Natasha's Weblog

A Diverse Experience

I flew out to Philadelphia to attend a MINI Camp with a consumer products company, missing my last two classes of the term. There were minority students from schools across the country interested in either Finance or Marketing. We started the morning with an introduction to the company and a talk from the head of diversity. He gave a purposely inflammatory presentation about how diversity is not a color or gender issue, but that the company is seeking “diversity of thought”. People would dialogue with him about the definition of diversity and why though the company didn’t always have diversity in color or gender, it always had “diversity of thought”. I was on my best behavior, but it started to bother me that no one was going to ask the obvious question. We’re supposed to be the “smart” people and yet we all sat there absorbing this inane argument.

So I raised my hand and said that, “With all due respect, the fact that you’ve invited this audience based on a singular reason is a complete contradiction with most of your presentation.” He immediately backtracked and stated that it was also important that the company have representation in numbers. The meeting broke up shortly after that. I had several students come up to me afterward and say it was a good question and they were wondering the same thing. So why was I the only one to ask it? Are people so concerned with finding a job that they overlook that this might be indicative of what you could expect from working at this company? From the companies point of view it would concern me more that in a room of 35 plus people, no one wanted to disagree with this guy. That isn’t “diversity of thought”.
We had some panels with employees, worked on a case, and had a tour of some of the facilities. We got to shop at the company store and have lunch with employees. We then had dinner at a convention center. Now I know that I am a detail person, but I noticed right away that each of the tables had a different table cloth and a different centerpiece, and I knew right away that this could not be good. Dinner was a mismatch of totally unrelated foods all centered around diversity. There was stir-fry, southern sweet potatoes and cornbread, an antipasto platter, and sushi. It was bizarre. Just when I started to question why they were pushing diversity so hard, they decided to surprise us.
I cannot convey the amount of shock and trauma that was delivered by the dancing. There were six ladies that came out in coordinating dresses and did a synchronized dance to music. As we tried to process this, three African-American dancers came out and did a modern dance routine. Then a man from the previous dance stayed and did a solo, which was hard to categorize. Finally, the group of six ladies came out with four men and did another dance with a latin beat. Most of the students didn’t know how to react. Several were having a hard time restraining laughter, but many didn’t know what to say. I asked one of the recruiters what the thought process had been on the dancing, and she stated that they’d tried to get different ethnic dancers to perform in the spirit of diversity. I had bad dreams that night about bizarre dancing that went on and on.
The next morning was interviews. We each met with three people for a 45 minutes to an hour. It went fairly well, but I obviously do not expect to hear back from them. To be honest, I don’t know that I would call me back. The flight back home was long, and I started to feel tired and my throat was scratchy. Arriving at Midway, I was well on my way to being sick. I went home drank my juice, started up the good old humidifier and passed out.
Saturday, I got up, still feeling below the weather, and headed out to Gleacher to make up the class I’d missed Thursday and attend a final review session. It was a six hour marathon that I might have been up to on a normal day, but given my last week and my current state, I only made it through 4 and a half. I went home and passed out again. I have a marketing case to work on, and two finals to study for. I’m feeling alright about it. I think I’d achieved the “terminal point of worry” where you just can’t do it anymore. I’m going to do my best, but not beat myself up about what I didn’t do or should have done. It will work out in the end.