Some people thought it was all a misunderstanding that could be sorted out. It never got sorted out. If it was a misunderstanding some people have no remorse or regrets or at least no desire to alter things even though they know the hurt they caused me and continue to cause me. Many problems were caused and many friendships broken perhaps, I don’t know I’ve tried to stay away. People have definitely stayed away from me.

Today however is my birthday, I’m 31. And because of that I’ve been doing even more thinking than usual about all this. I still have no answers. But I did read more closely an email I received about keeping in touch. Our class has a website, many students have created blogs. If I was arrogant and a liar I’d say they all copied me, but Gus Suga may be the original member of our class with a blog. No one has bothered to tell me they started a blog, they don’t want me linking to it and they don’t want me reading it and they don’t want me commenting on it, maybe, I don’t know. Anyway this email was sent by Peter Chow and I learned that our class is the only class which has a yahoo group without 100% of the class signed up. We aren’t even close, we were at 63% when the email went out and after the urging of fellow classmates we made it to 65%!

I was always a member. I joined up when Raul originally asked me. This would have been sometime before March 17th 2005 I imagine. There are probably a lot of reasons our class isn’t passed 65%, apathy being as good as any, but there has definitely been some fracturing of our class.

Peter Chow has repeatedly said that I am not the class pariah and that I deserve to be treated better. However the facts clearly contradict this, there are people in our class with no qualms about how they have treated me and no intention of treating me better. It is more than one or two people. How they treated me and continue to treat me hurts. I helped most of them voluntarily, now they won’t even answer my emails. I have most definitely not recovered and things are most definitely not better.

Perhaps inspired by reading “Citizen Marketers” recently and because I truly want things to be better. I want to be a welcome member of my class, to have “my friends back”, to not be the class pariah. However that is not the way things are currently, so I’ve decided to remove myself from the Yahoo group. Why? by unsubscribing I will ensure they never reach 100%. I don’t think I’m the only one who has deliberately stayed away, perhaps I will return when things are better.

Now if Peter Chow is right and I am not the class pariah and deserve to be treated better by my classmates, why has almost two years passed with things only getting worse?

Has anyone heard from Gary Lau in the last year or so?

If I have any ‘friends’ left in the class, or even classmates who think I deserve to be treated better, or who feel left out or mistreated themselves perhaps they will opt out of the class yahoo group until things are more satisfactory.

Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba have written about the Power of the One and the One Percenters, perhaps the Sauder School of Business should consider adding it to the curriculum and recall that Citizen Marketers can help build the brand but a single dissatisfied customer can also damage a brand severely. I am most definitely dissatisfied with how I was treated by my classmates and the Sauder School of Business and the University of British Columbia. I’m not the first, I didn’t call in the lawyers. I tried to accept the new reality and hope things could be improved… However as class pariah I feel a duty and and an obligation to stand alone and question:

“If I really deserve to be treated better, why don’t people in my Sauder MBA class do so?”

Things used to better, I used to be better. I used to be outgoing, I used to go out of my way to help people. I used to be funny, but I’ve too often been sad and alone, too often been taken advantage of. Here is something whimsical I wrote, a song of sorts, a freestyle rap to be precise. I hammered it out walking back from the Henry Angus building during our student elections. I typed it up, edited it slightly, and sent it to Gary Lau. He never got to use it and although I put it online sometime after March 17th 2005, no one has likely read it besides Gary. Maybe reading the sort of silly songs I used to sometimes come up with will help make things better. I don’t know. I’ve never understood, but I’ve always wanted things to be better between Gary and Marlene and myself.

I’m Gary Lau,
and let me tell you how,
I’m the Toastmaster.
I can rhyme slow or
I can rhyme faster.
The other nominees
can’t even MC,
so when you vote,
vote Gary.

No one!
Rocks a Mic like me.
My formula, simplicity
plus Chinese Ethnicity
equals devastation
for those who oppose
the Mao of the Mic
transformin’ the nation.

When I’m at the podium
there’s pandemonium.
Reverence,
Awe,
Rapture.
I capture.
the audience like a pawn.
This is the dawn
of a new era.
The Lau Dynasty
is upon thee.

Legendary vocabulary
synonymous with Gary.
I’m a veritable library
so don’t tarry.
Vote Lau, now!
G to the A to the R to the Y
worry?
I’m not in a hurry,
I got a minute.
The election
I’m a win it!

Update March 2015

Having battled depression for over ten years, I can not recommend blogging about your personal problems. Some people will never believe you and they just do not care how much their words and actions hurt you. I doubly do not recommend blogging about your personal problems while looking for work. Depression has left many gaps in my resume and I’ve never recovered from doing my MBA at the Sauder School of Business.

8 Comments

  • Muskie says:

    I saw no less than three members of my MBA class today, but none of the them saw me, even when they walked right past me. These are people I studied with, worked with, lived with…

    I almost laughed after they had walked past. I still have trouble laughing, my MBA classmates hurt me that much.

    It is easy being invisible when you are the class pariah.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Posts on Muskblog © Andrew "Muskie" McKay.
CFA Institute does not endorse, promote or warrant the accuracy or quality of Muskblog. CFA® and Chartered Financial Analyst® are registered trademarks owned by CFA Institute.