Learning curves Read Online Free Page B

“I’m Jen, by the way. Jennifer Bellman.” She cringed as she said it, but choosing a new name wasn’t as easy as it sounded. She’d left it until she filled in the application form and had spent a good half an hour looking around her flat for inspiration—Jennifer Television, Jennifer Lamp, Jennifer Wall. And then she’d turned to the telephone directory and tried some names in there, but she was terrified that she might choose one and then forget it. So in the end, she’d gone for Bellman, the most unimaginative adaptation of Bell as you could possibly imagine. But at least she could remember it.
    Alan shifted his files carefully onto one arm and held out his hand. Jen stared at it for a moment, then realized that she was meant to be shaking it. She did so and smiled uncertainly at him.
    “Shall we?” she suggested, looking into the lecture hall with trepidation.
    “Oh, yes. Right ho.”
    They walked into the lecture hall and found two seats next to each other. The room was full—there were about fifty people, all in their late twenties or early thirties, and all looking very serious.
    Jen took out her course agenda. Introduction, followed by Strategy in Action, followed by lunch, followed by a meeting with your personal tutor, then an introduction to your team, followed by Strategy in Action recap, then close.
    She looked around the room and waited.
    “Is anyone sitting here?” Jen looked up to see a huge smiley face surrounded by blond hair. “You’re the only other person here in jeans and the only other person who looks vaguely human, so if you don’t mind . . .”
    “I suppose,” Jen said uncertainly. She wasn’t sure she wanted to look human to an MBA student.
    “I tell you,” her new companion continued as she sat down and pulled out pads, pens, books, and folders, “there’s a lot of reading in this course. Have you seen the list? Bloody nightmare.” She looked around the room, frowning. “Not many lookers, are there?”
    Jen raised her eyebrows. “Lookers?”
    “Men. God, that’s the only reason I’m here. I tell you, I’ve tried bars, I’ve tried Internet dating, I’ve tried buying a bloody dog, and nothing. There are no single men in London as far as I can tell. Not sane ones anyway, or ones that don’t look like they’re ax murderers in their spare time. Then I noticed that more and more people were putting ‘MBA’ as an attribute on dating Web sites. And I thought—why wait till they’ve done the course? Why not get in there at the beginning?”
    Jen stared at her. “You’re doing an MBA to meet men?”
    “Of course. Why are you doing it?”
    Jen grinned, relieved to have found a fellow impostor. “Oh, I just had some time to kill. My name’s Jen, by the way. Jen . . . Bellman.”
    She smiled. “Lara. I’m Lara. Pleased to meet you.” A man walked into the lecture hall and stood at the front. Gradually everyone stopped talking and started to look at him instead. He had a very prominent jaw, Jen noticed, and white-blond hair.
    “Good morning, folks,” he said with a New York accent. “My name is Jay Gregory, and I’m the director of the Bell Consulting MBA program. I’m delighted to welcome you all aboard—I know you’ve faced stiff competition to come this far, so we’ve got a pretty good bunch of people sitting in this room.”
    There was a murmur around the room as everyone made little noises to both suggest modestly that they didn’t think they were so great, and to also suggest that, if pushed, they would accent that they were pretty marvelous, actually.
    “D’you think he dyes his hair?” hissed Lara. Jen wrinkled her nose.
    “Would you actually dye your hair that color?” she hissed back.
    “Andy Warhol did.”
    Jen shrugged and grinned at Lara.
    “But what you’ve done so far is peanuts compared with this program,” Jay continued. “This next year is going to be the toughest you’ve ever faced. You’ll be expected to show your