JUG

Any Jesuit high school grads?

My high school sent me an alumni update today. One of the things it mentions is that September 19th is the 90th anniversary of the original JUG line, and they're soliciting remembrances of JUG.

I didn't even know there was an anniversary.

Anyone have a good story?

 

The Dean of Students at my school freshman year used to make students write essays on crazy topics. One of his favorites was 1500 words on "If Maxwell House is good to the last drop, what is wrong with the last drop?"

When the football coach took over as Dean of Students, he used to place flags around campus and make kids run and bring them back. If it wasn't done fast enough, they had to get other flags.

 

We just had to sit in a classroom in silence.

I think the kids at Xavier had to march the whole time.

The worst part -- aside from getting a month straight of JUG -- was the year they pushed the timing back a couple of minutes, causing you to miss the late train home and have to wait an extra hour.

 

In around 1998 or so, I was working for a Commodity Pool Operator -- it's basically the commodities/futures equivalent of a mutual fund.

I helped pick and manage our traders, and I also sold.

The main selling point was the non-correlation to stocks, and as diversification to them. (Unfortunately, the stock market was having a great run at the time, and not too many people were looking for diversification.)

So, on volatile days, I would send out a blast email talking about the bad day the market had and encouraging people to consider managed futures.

This was the days of Internet 1.0, and schools were just publishing alumni email lists on their websites.

I would copy and past a list, run a couple of macros, and have a good list of prospects. I would know how old someone was (based on year of graduation), and could assume some level of success based on where they went to school.

I put together one list of Jesuit high school graduates from schools around the country.

Since getting someone to open and then read an email is half the battle, I simply put JUG in the subject line, knowing it would be irresistible to a Jesuit grad.

My pitch was something like, "In high school, if we weren't careful, we'd end up in JUG. The stakes are even higher with your investment portfolio." Or something stupid like that.

I got so many fucking responses to that email. Some people were just laughing at being reminded of high school. Some were not amused to be reminded. And some opened accounts.

Best sales email I ever sent.

 

Here I thought you just forgot the "S" in your title and was expecting something entirely different