K* is growing up

It's been nearly two weeks since I received my official notice of redundancy.


A lot has happened since and now I'm faced with some difficult decisions over my future. I really don't know what to do and I'm scared of making the wrong choices. Different people are offering conflicting advice which doesn't help.


The problem is I don't know what I want to do long term or where I want to be in say 5 or 10 years time. I guess this is part of growing up - having to make difficult choices. All the decisions I made in the past, be it university, jobs, relationships...now seem so insignificant in comparison.


Should I base my decisions on loyalty? self interest? the interest of loved ones?

The price of a long distance

The cost of a long distance relationship is not the burden of physical separation, the unquestionable trust placed in your partner or the impact on your health of getting up at 5am to make that Skype call. It is exactly £3,421.99, i.e. more than my post tax salary or my bonus. Omg, you've got to be kidding me - there must be a mistake on the website. Checked again, no there isn't...sigh.

On the plus side, my redundancy should just about cover it and I don't have to worry about getting holidays approved any more.

Oops I did it again!

This post is not some rehash of Britney or anything to do with a video of me singing one of her song. It is a serious post.


Last week, another joke backfired (again) in the office - again being a second time since working at this depressing organisation.


The intended response of a joke is laughter, but when the actual response is anger, embarrassment and loss of trust, then the joke has gone badly wrong.


Last time the victim was Mr A and this time it was LV, another close colleague. I thought responding to LV's email of a picture of a cute bunny with a photograph from her driving license and the words "Look at this cute picture" would be funny - it was not. It was bad judgement on my part and gross misuse of our personnel information which the secretary carelessly left unlocked after leaving a few weeks ago.
LV - I am sincerely sorry and promise it won't happen again.


I don't know what has happened to me lately but my EQ seems to have gone down. I have become numb to most news and my mind has drifted aimlessly through the first few months of 2012. Maybe that's what banking does to people?

Lament

They grey clouds in the dull sky
Are about to cry
The bitter air
Must be sensing our sadness

The distance drawing us apart
A scene of a heartbreaking ending

The yellowed diary in the drawer
Containing our happy memories
The first time we met
Our first kiss
Our past
I want to let you know
Time has not faded their meaning

We made promises
Did they become empty with time?
No
But we were too busy with our lives
I know it is not your fault
And that it is not mine
Circumstance
We must live the cards that life has dealt us
Our time together will continue in memory

Excuses for being late

An entry in collaboration with Lil ViVi

Time to lighten the gloomy mood.

This entry is in collaboration with a colleague, teen blogger now turned Britamericanese banker, the one and only "Lil ViVi". I would include a link to her blog, but she probably wouldn't approve and she would stab me in the eye.

With the bank closing down the M&A department and workload dying down to all but nil, it is understandable that people are now coming into the office later and leaving earlier. The douche who sits opposite me is taking this to an extreme, regularly coming in at around noon and leaving by 5pm. If people come in late, the usual excuses are not feeling well, or public transport broke down. But this guy has what I assume is a list of brilliant excuses from which he picks one at a random each time he is late - although it's at the point now where he doesn't bother with an excuse anymore as we all know that he slept in.

The best ones I have heard from him in order of most humourous to least are:

• I had no electricity this morning because I forgot to put credit in the meter
• The shower curtain was broken so I couldn't get ready
• I had to come in early yesterday and had set my alarm really early, and I forgot to reset my alarm for my normal time today
• I'm still on Canadian time (the guy is from T dot)
• Both my phones ran out of power so my alarms didn't go off

...and of course the classics

• I'm feeling ill (probably because he had KFC the night before)
• The train I was on stopped at Oxford Circus for 10 minutes (likely true)

Last Wednesday, he didn't come in at all, so I asked him what his plan was for the day...some laundry (as he didn't do it last weekend) and then PS3. I don't remember him giving an excuse on this occasion, but I assume it would have been "I have no clean clothes today" hence the priority of laundry on his day off!

 

Ones I'm still waiting to hear are:

• I couldn't find my contacts and stepped on my only pair of glasses as I got out of bed (-6.5 / -7 hehehe we know)
• My house had no water
• There was a mouse in my bedroom and I couldn't sleep
• I set my alarm too late
• I went to see the doctor
• My laptop caught fire
• My dog ate my pitchbook

As I review what I've typed, I realise I don't know what the real meaning of the word douche is. Wikipedia gives an explanation and it ain't pretty! btw, this guy is pretty cool and not a douche, but Lil ViVi and I just like to poke fun at him for our own amusement - it's a two way thing of course and sometimes we are the ones at the other end of his jokes.

