Mrs. California Goes to Business School, Part II.

To be perfectly honest, I can’t remember why, exactly, I decided to go to business school. I’m sure my application essays said something about empowering entrepreneurs to bring their passions to market or something equally vacuous. But the real answer was probably something closer to: It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time.

But then, almost immediately after signing my acceptance letter, it seemed like not a good idea at all. It seemed like an idea that I needed to justify to anyone I admitted it to. “It’s only a year. I got a scholarship. It’s in Spain, so that’s interesting…” But it was a scarlet letter. Heaven forbid people realise that I was taking all the education and opportunity afforded to me and turning myself into a [cue shrill stringed instruments] Business Person.

But I am, by my nature, a business person — or at least a business-minded person. When I walk around the world, my innate curiosity is, “How does this work?” And by “work” I mean commercially. When I see art, technology, protests, flower shops, bacon-wrapped hot dogs, I wonder: Who is paying for that? How is this financially viable? My gears are spun by economics. So much so that I (arrogantly, I admit) find it annoying and naïve when people dismiss business as crass.

Of course I am happy that there are artists, scientists and academics in the world that hate thinking about money. They are supposed to hate money. That gives them more time to focus on making beautiful, innovative and interesting things, without being distracted by P&Ls. But, just because the word “Profit” leaves a sour taste in their mouths doesn’t make it any less fundamental to their existence. It’s a capitalist’s world — they’re just living in it. And we can debate about whether that is good or bad, but it’s a reality. Gravity keeps people’s feet on the ground and money gets them out of bed in the morning.

Obviously people get out of bed for more things than money. But it’s hard to imagine that anyone can exist in the modern world with zero money-related motivations. And I think acknowledging that is a healthy part of an empathetic and productive worldview — even if it’s tucked way in the back behind all the prettier creative and philosophical stuff.

But here is my problem with being a business-minded person standing on a soap box about how money makes the world go round: BUSINESS PEOPLE RUIN EVERYTHING. They wear horrible clothes and use too many beauty products and tell cringe jokes and don’t recycle and turn all that is beautiful and sacred in this world into profane clickbait commodities.

I am currently working at a design consultancy on a project for an unnamed extremely popular soft drink company to develop their sustainability strategy. It’s basically the coolest possible project for a business designer: Help one of the world’s biggest brands leverage their commercial power to save the world. But all the meetings I go to are the precise culmination of my cognitive dissonance.

On one day, I am rolling my eyes at the impassioned speeches about how the environment should be the company’s top priority. I want to ask: How about you start by making it your top priority? No more jamón, Ubers, EasyJet flights, Zara blouses or iPhones. But the next day, I feel slimy when we talk about using the company’s sustainability efforts as a “brand asset.” No point in cutting carbon emissions if you can’t build a PR campaign around it! Right? Madre mía.

I wrestled with the same question in a nerdier way in a research paper I wrote about Shareholder Value Theory (a separate blog about that may or may not be coming soon). The cool thing about business school is that you have the opportunity to think about what business is, existentially. Maybe that’s what I should have written in my application essays…