Faux Pas

As some of you know, I had to leave town last week for interviews at a company in Dallas. As is typical with the second/final round interview format, the company took us out for cocktails and dinner on Thursday evening, followed by lots of interviews on Friday. The event which I am about to detail for you took place at dinner this past Thursday night...

We were taken out to the Sambuca cafe in Uptown, where we had their entire patio area reserved for our visit. This was nice because the patio was spacious and there weren't very many people in our party (maybe 9 students and 6 or 7 current employees). After cocktail hour, we take our places at the 3 tables they have set up for us (pre-arranged namecards determined where we sat). I end up sitting in front of an associate in the group who happens to be a former Fund manager (don't worry if that doesn't mean anything to you). I'm on the Fund, so we have a conversation jumping off point (which is good because I wasn't wearing a wristband...). At some point during the conversation, we observe that we're both out of wine and we want some more. Unfortunately, the restaurant only gave us 1 waiter (for a party of 15), and he was nowhere to be found...

It is at that moment when my friend Caroline comes through the door to join our party. Caroline also goes to UT with me and was also interviewing. Caroline is also Asian (this will become important later). She took a later flight from Austin and thus arrived later than everyone else. Everyone knew this was going to happen...

So, upon seeing a fresh new face, the associate across from me assumes this girl is a waitress or hostess or someone in the servitude function. So he stops her and asks her if she can bring more wine for the table. Caroline, being very tactful about this, calmly says she's actually a student interviewing and not a waitress. The associate is totally embarrassed. He apologizes profusely. I am amused.

This story gets worse...

So we get through our meal and the associate (after having another 3 glasses or so) decides he has to go home. Before he leaves, however, he says he should apologize once more to Caroline. I'm thinking this is a good move. So I say farewell and he proceeds to the table where Caroline is sitting (we had 3 tables). In the meantime, I make smalltalk with some other students and associates. This continues for about 3 minutes when I look up expecting to see the associate apologizing again to Caroline. What I was was absolutely incredible (and not in a good way). He was apologizing to the wrong girl!!! To make matters worse, he was talking to the only other Asian girl there! I almost lost it. This other girl, who goes to Chicago GSB, had a total look of confusion on her face. Caroline can't believe it either. Nor could I. These two looked completely different (Caroline is fit and pretty cute, the other girl was, well, lets just say she should start each day with some situps and make a large equity investment in ProActiv.) They were wearing totally different outfits and looked nothing alike.

Caroline and I shared a pretty good laugh about this later at the hotel. Never in my life have I seen such a turn of events. Absolutely amazing.

Why does the Carpenter center smell like a locker room today? I think people have decided to shop showering to make more time for the finance challenge.

Football championship and C&A (maybe) tonight!