Good to be Home

I have to say it was so much fun to travel, but definately nice to come home. I really enjoyed visiting all the companies and learning about their challenges and the way they are trying to stay ahead of the competition. For example, Magyar Telekom, a phone company (T-Mobile) is expending by selling life insurance in Hungary. It is uncommon for most of us to understand a company to extend services to life insurance based on what we have learned in our program, but in Hungary , it is all about trusting the company.

After leaving Prague on Tuesday, the 24th, I went on to visit my home land in Romania. My flight was to Budapest and from Budapest to Cluj. Well, ironically, my plane to Cluj got cancelled so I was stuck in the Budapest airport for 12 hours befor the next flight. The good news is that I got a voucher for 3000 forints and a calling card from Magyar Telekom.

During my airport stay, I did meet another Romanian who gave me a run down of all the corruption that happens. Do we all remember the article about the corruption in the ethics class or whether or not to pay additional $ to get phone lines? Well, it's basically that everywhere.

Once in Cluj, I got to see some family, but also got to visit my school I went to until 6th grade (used to be called #17, but now Ion Creanga, after a famous Romanian writer). I got a private tour from the director, Cristian Munteanu, of the school and was provided with all the information of the changes in the last 19 years. The students still have uniforms, but there is no student number patch for every student. The desks were portable to allow the students to move around the room to collaborate in teams. The room where we used to the girls used to learn how to knit and sow became a technology lab. This included computers and flat screens for about 30 students. The director insisted that Romania is just as technologically advanced as any other country. I definately got the same sense.

I also got to visit a Carrefour store that we learned about in Global Strategy. Luckily, my aunt was with me because I wouldn't be able to get groceries. Have you ever had a moment where your visa did not go through? Well, this was it for me. I am at the checkstand, and my pin was not working. I told the cashier to run my card through without the pin using the Visa, but it didn't go through. So finally I learned. Their pay system is not connected to the United States so I could not pay with my Visa.

It seems Romania now has everything available, but the problem is that people don't have the money to pay. For example, my aunt still does not have hot water in the house or a bathroom. The problem is that it's expensive to get a heating system into your house, and most people make $300 a month. Even a doctor starting out makes $300 a month, so most doctors leave the country to practice in others. In fact, my cousin who is graduating high school is going to France to work for a salary of $1400/mo.

As I was leaving the country, I got to the international airport at Cluj Napoca (photo gallery). It was the worst airport to travel out of because there were many international flights, but a lot of chaos. It took over an hour to get to the x-ray machine, but the line was not bigger than 15 people per line. Talk about inefficiencies and thinking about operations management. They had two lines of people leading to one x-ray machine. I could not believe it. Awful. Af if that was not frustrating enough, I went through and got stopped with my bag. The security guy (not polite at all) kept asking what kind of metal did I carry. I told him I didn't have anything. After he opened my bag and took out almost everything, it came down that the crystal that I bought from Ruckl. It was the lead in the crystal that was showing up on the x-ray machine. I guess that means it's good quality crystal, right?

Anyways, glad to be back in the country, but I would definately recommend the study trip to future students. Besides the company visits, I enjoyed getting to know other students better especially from the B section, which I wouldn't have had the opportunity otherwise.

I would like to thank the TMMBA staff for making this trip such a success overall.