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[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
I've heard the debate between quant and qaulitative programs bandied about quite a bit by b school friends over the years (one friend who just finished Yale was really perturbed about the quant stuff and wishes she hadn't gone).

A family member has a business acting as middlemen distributing a sometimes-complex product which for years quant-minded folks have opined could much more easily be distributed directly to consumers. For years, people, including me, said the wise thing to do was sell the business, as it would soon be blown out by direct sales. However, contrary to these assertions, the business has in fact done better over the past seven years, as more and more people seem eager to buy the product from people, and expect greater customer service. What I see is that people in that particular market are becoming more and more dependent on others' doing their thinking for them and "servicing" them. Makes me wonder how a quant person would explain this uptick in full-service dependence. Technically, from the projections I read, the business should be sagging. My layman's theory has been that whoever wrote the projections did not take goodwill into account and did not consider that many people who buy direct are dissatisfied with corporate service, and that this creates a whiplash effect whereby people return to the old purchasing methods of buying from the guy who sells them the product directly, face to face.

I experienced it just last week when I chose to pay for a doctor's visit out of pocket. My health plan was (a) too complicated, and (b) simply too annoying. I did the math and decided "Fuck it, my time is more valuable" and paid the doc in cash.

Can we get a measurement here? I think we might have a new record for Longest Post Without a Point. I've read it, and I'm still not sure how you get from b-school curricula to paying your doctor in cash.