And yet, it always, always, depresses the hell out of me. I mean it puts me on the verge of tears when I watch it. It highlights the weakness of myself. I want to follow my dreams, I want to be the guy who wants to eloquent, not out front, but rather the guy behind the guy, someone who can serve the public good. I can be that person. But I am working in a job I hate, stressed out of my mind for the dollar I need but don't want...
Monday, February 23, 2009
The West Wing
I adore it. It's my favourite TV show of all time. The characters are everything I aspire to. I'm watching series one, again. It's still every bit as beautiful as it was the first time I watched it.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Three Months Later...
I'm back. And having been caught up in the Credit Crunch for the last 18 months I figured I'd finally make a post on the subject.
I'm afraid it's not going to be very nuanced, more a demonstration that not everybody on the street is making millions at Wall Street's expense. Without giving the actual name of my firm away, we were taken over back in September the weekend Lehmann collapsed. Our new owner has had to get TARP money and our former CEO was forced out of the new firm when it emerged he had spent over USD 1 million refurbishing his executive suite when he joined our firm 15 months ago.
There has been a lot of controversy over the magnitude of Wall Street bonuses, especially in my firm. The staff have been branded as selfish, greedy, inconsiderate and horrendous people in general. The perception is that we are all millionaires taking the tax payer for a ride.
Which is why it might surprise you to learn the circumstances the underlings face. I am with my firm for the past three years. I supervise a team of 9 people and an outsourcing team in India; 19 people in total. I work around 50-55 hours a week. It is not unusual for me to be in the office at 10.30 pm on a Friday night. We recently moved offices. What was a 40 minute commute door to door is now at least a 90 minute commute. My team was cut by 75% last week. The workload and targets remain the same. For this I earn EUR 33,000 a year (about USD 42,000). My bonus this year was EUR 1,400. I did not get a pay rise.
My point is not "woe is me" or "I have it so much worse than everyone else". Far from it. All I'm trying to say is that we are not all the millionaire thieves you think we are with the house in the Hamptons and the apartment overlooking central Park. We are suffering the same as most people these days and it is not nice at ll to be reading about how we are such bastards for working our guts out every day.
I'm afraid it's not going to be very nuanced, more a demonstration that not everybody on the street is making millions at Wall Street's expense. Without giving the actual name of my firm away, we were taken over back in September the weekend Lehmann collapsed. Our new owner has had to get TARP money and our former CEO was forced out of the new firm when it emerged he had spent over USD 1 million refurbishing his executive suite when he joined our firm 15 months ago.
There has been a lot of controversy over the magnitude of Wall Street bonuses, especially in my firm. The staff have been branded as selfish, greedy, inconsiderate and horrendous people in general. The perception is that we are all millionaires taking the tax payer for a ride.
Which is why it might surprise you to learn the circumstances the underlings face. I am with my firm for the past three years. I supervise a team of 9 people and an outsourcing team in India; 19 people in total. I work around 50-55 hours a week. It is not unusual for me to be in the office at 10.30 pm on a Friday night. We recently moved offices. What was a 40 minute commute door to door is now at least a 90 minute commute. My team was cut by 75% last week. The workload and targets remain the same. For this I earn EUR 33,000 a year (about USD 42,000). My bonus this year was EUR 1,400. I did not get a pay rise.
My point is not "woe is me" or "I have it so much worse than everyone else". Far from it. All I'm trying to say is that we are not all the millionaire thieves you think we are with the house in the Hamptons and the apartment overlooking central Park. We are suffering the same as most people these days and it is not nice at ll to be reading about how we are such bastards for working our guts out every day.
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