It's really no surprise that investment banks fucked up the way they did. If people I work with are representatitve of bankers in general, then the industry had its pants down and its ass up in the air a long time coming.
It's also no wonder that books about ibanking such as Liar's Poker and the Monkey Business turned out to be best-sellers. To work in banking is to witness a cabaret in the making. I had always wanted to blog about work because oh the juicy materials! But I always held back for fear of retribution by the firm. Maybe staying up late at night does something to your inhibition, but not writing some of this down would just be a shame.
Today wasn't even that unusual of a day, except that our managing directors (MDs, but not the kind that cures people. These are more like organ harvestors--they cut you up and take every bit of useful meat they can) gathered us all together for what they had intended to be a pep talk, I would guess. All of my group is based in Hong Kong except for me, so I called in and phone connection wasn't always the best.
As we started, I heard the head MD say something about our Senior VP (more or less his deputy) running a marathon in less than four hours. I didn't pay attention as I thought this must have been something done in the said SVP's earlier and younger years, but definitely not now, as if he had working as a proper banker he would never have had the time to train for a marathon.
That is, until later in the day, when people told me that the SVP just ran the marathon yesterday! So, basically when the rest of us were staying up late at night, dotting another i and crossing another t and revising documents until we threw up, people high up, people who really should be responsible for the deplorable state that our group is in (no revenue, whatsoever, except for bits and morsels we fork over from other groups who actually did some deals but hey, as long as these deals have anything remotely to do with our industry, they are game!) are out there getting fit and enjoying themselves.
What's even more out of this world is that the MD told us that we should model after the SVP and go out and run marathons ourselves! That's like telling a group of homeless men to please, go, buy a nice house and dress in a smart suit like the rest of civilization! I was surprised that nobody in the group saw the unbearable irony in this.
For the rest of the pep talk, it was all about how we need to work harder and longer hours especially since layoffs are coming and if we don't put our little heads down and be good little worker-bees we'll be deemed bad performers and will be cut relentlessly. I will bet you all the RMBs in my wallet that that MD went home tonight proud as a cock of his brilliant speech and its inherent logic.
You'd think that there are smart people working in such a highly paid industry. Having these people run it is like a cheap whore ready to be effed in the ass and too stupid to know what a condom is.
Please pardon my French.
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I suspect it isn't limited to banking execs. Look at the CEO in the US who took over a failing company and then spent over a mil to redecorate his office . . . the top layer has an attitude about entitlement that is unbelievable to the middle and bottom layers.
While I envy you the domestic help you have I sure don't envy your hours. I'm a working mom, too, who enjoys her work but wishes that employers would be more amenable to job sharing. That is, I'd like to have more time with my kids and only work part time. The trouble is our family needs the money that I earn working full time and jobs that pay well are never part time. There's a family across the street from us that has a SAH. They don't have a car and they're renting their house. I don't think I want that life style. So even though our house is a dump, our property is small, we do have cars and I can still save a bit after I pay for the three kids' child care and tuition expenses.
I'm one of those geriatric moms who started having children in her mid-40s and I wish I'd started earlier but then, I wouldn't have enjoyed the adventures I had with my job when I was younger and felt free to accept any traveling assignment that came through the office. I've moved to a different group where I don't travel much at all and it's much less interesting but kids grow so fast I felt like a workday away from them was enough -- add travel and it would be too much.
Good luck in your juggling. It's something we all struggle with. I wonder why it doesn't seem to bother men so much?
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