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Wharton MBAs Decide to Network in Front of Huntsman Escalator, Make Everyone Late to Class

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Photo: Giang / CC 2.0

Wharton students are truly innovative in the workplace.

At approximately 2:50 Wednesday afternoon, genius struck in Huntsman Hall. In the hustle and bustle of the pre 3:00 class rush, four MBA students had a brilliant idea: they should network right in the middle of the hallway by the G-level escalators. 

We spoke to one of the MBAs about the truly transcendent decision. "We were going to network on the Forum where we wouldn't be obstructing or bothering anyone. But then we thought, 'wait, that's what any normal person would do. What would an innovative member of the Wharton School do?,'" he told us. That's when it struck him, they should have psuedo-professional discussions in the most socially-inefficient place possible.

"We had a blast talking about various personal topics and exchanging resumes. The fact that we were making an active effort to inconvenience the people who actually had class made it all the better," he further explained. "An identically benign and superficial conversation could not have occurred in literally any other place. That would be too convenient for our fellow students." He remarked that he was impressed at how many people were lined up, curling around the entire ground floor of Huntsman, waiting patiently for the escalator. 

Truly groundbreaking.

While the line stretched out of the Huntsman doors and across the 38th Street Bridge, many members of the Wharton community were less than impressed. "To say that I was late to accounting would be a gross understatement," said George Lewis (W'19). Lewis stood in line for an hour and a fifteen minutes, missing all but a few short minutes of his lecture. "I might as well have skipped class like every other day," he lamented. "It just drove me nuts that I waited for an hour to see what the hold up was and it was just a few MBAs shooting the shit in the hallway for no reason." Lewis was dismayed. The networking also prevented him from leaving the building at any reasonable rate.

"At first, I was impressed that they were still going, there's only so many names to drop and humble brags to disperse," said an exasperated Lewis. The group of MBAs had moved from the up escalators to down escalators. It took him hours to leave the building, making him late for an important event; the funeral for his roommate's late gecko. "They planned a viking funeral and everything. We made a small funeral boat out of popsicle sticks and were going to light it on fire, letting it drift down the Schuylkill," he told us. "Now my roommate is pissed off at me because I missed the whole thing." At the time of print, Lewis was not sure how he would make it up to his now-geckoless roommate.

The MBAs took a huge step forward in inconveniencing fellow students, but not without cost. But we suppose that that's just the cost of doing business.

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