Letters - Summer 2011

The Winter issue of QSB Magazine was quite interesting for me, sparking three emotions at different points.

In no particular order:

1. Happiness —The photo in your flashback contest (below) was taken during Frosh week in September 1990 (Commerce Class of 1994). I am the third from the right (with glasses), and have great memories of the experience.
2. Sadness—I was very sorry to hear about the passing of Gord Cassidy. While I was not in any of his classes, I worked for the Public Executive program for the summer between first and second years, and was involved with the development of the Executive MBA program. Gord was a great boss, a gentleman and a scholar. He had boundless energy and enthusiasm which made the work fun.
3. Regret —I am not 100% sure, but reading the article on the Bargaining Game, I suspect that I was a member of the team that received the early “Final Offer First” that Rick Jackson referred to in the article—although I seem to recall that it was Alfie’s that we were supposed to go to when ready to capitulate. The other team took an interesting approach, likely predicated on the assumption that our team (all of whom had done quite well academically) were unlikely to risk damage to our marks by not settling. There were two fatal flaws in this strategy, however. The first (which Rick mentioned) was the emotional one re: the power of anger to trump self interest. The second was a logical flaw related to the course timing—for all of us, it was near the end of the first semester in our fourth year. Given the recruiting cycle, our entire team was mostly done with the interview process and with multiple job offers on the table, marks no longer had the same weight that they may have had at an earlier point. The regret comes from the fact that the experience was cut short, as I think we lost out on a valuable learning opportunity. That being said, the lessons I did take away from the experience (keeping one’s cool in the face of provocation and learning to not take business challenges personally) have been valuable ones in my professional career.

Ross Petersmeyer, Toronto

This is a photo from Frosh Week in 1990. Pictured are some of my fellow BCom’94s.

At left, with a backward facing ball cap, I’m pretty sure is Richard Ward. In the middle, is Pravin Rajagopal. Third from the right is Ross Petersmeyer.

Unfortunately, I am not able to identify the other people in the photo.

Andreas Hesse, Vancouver

Send your letters to qsbmagazine@business.queensu.ca or to the address on page 1, Attention: Shelley Pleiter.
Correction: Prof. Susan Brodt caught a typo in the website address for a group raising funds for victims of the Chilean earthquake. The correct address is www.vocesunidasporchile.com Susan adds, “Note that it is made up of the words squished together — voces unidas por chile — which means voices united for Chile in English.”