Even though I can’t order a croissant in Paris, and have practically never spoken Spanish with a Spanish-speaking person, I proudly list both French and Spanish under “language skills” on my resumé.

And why not, I had, after all, somehow passed my French exams in business school – the ones I quite literally slept through, forcing me to learn two year’s worth of French on my own – and even studied two years of Spanish at the same university. I do know the lyrics to “Besame Mucho”, and feel pretty good lip syncing to “La Bamba”. Yo no soy marinero.

I had walked through the Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration doors with the intention of coming out as a hockey agent, which is the reason I majored in marketing and minored in law. I thought that was a great combination for somebody willing to … I didn’t know what, but I knew the agents were important in the hockey business.

I spent a summer working in the hockey business in Canada – that’s what it says on my CV, but what it means is that I tried to get a hockey equipment manufacturer’s inventory under control, and hung out with hockey players – and only had a couple of exams, and my thesis to write, when I returned to Finland in September.

I spent the next five months sitting in my small dorm room, in my underwear, writing that thesis and skipping French classes, and by May, all I had standing between me and my graduation was an exam in labor law.

Just so happened that the hockey world championships were held in Turku, Finland that year, and my friends from the hockey equipment factory were in the country, so spent a lot of time with them. I also helped another friend to sell his Hockey Manager software during the tournament.

That meant that I had to study for the exam well in advance, to be able to take a break and go to Turku and help my friends. That was the plan, anyway.

I did take a break. I went to Turku, saw my friends, and held demos of the coach’s software. Then my friends came to Helsinki, so I met up with them one night, helped them pack, and then drove one of them to the airport the next morning.

Coincidentally, that was the day of my last exam.

I drove straight to the university, and walked into the main hall a little nervous. To be honest, I hadn’t studied as hard as I had planned. I only had to take about four steps in to realize that something was wrong. The exam was supposed be held in the ground floor auditorium just in front of me, but I saw people walk out of there.

And I knew I had missed it. I had somehow thought that the exam would be an afternoon exam, starting at 1 pm, when instead it had been a morning exam, starting at 9 am.

I turned around and drove home, in a state of slight panic. Now what would I do. Obviously, I wouldn’t be graduating, and for some reason that felt like a big deal then, as I was driving my little white Peugeot 205, with Cheap Trick blasting off the speakers. I had to graduate. But how?

I got back to my dorm room, and I called the professor who wasn’t really a professor, but instead the head lawyer at a big labor union in Finland. I explained to him that I had, by mistake, missed the exam time, and that, by the way, it was my last exam.

“Oh, man,” he said. “OK, you can take an oral exam, but I don’t have time this week or the next. How’s the week after, is that Ok with you?”

“Sure, just name the time and place, and I will be there, sir,” I said, not realizing how hollow that promise must have sounded. After all, he had already named his time and place once.

“Come to my office in two weeks. The exam takes a couple of hours,” he said.

I thanked him from the bottom of my heart, hung up, and patted myself on the back for fixing that problem, and for getting two more weeks to study. Now I would surely nail it.

Two weeks later, I was sitting across the table from the professor, very nervous. Two weeks can go really fast. I had crammed the last two days real hard, but I wasn’t very confident getting in. I had been holding long speeches to myself in my dorm room, but that’s not quite the same as answering questions by your professor staring at you.

But, he asked, and I answered. He asked some more, I went on a little longer, sometimes answering the question he had asked, often just talking whatever I happened to remember. He switched topics, I tried to follow.

Two hours later, he stopped asking questions about law. He sat there, quiet, and just looked at me. I smiled a little, and kept eye contact. I was desperate for any contact, any human contact.

“How do you think you did today?” he then asked me.

“Pretty well, I think, mmm-huh, there were a couple of topics I was a little unsure of, but all in all, I think I did OK. So between OK and good, maybe,” I said.

“You think?”

I didn’t say anything.

“So this is your last exam? If you pass this one, you’ll graduate, right?” he said.

“That’s right, sir.”

“Fine. Let’s just say you passed this,” he said, and then looked me straight in the eye, and continued:

“But don’t ever tell people you’re an expert on labor law.”

“Thank you, sir. No, sir,” I said.

And that’s why I don’t list labor law as an area of expertise on my resumé.