Master of Bullcrap Artistry

I think that it is might be absolutely true to say that MBAs are completely bullshit and that only chumps bother getting them. I mean, I don't really know this for sure and I'm never going to pursue one, but I have seen a lot of evidence to suggest that business schools and the folks that study in them are just well-scrubbed bringers of death. The absolutely soulless pursuits that MBA grads seem to so often pursue just seem so amoral as to be immoral. You know, the idea that valuing profit growth or increased productivity seems to be an amoral one on its face, but I think that is actually an immoral one when you consider the structural incompatibility of many corners of our economy with real morals, like social justice and freedom of speech and, oh, like equal rights and crazy stuff like that.

I am thinking about this because I had lunch with a former coworker today. She is really cool and a lot of fun. She's very intelligent and unique and one of those people who is easy to like and hard to forget. And yet, this really interesting person is now a milquetoast consultant at Accenture and will soon leave that job to go get her MBA. When I asked her why, she told me that she really enjoys strategic management consulting and so she feels like she needs to get an MBA from a top-flight business school in order to do the kind of work she enjoys. Her answer disappointed the hell out of me. It made me realize that her outward appearance and presentation is really just a sham. In the end, those brightly colored pants and funny stories are simply a way to cover up the fact that she is as bland and unoriginal as all the other yuppies that share her upper middle class Montgomery County roots.

Okay, I feel a little bad in saying that. I do like her, but I can't help the fact that her decision saddens me.