Hot Takes IRL

By: Kevin Shi, Staff Writer

Headline: ISO non-cringey Kellogg Couple

By: Everyone not in a Kellogg couple

Whatever happened to just having a normal, quiet relationship? A person meets their person, they hit it off, and then they go through the next steps of their life together as a team like normal adults. No campaign. No PR rollout.

Kellogg has this weird obsession with making every mundane couple story sound like the most improbable thing. Like, do we need every single meet-cute at Kellogg to be some incredible Cinderella story that needs some awful  caption  like “different paths, same school, same dream.” Relax, you met on Hinge or in Intro to Corporate Strategy (super sexy!). 

The more you try to avoid it, the more you realize that it’s everywhere. A mundane story about boy-meets-girl (or any gender permutation) suddenly is a pissing contest to see who overcame more group work fatigue to finally find their ‘one.’ They need to be featured in the newspaper and talk about the twelve labors they did to meet each other. You’d think they had to climb Everest to lock eyes across a networking event while also finishing a DCF model at base camp. 

And don’t even get me started on the weddings and announcements. At Kellogg, it’s never just a wedding. It’s an event. They need to have an extravagant production and an overarching gilding session between the Thai princess of great fortune and the factory default German man who works at Deloitte. And all of sudden, the folks that they have known for a collective five months are now the bridesmaids and have to regale some pedestrian story about a slightly inconvenient flight delay during KWEST. Or about how the bride and groom are inseparable because they just have so much in common: “They both studied economics and worked as consultants before coming to Kellogg. I knew it was meant to be.”

Headline: Your boss should be flirting with you

By: Not HR

If you’ve taken enough MORS classes, you’ve been inundated with all of the interpersonal dynamic terms that allow for a healthy culture at work. Psychological safety, the model leaders, maybe even BATNA. What they don’t tell you about your boss is that they should be flirting with you throughout your work day in order for you to reach your full potential.

Before any HR people say anything, I’m not talking about a Coldplay kisscam inappropriate relationship where everyone else has to pretend that they don’t notice. That’s gross. I’m talking about the aspects of a relationship that bring the best out of you and allow you to function with an almost unreasonable amount of confidence that you didn’t know you had. To make it more salient, have you ever met someone who has forgotten how ugly they are because they have been in a relationship for too long? Like really, you aren’t pretty enough to be that mean. That’s the confidence that I’m talking about.

When you think about it, you want that same confidence at work too. You want someone who can listen to you, who has your back when you’re at your worst. Who doesn’t jump to conclusions when something goes wrong, but actually asks, “what happened?” like they care that you’re on their team. Someone who makes you feel like you’re doing a good job before you’re completely burnt out. I knew someone (not me) whose boss was a complete jerk to the team, but when he spoke with her, his tone softened. He became understanding of her being a newbie and made an effort to make sure she knew how to do everything and wasn’t overwhelmed. Am I wrong for wanting that?

Think about your dating life. Do the people who are actually interested in you only appear once a week, ask for an update, and then disappear again? No. They’re proactive. They check in. They remember details and follow up. They don’t “circle back” two weeks later like your feelings are an agenda item. All of this is the difference between a job where you do the minimum and a job where you accidentally become impressive because it makes you feel good. Read More Hot Takes IRL by Kevin Shi: Hot Takes IRL (January) Hot Takes IRL (November) Hot Takes IRL (October) Hot Takes IRL (September)