Dear Axl

It's been a very Cleveland-y week for me. I had a little brunch on my birthday in a darling part of town that I love and then took in an Indians game (we lost in extra innings). This week I also took in a Cavs game (we lost in overtime), attended the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction concert, and saw The Addams Family musical which is currently in town (SO entertaining!). But before I get too far back into the groove of the Cleve, I wanted to share some thoughts about my short Utah trip last week.

You may recall me mentioning that my (former) boss asked me last fall to begin helping with recruiting at BYU. It's because I'm a woman, which is sort of offensive, but it's also time out of the office and free trips to Utah. So I flew west and worked a career fair and even spoke at a Supply Chain symposium. And believe you me, I had to dig real deep to spin my thoughts about supply chain in such a way that would attract a plethora of students...females in particular. Well the powers that be at BYU were so impressed by my apparently very convincing remarks and the students' responses to them that they recently asked me to replace my boss on the BYU Supply Chain Advisory Board. I'm flattered, don't get me wrong, but we can't ignore that what these men like most about me is still the fact that I'm a woman (there are no others on the board). And it probably helps that I'm young and more relatable, at least from the perspective of the students.

The pros to joining this board were that it looks great on my resume, gives me those free trips to see friends in Utah, and it also gives me a chance to give what I consider to be some very needed feedback on the BYU Supply Chain program. Which I hated. It felt like the same class over and over and didn't address the services side of operations at all. I also feel that I have much to suggest when it comes to the red-hot issue of getting women in the program. It's partly a matter of the way they market and position their program. As for cons, there's really only one, but it's a pretty big one: I no longer work for supply chain, nor do I ever plan to again.

I still decided to join the board, and that's why I was in Provo last week. Now on the other side of my first set of board meetings, I have to say they were a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, I felt important, and there were some really good moments where we just enjoyed networking and getting to know each other. But at the end of the day this was still a bunch of (mostly old) men....and me. They are all directors or VPs in supply chain at various organizations, and our roundtable discussions seemed to always morph into strategic business issues ("Let's go around and each talk about the major supply chain initiatives at our companies for this year," "Let's go around and talk about the trends and where you see supply chain going in the next 5 years...") to which I couldn't really contribute anything. Except maybe, "I don't even work in supply chain, fool." I guess my point is that we didn't really get to the topics of recruiting women and curriculum improvement, which were the only arenas in which I felt I could even play. But they do plan on doing another symposium in the fall, so I'm sure I'll dust off last year's remarks and try my best to win over the students. It's just that this whole thing makes me feel a little icky. I mean, I'm happy to help, but am I going to burn in hell for all this? More importantly, am I breeding a crop of students who will have made their career decisions on someone who was for all intents and purposes just giving them a line? Sometimes I wonder.

Man, I didn't even get to Axl. Next time.

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