things to look for before you start beating the drums

OK,
I guess everyone here is now hyped and pumped about the 2008 applications - a few words of caution from a newbie (myself). This is a true story - it happened to my friend, so please watch what you are saying and try to keep your MBA/GMAT plans to yourself and yourself only.

My best friend (we went to school together), met some random chick at a wedding, started hanging out with her and decided to have a good time. Things were fine and dandy; needless to say he was prepping for his MBA/GMAT - gave the GMAT, finalised his list of schools, and planned to take letters of recommendation from some of his co-employees.

At the same time he was trying to get a promotion as a manager in his company, and in a coup de etat, take over his current manager's job (current manager is a loudmouth and a gossip monger - so I am told). He was assured that he would be promoted in a month or so.

Everything was going good until he made the blatant mistake of bringing his new found girlfriend to the office party - this is where the fun begins.

His girlfriend, after a few cosmos, a slippery nipple (I havent comprehended how nipples can be slippery), and a shot of tequila decided to hang out her boyfriend's multicolored and smelly laundry in public. She went up the to the boyfriend's office watercooler gossiper (his manager) and in her drunken stupor, told him about my friend's MBA plans - she did not even omit to tell where he got the recommendation letters, scores, percentiles, schools he visited and applied to, etc, etc.

Needless to say a diaster of mammoth, no let me make that gargantuan proportions occured.

word spread like wildfire in the my friend's office, his promotion promply got withheld, he was pulled up by senior management, was asked to clarify his standing in the company, and whether he would have to leave the company in a year to do his MBA. Things looked downright shady from him. He was told in no uncertain terms that his promotion stint, or even his future aspirations in the office would be affected and his letters of recommendation would not be in league with his true potential (in plain talk - he was royally fu%%ed )

Long story short - my friend commutes 60 miles a day to some bumfu@@ location in the middle of nowhere in southern california to oversee a warehouse. I last heard that he is planning to quit his current job and move to Mexico where he would make more money hustling illegal aliens across the border (no jokes).

Moral of the story - nipples are slippery (figuratively speaking)