{"id":655,"date":"2017-05-09T14:32:45","date_gmt":"2017-05-09T18:32:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/mba-irish-echoes\/?p=655"},"modified":"2017-05-09T14:39:42","modified_gmt":"2017-05-09T18:39:42","slug":"the-war-for-team-rooms-in-mendoza-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/mba-irish-echoes\/the-war-for-team-rooms-in-mendoza-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The war for team rooms in Mendoza, part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Nitesh Srivastava<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Artist\u2019s rendering of the Battle for Team Room 143, the geopolitical repercussions of which are still being felt throughout Mendoza today. (Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the Notre Dame MBA program, students have exclusive access to team rooms in the Mendoza building where they can work on group projects together. Given the high demand for these rooms and the relatively low supply, the fight for these rooms often reduces students to their basest instincts. These are their stories.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Read Part I here<\/a>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

After much politicking and the deployment of a complex pulley system, my friend Bill and I had claimed a team room so we could work on our marketing project. Unfortunately, I dozed off during my shift guarding the door. When I woke up and peeked through the window in the door, a horde of entrepreneurship students had amassed outside the room.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBill, I need your help!\u201d I cried heroically.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cJust a minute. I\u2019m close to a breakthrough,\u201d Bill said as he entered really, really complex marketing formulas into an Excel spreadsheet.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The entrepreneurs were prototyping some sort of battering ram. However, without adequate seed funding, the only materials they had were classroom chairs from Room 162 and a stapleless stapler. The battering ram fell apart the moment it hit the door, and the entrepreneurs retreated\u00a0to create an app instead.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I cheered and immediately took credit for the victory. Then I saw an army of consulting students approach. Their battering ram was made of nicer classroom chairs from Room 161 and scotch tape.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“They analyzed and improved the design…” I whispered, awestruck. <\/span><\/p>\n

The battering ram struck. The door cracked.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBill, I really, really need your help!\u201d I shrieked bravely.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust give me a minute. I\u2019ve almost got it\u2026\u201d Bill replied. A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead as he tried adding and subtracting within a single\u00a0Excel formula.<\/p>\n

The battering ram struck again, and the door burst open. The biggest of the consultants charged through. \u201cWe already claimed this team room!\u201d he yelled as he pointed to his backpack sitting in a corner.<\/p>\n

I stumbled back. \u201cBut then where\u2019s your laptop?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou threw it in the garbage! With my lunch!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut\u2026\u201d My vision dimmed. My soft skills as a marketer were no match for his logic. I needed to go nuclear. \u201cBut think of how much MBA students in the Bay Area have to pay for living expenses, while at Notre Dame we pay pennies for our housing and still get a top 25 education. What a steal!\u201d<\/p>\n

I blew his mind. He fell to the ground, unconscious.<\/p>\n

With their alpha incapacitated, the remaining consultants were easily dispatched with a combination of direct mailers and 30-second spots during <\/span>Shark Tank<\/span><\/i>. \u201cYou haven\u2019t seen the last of us!\u201d they shouted as they boarded their weekly 6:15 flight to Newark.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNicely done,\u201d Bill said. \u201cAnd you didn\u2019t even need to mention our world-class alumni network.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNext time,\u201d I said. \u201cThe war is far from over.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

About Nitesh<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Nitesh prefers the chairs in Room 161. He is also concentrating in marketing and business analytics, and did his undergraduate studies at Northwestern University. Follow Nitesh on <\/span>Twitter<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Instagram<\/span><\/a>, or reach out to him on <\/span>LinkedIn<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Nitesh Srivastava In the Notre Dame MBA program, students have exclusive access to team rooms in the Mendoza building where they can work on group projects together. Given the high demand for these rooms and the relatively low supply, the fight for these rooms often reduces students to their basest instincts. These are their … Continue reading “The war for team rooms in Mendoza, part 2”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2294,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3836,170015],"tags":[164518],"class_list":["post-655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academics","category-editorials","tag-nitesh-srivastava"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/mba-irish-echoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/mba-irish-echoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/mba-irish-echoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/mba-irish-echoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2294"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/mba-irish-echoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/mba-irish-echoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":842,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/mba-irish-echoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655\/revisions\/842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/mba-irish-echoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/mba-irish-echoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/mba-irish-echoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}