Coffee Tea - HK style

Chinatown, NYC, 29 Dec 2011

Why can't I find coffee-tea or silk tea near Liverpool Street? I think Starbucks should start making it.

Let there be cake!

taken at Grand Lux Cafe - 2 January 2012

I love cake despite knowing how bad it is for me. But it's ok if I go to the gym the next day (ahem....make that next week) right? Cake combines art and food. How can one not look at cake and then not think "I want to try some; it is so beautifully delicious, I must have it."


Last weekend, I got gf some red velvet, brownie cheesecake and devil chocolate cake. She loved me for it :)


Despite all the wonderful cakes out there, I have to say after cake tasting so many years, my favourite is still black forest gateau, just like mint choc chip will always be my favourite ice cream.

The working world

http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumblarge_236/12027469100MZmM1.jpg

As individuals, we dedicate substantial time preparing (or being prepared) for the world of work. For me, I started school at age two and it wasn't just colouring in, it was proper school with maths problems and writing practise for homework. By primary school, I had already decided that I wanted to work in an office when I grew up. I would go home in the evenings, have my toy typewriter and phone in front of me and a pile of paper at the side (after finishing homework and music lessons of course).


In high school, "captains of industry" would come in and give long talks about how great their company was and then we would end up spending a week doing work experience at one of these companies, probably putting files in their cabinets in alphabetical order or some other simplistic work because your intelligence was supposedly insufficient. I had such an experience, although the people at the companies I did work experience with were on the whole nice people.

"Milkround"

At university, the need to think about future plans suddenly becomes a priority. I realised I had to do something after graduating and do something useful with my life. I thought about the family I would raise with my girlfriend (we naively thought we would stay together forever), where we would move to, settle down, what jobs we would have and that we would have one son and one daughter. As Katy Perry sang, "we talked about the future like we had a clue". So I decided I would need a relatively well paid job, but I wouldn't mind working hard and that's how I ended up in banking after going to the milkrounds and doing a banking internship.




The internship is a taste of life in the City, but just a taste. It's a time when as a student, £600 a week seems a lot of money, you make a lot of new friends and even if you make mistakes at work (but not too many), the analyst who delegated to you took responsibility.


I think it is the first proper day at work when one fully enters the adult world. You are never fully prepared for it, you never know what to expect, but everything works out. All the worries I had switching from student mode to work mode vanished within a few hours.


It soon dawns that the adult world isn't just about working, although I probably spend at least 70% of my time in the office. What about living, bills, the rent without the financial support of my parents? Job security? Getting friends together for lunches and dinners becomes a 3 day exercise in itself when at university you could just drop everyone a text and as fast as Clark Kent could change into Superman, everyone would be at G&Ds (those who went to Oxford will know) around the corner.


The working world is an exciting place to be, but stressful and especially in banking, it severely eats into your personal life. I've considered career changes, but don't know what? Maybe I'll try for that TV show again?

The City

 

I was born in one, grew up mostly in one and now live in one.

As I sit in the taxi on the way home and the street lights pass me by, I look out the car window thinking about the city. I could be referring to London, New York, Hong Kong...it could be any city in the world.

The first image that my mind conjures up is of a grey winter morning and people holding Starbucks to keep warm as they head to the office. What else springs to mind? The silence of passengers on the morning train drowned out by the noise of the engine and the tapping on Blackberrys. The cheers of friends gathering for dinner and drinks after work.

As individuals, we are but ants in a city. Insignificant, unimportant. The city is impersonal - millions of people walk past each other every day with no effort made to smile or saying hello; it is as if everyone is surrounded by an invisible wall.

As another friend goes back home next week and leaves London for good, the excitement and pleasures that a city should bring does make up for the loss of friend.

I wonder how many people feel the same way? Surrounded by millions, but a lonely place to live if it weren't for a few close friendships. As I start to think about whether living in a town would be much better, the taxi is pulling up to my house.

But the Shire where the hobbits are from seems a nice place to live, so I wonder whether towns are like that?