Now that we are close to 2008, this is a lot of water under the bridge… in that time I’ve failed countless interviews including
- having to explain to an angry pregnant HR woman at Deloitte why I believe pregnant women should not be allowed to smoke
- cover up a foul stench of liquor off my breath during a Diageo interview
- told a BarCap managing director that a research position in Singapore would be interesting but I really do prefer New York
- got almost interviewed by Chelsea Clinton at McKinsey (job denied - smart enough but lack presentability)
- was informed by my former employer, Lehman Brothers, that I lack confidence to be in a ‘trading floor’ environment
- got a rejection email from CSFB informing me that while they are not interested in me, I rally should be pursuing a career in trading
- Failed in the last round of American express global rotation programme
- Scheduled the worst possible time for my Deutsche Bank global markets interview… arriving to find two vice presidents so tired that they could barely listen to my bundle of incoherent lies and half-truths
- Decided not to stick with an Indian hedge fund where I interned… only to see them grow 10X the size and make an absolute killing in fees while totally underperforming the market
- Messed up simple foreign exchange/ interest rate parity arbitrage question at my dream job interview with Lazard emerging markets
- And cancelled another ‘dream job interview’ for emerging markets analyst mid-process because I was taking a job at my current gulag of employment (was fed up with interviewing)
- And oh yes… Did nothing about perfectly fine opportunities presented to me by my dear friends to either do a) Carbon trading in India b) start up a retail bank chain in Ukraine
- And one more – having received a fine opportunity to run my own group at my current place of employment… ended up getting stuck with two of the worst numbskulls for employees in Wall Street history (I’ll take 50% responsibility here)
So to sum up… despite ample opportunities to find reasonable career success and glory… I seem to consistently grab crushing defeat out of clutches of absolute victory…
What lesson to I gleam out of this, in all my worldly wisdom? I mean I am good enough to get these opportunities… so why is it that I am so damned unlucky… like Urkel at a strippers convention….?
Well… the one thing I have noticed is that in this world is that the lucky are good and the unlucky are well… not good… and no matter how hard the latter try… no matter the ingenious plans they devise… no matter the hot sweat they pour over their plans… somehow they always get screwed over… while the good – well somehow they always get lucky… taking the worst possible debacles and creating miracles out of them… doing nothing yet showing everything for their results…
And in this I think I know what I am talking about… for some absolutely unknown reason… whenever I pick up a pen or a camera… something positive comes out… I have seen my most far-flung… my most worthless, thoughtless efforts come to great success… I have been ‘noted’ for things I had absolutely no interest in being noted for…. It all just kind of happens… but that’s the thing… it doesn’t kind of happen…
Fact of the matter is… each time I pick up a pen or a camera… even if I have no clue what I am going to write or photograph or think about or whatever… I always know what I want and I always know what ‘should be’ coming out… its something that I cant explain or describe… but every time I look in my camera’s viewfinder… at any random waking moment… I see exactly what I am looking for and what I am trying to accomplish… there is no thinking… there is no planning… its just obvious…
Likewise with my literary efforts… they mostly start out random… they mostly have nothing but the vaguest idea behind them… but the next thing I know I have a couple of thousand words down and they all seem to make sense… usually each and every one… without me having pre-planned nothing, and I mean nothing, but the vaguest of ideas behind it…
My career on the other hand… the numerous hours I have spent writing down answers to ‘my greatest weaknesses/ my greatest strengths’ questions… the number of times I;ve recited like mantra why I should be hired for this or that job and what my plan is 5 to 10 years down the road (usually to be in a senior and super senior position within the firm in question)…. All of this goes to absolute crap since I mean none of it… I see none of it… I feel none of it… fact of the matter is I really don’t give a crap about any corporate culture… fact of the matter is one of my strengths is being funny, witty and doing whatever the hell I please (not good in a corporate environment – trust me)…. And fact of the matter is no, 5 to 10 years down the road I do not see myself as a managing director in your firm… wearing a suit seven to ten times more expensive than the wrinkled Today’s Man rag I am wearing today…. Thinking important thoughts… deciding who to promote and who to screw over… and counting how many strippers I am planning to bang at the next Vegas industry conference….
Though to be honest… In 5 to 10 years I do see myself being paid up the ass and doing whatever the hell I please… whenever the hell I please… though certainly not wearing a suit… or attending an investors meeting… or dreaming of my 22 year old secretary’s bosoms while pictures of my Prozac happy wife and spoiled children stare at me from my desk….
So yes… I am officially amidst a mid-career crisis… one I have a feeling I will have to resolve with a drastic action… involving heavy hallucinogenic drugs… colouring my hair purple… and sitting on some mountaintop somewhere in India…
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