AG1 and the Madness

Ok, this will be somewhat brief. Not that I don't want to tell y'all about all the insane, ridiculous, dramatic, and idiotic nonsense that went on today. Because there was a lot of it. But it's 1am. And I've been at Bocconi since 10am. And I just got home less than an hour ago. And I have to be up in less than 6 hours. That should give you an indication of how my day went.
10am: Rita and I met Ale in the Bocconi hallway, apparently the classroom we were meeting in was locked, and Ale was the only one there. She left to get it open and set up the projector equipment.
10:30am: Me, Rita, Ale, and Sabrina are the only ones in the room waiting for everyone else to show up (notice how it was the 3 non-Bocconi students, and Ale - she's the only one of them who even makes an attempt to be punctual).
11am: The last member of AG1 (Carmen) arrives looking like she just rolled out of bed (we named our team AG1). By this point, Ale has finally figured out how to get the technical equipment working and we start editing our interview questions. Ale divulges that apparently, Stefania - our tutor - was supposed to come up with interview questions, but she told our client that she doesn't have time for that. Hence, she passed the buck to us. So we spent 2 hours today drafting interview questions (Ale knows this b/c her sister is our contact person at the client and told her what a mess our tutors are...great).
1pm: We finalize the interview questions and send to Stefania. We begin to work on the presentation slides. I ask Shruti for the new presentation based on the slides we all were supposed to have sent her as of last night. She tells me the only slides she received were from me and Ashley. I ask her if she's serious. Everyone else acts as if they don't hear this conversation. This is when I officially checked out of the meeting.
Between 1 and 2:30pm, I checked my email and finally cleaned out my hotmail inbox. At 2:30, I went to italian class and realized that I had left my italian book at the apartment. Susanna was forgiving and I shared books with Rita. Good thing I had actually learned the material. Between 2:30 and 8pm, I searched online for furniture for my apartment in Minneapolis. I was productive. I decided on a dresser, a couple of lamps, and came up with a few sofa options. At 8pm, we were kicked out of the classroom by the cleaning staff, so we moved up to the 2nd floor study lounge. From this point until about 10pm, I was checking email again. At 10, I started reading scriptures in my inbox to keep me sane.
Don't get me wrong - I participated. I gave feedback, made suggestions, helped with powerpoint formatting, and all that good stuff that good team members do. But mentally, I just found it very difficult to focus considering the team that I'm working with. The low point of the day came around 4pm, when one of the team members (I won't call nobody out) was looking at a graph showing the size of the luxury market for the past 10 years. She said "what is CAGR? I don't know what that is." I looked at her like she was joking. She was very serious. Ok, now I don't expect the average person to know what CAGR is. But is it asking too much to expect someone who has completed the equivalent of the first year of a management program to know what a CAGR is (it's a compounded annual growth rate for those of y'all thinking "I don't know what a CAGR is either"...don't worry, so long as you are not one of my b-school friends, it's all good). Bocconi, however, is supposed to be THE top business school here, and certainly one of the top business schools in Europe. Hmmm.....that's all I have to say about that.
Needless to say, a lot of time was wasted today. And as usual, there was no sense of urgency. Hence, our meeting lasted until after 11. As if that wasn't enough, Rita and I couldn't even get home straight. We waited on the tram since it was late. 10 minutes later, a 3 tram shows up. The ride to our transfer point is about the equivalent of 5 blocks, however it takes us another 10 minutes due to congestion (I'm not really sure why it was congested at 11:30pm). Then we get off, and by that point a 59 bus has managed to catch up to the tram. The 59 stops very close to our apartment so we hop on. Except the bus goes in a loop and ends up taking us right back down the street we just came from. So after a half hour, we ended up 2 blocks from where we had caught the 3 tram originally. We gave up and walked home. I was starving (all I had to eat today were 2 sandwiches, fruit, and junk food). The minute I got in the apartment I cooked and ate, and as I write this, I am waiting on my food to digest so I can go to sleep. Enough for now. Tomorrow WILL be a good day, if for no other reason than because our presentation will be over with circa 1pm. Then I am going to do something fun and enjoyable. Like go shopping. Buona Notte!