i am a commodity

I've heard that the job market has really improved for MBAs. When I finished business school in 2004 it was pretty tough to find a job. It was worse in 2003 but much better in 2005; I hear that folks finishing this spring are stacking up the offers.

And I realized that we MBAs are like corn.

Corn is a commodity -- you can buy it by the pound and you don't much care whether you get one ear or the other, so long as they're of the same quality. It's just corn.

Same seems to be true of MBAs. My salary depends more on the supply and demand relationship for MBAs than on my own special ability to create wealth for my employer. But aren't I an individual? Aren't I unique and irreplaceable?

Apparently not. $100K of school loans and I'm just another ear of corn. You might pull back my husk for a second to make sure I'm not rotten, but then you chuck me in your cart with the others.

But the good news is it's a good year for corn.