Fifth Avenue Forum

I would agree. An MBA with a specific concentration that will help you will stand out. General MBA's don't move the needle as much as they used to because, as dodint said, "everyone" gets them now.

What's your goal as far as career path? There are avenues where it's worth it, and avenues where it's not

Each of the last three people close to me that got MBAs made me go, "hmph, must not be that hard..."

Yeah... seems more or less just a piece of paper to me, but was curious.

Yeah... seems more or less just a piece of paper to me, but was curious.

Do it if you want a challenge. I'm sure it's not too hard after p. chem but it will keep you busy so decide whether you want to commit your free time to it.

Depends where you get it from too

MBA with a concentration is better than a genera MBA, but the later is still worthwhile. Every school under the sun offers an MBA program now, so where you get it from matters.

MBAs are mostly worthless outside of networking, unless you are doing a very heavy math/finance. Most of what you get from an MBA you get in business experience anyway, so it's mostly a networking opportunity than anything else.

"It depends on where you get it from" has a lot to do with connections than actual classes/education.

"worthless" as in actual education, you are paying for a network.

Yeah... seems more or less just a piece of paper to me, but was curious.

Sounds perfect for you - another worthless piece of paper to waste your time getting.

#gruntied

Yeah... seems more or less just a piece of paper to me, but was curious.

imo if you didn't take any business classes during your 12394872039587 years of schooling, there might be some value to an MBA. not a ton of value, but if you are an awkward, Columbia hiking shoe/short sleave button down wearing nerd, you might benefit from an MBA.

I don't see the value of getting an mba right out of college.

speaking of value, I know everyone is saying "it depends on the mba' but c2i would be getting an MBA from UPS so we all know the value of anything ups related is somewhere between trump university and swaggin university.

I took a freshman economics course once...

But no. I've not taken a business course, and it seems as though my career path is moving away from the lab and more toward business development, marketing, and management, thus the idea of an MBA.

imo it is not the worst idea to pursue an mba in that case

i have a buddy who is a chemical engineer that is doing just that, 8 years into being in the workforce. Do it

in my naive high school days of thinking I'd also be a chem E, i applied to a few 5 year BS/MBA programs. From what I know the MBA route with an engineering degree is a somewhat common route

The Sr. Director that we all absolutely hate just got fired. Nobody feels bad about it.

I survived another surprise restructuring yesterday. Unfortunately 4 team members did not. In our post-mortem team meeting, the big boss man started off by saying that he wanted to calm everybody's nerves and state that this is the last of the restructuring. Then, about 2 minutes later, he said that they will continue to "augment staff" as needed to reach our organization's goals.

I've been here 5 years and have been through 3 restructures. I've never once felt any sort of job security.

Just found out Louis CK's mother worked for my employer until a few years ago and just passed away yesterday.

One of the staff members who was let go yesterday was also the project manager. They asked me (along with a few others) to help out with PM in the interim since I'm familiar with the software (even though it's completely different than my actual job but whatever at least I have a job?). Anyway, the person who was let go texted me today that I should "probably be deactivate the one person who knows how to destroy the software."

Clearly she's not in a great mindset right now but that seems like a really bad text to send.

I survived another surprise restructuring yesterday. Unfortunately 4 team members did not. In our post-mortem team meeting, the big boss man started off by saying that he wanted to calm everybody's nerves and state that this is the last of the restructuring. Then, about 2 minutes later, he said that they will continue to "augment staff" as needed to reach our organization's goals.

I've been here 5 years and have been through 3 restructures. I've never once felt any sort of job security.

I was at my last job for 6 years before they got me. This is terrible to say, but after awhile I ended up becoming numb to it. We had 20-30 person layoffs regularly, which doesn't even include what they did with contractors and field people. At our peak, we had over 1000 people in four regional offices. By the time I left, we were in the 300s, merged our two local buildings into one and shut down our Michigan office and the office about an hour south of us.

Getting called into an empty meeting room and being told it was my last day was oddly the best feeling that I had in years. They told me they needed to make some decisions in the department, that today was my last day and that I understand how it works. Didn't question it, really didn't even care. My reaction was "oh, ok." My bosses were cool (I still talk to the one on FB.) The one that I'm close friends with let me walk around and say goodbye, but after about two hours of goodbye it was like "you might want to wrap this up. I have a noon meeting I have to get to and I can't have you walking around by yourself since you no longer have a badge."

This is all after coming from a prior position that handled a bunch of DoD contracts were layoffs happened quarterly. Dealt with that for 3 of my 5 years at the company and made it 8 or 9 rounds before getting tapped on the shoulder and being told to pack my ****.

The subject is talent development and performance evaluations.

Short back story for context: My 9 to 5 is at a company that does background checks, manages driver qualification files, does physicals/drug testing, etc. for other companies...with a specialty in the transportation field.

Our current performance evaluation system is bombed out and depleted in my opinion...our one-size-fits-all approach doesn't jive well with how different our different departments are. So, my first ask is: Have you found any particularly interesting/noteworthy/good/fun/productive/etc. ways of evaluating performance in the context of both production and upholding company standards on like behavior and customer interaction and the like?

Secondly, since our Ops leader retired (he took me under his wing and taught me a lot, he was in my corner from the very beginning actually), no one has been able to replace him in one key way: developing talent. Granted, we take shortcuts with hiring now and, frankly, we blow at it. It seems like only one team (out of 7 or 8 or whatever) doesn't always have productivity issues, HR issues, or is in constant churn...and it's mine. Because I no longer saw a developmental path for people to add skills meaningfully, I went the production route...for those familiar with Sid Meier's Civilization games, particularly 2, instead of researching Wonders of the World, I've decided to shift it all into "Capitalism" (which just monetizes all of your science and trade or whatever that that city produces)...

I scaled my team down from 9 to 6 people. And worked a system where I can tie production directly to money. Not only is it production based (X axis), but it's also quality based (Y axis) so that you are incentivized to produce more AND better results. I worked it out with my people and the feedback on it has been great. And I explained the potential costs to them personally (there is no time allotted for "development", which I didn't think there was an avenue for anyway, and they agreed) and the discussion was all very candid.

I believe a fine way to develop talent and allow people to show off their skills or potential skills, is with project-based initiatives...allow people to take a 'job' off the board, a rainy day project, something like that...and figure it out.

For instance, one day, years ago, I had a booked of regulations dropped on my desk and was told to, essentially, "Find out how drivers submit DOT medical cards for each of the 50 states and see if we can make it a business" - and I wasn't left on an island, I had some help with questions, but at the end of the day, we didn't know how to do it and I figured it out and then built a tracking system and then provided the logic for IT to automate process. That was helpful to my growth...

Any other tips for development of talent in an office setting that you have come across?

Any other tips for development of talent in an office setting that you have come across?

Casting couch...

ask the pirates pitching coaches?

Any other tips for development of talent in an office setting that you have come across?

Casting couch...

Not enough talent here for that, if you know what I mean...