Dear Stanford Sloan Class of 2013,

A lot of friends have been asking me to run again for the Social Chair Officer for the Fall Quarter, or even longer. I appreciate tremendously all the support you have lent to me during the Summer Quarter. It seems that you have identified one of my less-known qualities/predispositions that all my previous employers were reluctant to recognize, which is, I run parties and usually make people around me happier. It was the case when I lived in Singapore for six years; it was the case when I lived in Boston for four years; it was the case when I lived in Beijing for four years; it would have been the case had I spent more time in Chicago and Hong Kong. It’s been a very rewarding experience for me to serve as one of your Social Chairs for this passing quarter. You guys are very supportive, helpful, understanding, and fun to go out with. I’ve had a ton of fun from those activities, and those events brought me much closer to many of you – which makes all the handwork worthwhile.

Having said that, I want to make my intention clear to all that I will not re-run for the Social Chair Officer position for the next quarter.

The reason is very simple.

…it’s not because it takes some work to plan, prepare and organize;

…it’s not because it’s a challenge to balance the needs from Sloans;

…it’s not because I’ve run out of ideas of interesting events;

…it’s not because there is no budget left to sponsor those events;

…it’s not because my wife’s complaining I’m partying too much;

…it’s not because it’s statistically impossible to find a open slot on the calendars of any Sloan group bigger than 10;

…it’s not because Professor Oyer’s Statistics or Economics;

…it’s not because of the course I’ve enrolled myself in Fall Quarter, MLA 293: Darwin, Marx and Freud;

It’s because I will not be able to ALWAYS make myself available on every Friday night in another quarter. I can do that for a quarter, or ten weeks in a row, but doing so for another ten weeks is more than I can handle, nor do I think for anyone.

So, I sincerely hope those of you interested in this fun job seriously consider undertaking this responsibility and make this a fruitful experience as I have. I can think of top ten reason why this is worth your consideration:

1. You make a lot of friends, easily.

2. You get appreciation for just trying your best, regardless of the actual results.

3. Your effort is highly visible. People can easily establish connection between your efforts and the success of the events.

4. You get to work with the staff a lot, Mike, Melinda, Virginia and Sally, who are extremely supportive to your initiative.

5. You will have the privilege  to throw the party of the year – Halloween Party@Oct 31 !

6. There are so many interesting events out there in the Bay area that you can organize… we barely scratched the surface of the fantastic social life that the Bay area has to offer in the summer quarter. I’ll be happy to give you a long list of exciting events that we have thought about but have not got the chance to execute.

7. The toughest part of the job is already behind you: a) establishing a class budget; 2) working out a payment protocol with Treasury officers; 3) building a cooperative partnership with Partners’ chairman and social chair. Now all you need to do is to focus on party, party, and party.

8. The existing knowledge Gitanjali and I have learned and will pass to you is going to make your job much easier. We have a much better understanding of various Sloans’ preferences, desires and expectations now. You’ll be able to be much more effective and efficient with this knowledge, and thus potentially enjoy much greater success.

9. If you have local knowledge , you can bring our social activities to a new height that Gitanjali and I can only dream of, and achieve that with ease. The two of us have never lived on the west coast before and we spent a lot of time just trying to figure out the basics like directions and distances (where is this freaking Napa Valley again?). For those of you who’ve lived here before, you can get to the same result with 1/4 of our time.

10. You get to spam your class every now and then.

Long story short, the upside will be unlimited, and the downside (time and risk)  will be substantially lower. You’ll be riding on an utility curve (pointing upper-right direction) with escalating rate of return with respect to your effort, a rare economic phenomenon, that even Professor Oyer would consider easily comprehensible for all the Sloans in Session 2.

Thank you!