Chicago + Banking
I feel like I've aged a couple of years since I last blogged, even though it's been perhaps 6 months. This is due to two factors: 1) I've been working very long hours which is exhausting and I'm sure sped up my physical depreciation, and 2) As would be the case if I was a 30-year old writing this, all the features of my life are completely different from what they used to be.
I should forewarn the reader that at this moment, I am in sunny climate on vacation, vegging out in front of a computer and writing a blog entry. I have not experienced even one of these three things since half a year ago. Which means I am a little biased and I have a few things to get off my chest. And that is the purpose of this blog entry - to rant. Moderation, constructiveness, and thoughtfulness . . . I'll deal with those later.
You know, when I started this new job, I was excited. At last, I was heading in a direction I wanted to. Through serendipity that I felt resulted from my own ability and risk-taking, I landed in a place that would teach me the skills I needed and desired. The training period confirmed this reality. My eyes were opened to a whole new world. From the nitty gritty of modeling financial transactions to being exposed first hand to high level corporate meetings, I felt again the stimulation I once felt at college. It was the sensation of blossoming awareness, numerous "lightbulb" moments where I connected, things came together, jargon made sense, the world was offered on a plate. Like a sailor riding a good wind, I felt the rush of forward momentum. Even the first few months of real work were exciting. Everything was new, and I continued to learn and push myself in self-education. We won new deals, and I met new horizons in understanding products and transaction execution.
Somehow, things turned when I came to Chicago. Some of the reasons are perhaps not appropriate to elaborate on this blog, but most are. Perhaps it was that the tasks became a bit more mundane through repetition and curiosity lost its edge. Perhaps it was that I was the only analyst from my team in the Chicago office, and suddenly was bereft of the social bearings I used to have in New York with my team and the firm as well as a few good friends. Perhaps I continue to feel like a stranger in the midwest, working on accounts I not only don't know of but also, not having been from the midwest or gone to college there like my office peers, have no regional or emotional connection to (until recently, I didn't even know whether Missouri is east or south of Illinois). If I were working on California community colleges, for example, I would feel more connected, contextualized, and less in a vacuum. As an adolescent I played tennis at Cypress College, both my parents went to Cypress and graduated from there, I took a dance class at Fullerton College, I took a speech course at Mt. San Antonio College. All of these things give me a memory trail, a mental image, so that the client's name or at least the locale strikes some chord in me.
Then too, I personally found myself in a new city, which necessitates going through the procedures of making new friends and familiarizing myself with the city through exploration and adventures. Having done my NYC year, I was ready for this. What I underestimated was the importance of time in this familiarization process, and how my work hours would impact that time. Working 9am to 10pm every night and at least one weekend day a week, I go home and am too tired to do anything else, and spend the rest of my weekend doing laundry, working out, paying bills, etc. This means many of the creative activities I used to enjoy are now non-existent, or squeezed between workdays in a far too structured manner rather than lazily slid into during the expanse of relaxing weekends. I no longer know how to write journal entries that think beyond dissecting my immediate work. My explorations of the city are few and far in between, usually confined to a single bus ride between work and home. I skim the Wall Street Journal rather than novels or poems. And music, that exercise of deliberate creation and joy, has become background noise for work. Even now, when I am more settled into the job and would like to ease up to let air into other parts of my life, work continues to be unrelenting. It is nearly impossible to have interests and hobbies. This makes for a boring and kind of insanity-inducing life.
Of course, such is the nature of the job, and I knew this coming into it. But there are two things I really did not expect which hit me upside the head and make this adjustment more difficult. One is the factor which I cannot discuss here, but it suffices to say this factor regularly multiples my stress while making me feel that my work is not going anywhere. The other is how awful Chicago weather really is. Prior to accepting the job, I researched temperature differences in Boston and Chicago, which showed Boston's maximum monthly temperature over the winter months was about 5 degrees lower than in Chicago (on average over the past 30 years). OK, so it's five degrees colder, I can handle that. But suddenly, in February I found myself in -30 degrees weather. My WeatherBug issued wind chill warnings of "potential hypothermia and death". And the worst, worst part, is that there is no snow in Chicago. You get all the pain and none of the benefits.
Finally, recent developments in my family have made me strongly rethink my frolicking nature and come home asap. Because if you've never done it before, let me spoil the surprise by telling you that it's unproductive and distracting to spend your free moments worrying about family obligations while half the country away.
So in the midst of all these frustrations, it is easy to lose sight of all the good things I've gained from this job: the concrete analytical skills, the extremely informative market understanding, the ability to blend and operate in high corporate culture, and above all, the confidence that I can do what I set my mind to. In fact, I pretty much did forget all about all these things, until I went back and revisited some conversations I had with friends prior to starting the job.
