Little bits of news

The hunt for the new Darden Dean, which is not altogether dissimilar from the Papal Conclave in terms of the amount of information released on its progress by the selection committee, drags on. Word is that the shortlist is down to three, all of which are candidates from academia. This is a bit like saying that there are three leading candidates for Pope, and they are all cardinals.

I am pretty sure that Jeanne Liedtka is one of them. I've passed her office a couple of times and she has been wearing some extremely smart suits lately, much smarter than anyone would usually wear around school. Promotion 101: Dress for the job you want, not the one you have.
I don't think she will get it, but I can see why the selection committee wants to say that they considered at least one internal candidate (read, Italian cardinal).

The other bit of Darden gossip is that Yiorgos is leaving school for two years. He is being very coy about where he is off to, but my bet is either a) in house at some bulge bracket investment bank to be resident egg head or b) London Business School. Tomorrow I will go in and see if I can track him down to get the full scoop. Of course you will all be the first to know.

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You know, Martha Stewart isn't too bad looking for her age.

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News just in: Oxford University has decided to license its name to appear on stuff like t-shirts and memorabilia. Duh, I thought these people were meant to be bright.

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This is kind of cool. Washington DC has just got its first pro baseball team since, well, for a long time. A local guy called Mike Panetta is trying to raise $1m to purchase the naming rights for the stadium where the new team will be playing. What does he want to call the stadium? "Taxation Without Representation Field".

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I had a weird experience today. I got a call from a cute sounding guy (I can't tell you why he sounded cute, he just did) who identified himself as Henry Scott and seemed to think I should know who he was. I had not a clue.

"I'm from Metro," he said "in New York City. I was kind of surprised you didn't reply to my email, seeing as you sounded pretty keen to work for us. So I thought I would just give you a call, on the off-chance."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I had sent Metro my resume entirely speculatively about two or three weeks ago, and of course never heard a squeak back. This didn't surprise me in the slightest, as I am convinced that half the corporate email addresses in the world lead directly to a dustbin. And I didn't really have anyone to follow up with - the only vague contact I had there was given to me by someone who had warned me on no account to use their name as it would probably do more harm than good.

Apparently though, Henry - who turns out to be the Publisher of all the US editions of Metro - had emailed me right away to say they would like to talk to me. But I never got his message (he says he has had a few email problems recently...) and have been wallowing in glorious depressive oblivion for the last three weeks as my visa ticks down to zero.

The unbelievable part is that he called me. Correct me if I am wrong, but I have never, ever, ever heard of a recruiter ever who has called someone after they failed to reply to an email. At least, not a recruiter who was on the receiving end of a cold-dropped resume out of the blue. Henry's stock (and Metro's) has risen enormously, and not just because working for them would be my version of ESPN Dream Job.