Still, I'm not sure if I can last another Chicago winter. We'll see what spring and summer will bring. Perhaps, as happened in NYC, those will be my seasons.
I should forewarn the reader that at this moment, I am in sunny climate on vacation, vegging out in front of a computer and writing a blog entry. I have not experienced even one of these three things since half a year ago. Which means I am a little biased and I have a few things to get off my chest. And that is the purpose of this blog entry - to rant. Moderation, constructiveness, and thoughtfulness . . . I'll deal with those later.
You know, when I started this new job, I was excited. At last, I was heading in a direction I wanted to. Through serendipity that I felt resulted from my own ability and risk-taking, I landed in a place that would teach me the skills I needed and desired. The training period confirmed this reality. My eyes were opened to a whole new world. From the nitty gritty of modeling financial transactions to being exposed first hand to high level corporate meetings, I felt again the stimulation I once felt at college. It was the sensation of blossoming awareness, numerous "lightbulb" moments where I connected, things came together, jargon made sense, the world was offered on a plate. Like a sailor riding a good wind, I felt the rush of forward momentum. Even the first few months of real work were exciting. Everything was new, and I continued to learn and push myself in self-education. We won new deals, and I met new horizons in understanding products and transaction execution.
Somehow, things turned when I came to Chicago. Some of the reasons are perhaps not appropriate to elaborate on this blog, but most are. Perhaps it was that the tasks became a bit more mundane through repetition and curiosity lost its edge. Perhaps it was that I was the only analyst from my team in the Chicago office, and suddenly was bereft of the social bearings I used to have in New York with my team and the firm as well as a few good friends. Perhaps I continue to feel like a stranger in the midwest, working on accounts I not only don't know of but also, not having been from the midwest or gone to college there like my office peers, have no regional or emotional connection to (until recently, I didn't even know whether Missouri is east or south of Illinois). If I were working on California community colleges, for example, I would feel more connected, contextualized, and less in a vacuum. As an adolescent I played tennis at Cypress College, both my parents went to Cypress and graduated from there, I took a dance class at Fullerton College, I took a speech course at Mt. San Antonio College. All of these things give me a memory trail, a mental image, so that the client's name or at least the locale strikes some chord in me.
Then too, I personally found myself in a new city, which necessitates going through the procedures of making new friends and familiarizing myself with the city through exploration and adventures. Having done my NYC year, I was ready for this. What I underestimated was the importance of time in this familiarization process, and how my work hours would impact that time. Working 9am to 10pm every night and at least one weekend day a week, I go home and am too tired to do anything else, and spend the rest of my weekend doing laundry, working out, paying bills, etc. This means many of the creative activities I used to enjoy are now non-existent, or squeezed between workdays in a far too structured manner rather than lazily slid into during the expanse of relaxing weekends. I no longer know how to write journal entries that think beyond dissecting my immediate work. My explorations of the city are few and far in between, usually confined to a single bus ride between work and home. I skim the Wall Street Journal rather than novels or poems. And music, that exercise of deliberate creation and joy, has become background noise for work. Even now, when I am more settled into the job and would like to ease up to let air into other parts of my life, work continues to be unrelenting. It is nearly impossible to have interests and hobbies. This makes for a boring and kind of insanity-inducing life.
Of course, such is the nature of the job, and I knew this coming into it. But there are two things I really did not expect which hit me upside the head and make this adjustment more difficult. One is the factor which I cannot discuss here, but it suffices to say this factor regularly multiples my stress while making me feel that my work is not going anywhere. The other is how awful Chicago weather really is. Prior to accepting the job, I researched temperature differences in Boston and Chicago, which showed Boston's maximum monthly temperature over the winter months was about 5 degrees lower than in Chicago (on average over the past 30 years). OK, so it's five degrees colder, I can handle that. But suddenly, in February I found myself in -30 degrees weather. My WeatherBug issued wind chill warnings of "potential hypothermia and death". And the worst, worst part, is that there is no snow in Chicago. You get all the pain and none of the benefits.
Finally, recent developments in my family have made me strongly rethink my frolicking nature and come home asap. Because if you've never done it before, let me spoil the surprise by telling you that it's unproductive and distracting to spend your free moments worrying about family obligations while half the country away.
So in the midst of all these frustrations, it is easy to lose sight of all the good things I've gained from this job: the concrete analytical skills, the extremely informative market understanding, the ability to blend and operate in high corporate culture, and above all, the confidence that I can do what I set my mind to. In fact, I pretty much did forget all about all these things, until I went back and revisited some conversations I had with friends prior to starting the job.
Still, I'm not sure if I can last another Chicago winter. We'll see what spring and summer will bring. Perhaps, as happened in NYC, those will be my seasons.
posted by Quang Tran at 2:12 AM
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