Problem - ‘I’m just too good to be successful’

I always smile when I see this as self-analysis.  So when a similar quote was featured on the front page of the FT today, I could not help myself and immediately turned to page 16.

Lucy Kellaway deals with a question about an unhappy person who sees ’selfish people with no backbone’ advance faster on the career ladder. As they feel ‘no guilt about their actions’ they are happier and more successful.  There is also the implication that those suited to professional life feel no guilt, are selfish and lack a backbone.  Hmmmm, I definitely have a backbone.

Lucy is fantastically diplomatic, she asks the question if this unhappy person colleagues are stealing money.  If not, she replies, ‘if they are simply more motivated by self-advancement than by bettering the lot of all mankind, then I’m surprised it has taken you 20 years to work this out. To succeed in the City – or in any business – one needs to want to succeed desperately. And that generally means being more self-regarding than, say, Mother Teresa.’ 

She also states ‘I don’t accept that everyone who does well in the City is particularly horrid’  I agree with this.  Financial Services is competitive but generally an honest professional.  In my years of working, I have not yet met someone who wants to rip off customers/shareholders/colleagues.  When mistakes do happen, swift action is taken to remedy it.  Faster action than you see in many other industries and professions.  And the industry is honest about mistakes and takes steps to remedy them.  How often do you hear Unions talk about the competence of their staff ‘not being good enough’?

Finally she states - ‘Perhaps all you are really saying is that you despise your colleagues or that you are sick of banking. In that case you have reached the end and must go’  Hurrah

I never understand someone who sticks at a job they hate and then continually moan about it.  It is an effective but unpleasant way of sharing the pain.  There are lots of people who want to work in Banking, let them have the job and be happy.

Aiming for moderate success

Back at Warwick again - this time it is business modelling and analysis.  My experience of business modellers is that they all have a PhD and think in a way I am not capable of.

So far, course is interesting but still need to do my homework on regression analysis…

Luke many others, I am reading a paper rather than getting stuck into my homework - how I ‘laughed’ at this articlein the FT  It appears that sportiness is more important than academic prowess.  Perhaps Mr Tosh is doing me a favour when football is continually on the tv - helping me to get my college degree in soccer.

Seriously though, it does suggest that emotional intelligence is more important than brain power alone.

Do you think that will act as a good enough excuse not to run my regression testing on manufacturing data??

To buy or not to buy

I am suffering from a personal dilemma.  While doing some research I stumbled across Christopher Flett and his book ‘What Men Don’t Tell Women About Business: Opening Up the Heavily Guarded Alpha Male Playbook’

The book description and the profile of the author, (a man who gives 40-60 speeches a year to women on corporate life), makes me think that the book will be a pile of condescending nonsense.  Spending the main chunk of my time in corporate life as opposed to the little time I spend in academia I know how different the cultures are.  I am also put off by professional speech givers unless they are of the after-dinner type.  As a rule they are bores.

If this was book written by Nicola Horlick, I would have already bought it.  However the credentials of a male Canadian professional talker and academic isn’t quite so appealling.

So do I

1. Buy the book and challenge my preconceptions

2. Not buy the book in the belief that life is too short and there are lots of good books that I know I would enjoy

Job envy

Mr Tosh accused me of job envy this morning and I think he may be right…

I have decided that my calling in life should have been one of an architect, specifically working with Sir Norman Foster.  I want to be able to say ”I don’t know how I can go back to designing office blocks for grumpy humans after this,”  after John Jennings has designed a new elephant enclosure which has made a family of elephants happy.  What a great and fulfilling job.  All Mr Tosh and I get to do is to pander to the needs of an already pandered miniature panther

If I can’t have that job, then I will satisfy myself by watching the new series of Top Gear.  Like Joe Moran, Mr Tosh and I really enjoy Top Gear for the quality of journalism as opposed to finding out about horse break power.  After laughing at his piece, I wondered reading the readers comments if they had all lost their sense of humour?

Sad to see GNER go

Leeds is a city I have worked in over a number of years and I was sad to see GNER lose the rail franchise to National Express.  Let me share my experience of National Express tonight:

1. First rush hour train cancelled

2. Second rush hour train delayed by 30 minutes. - Scramble to get on the train when it arrived

3. Veggie sandwhiches not available on train

4.  No water in toilet or in the washhand basin.  How filthy not to be able to wash your hands after using the bathroom

5. Buffet carriage now closed so cannot even buy water to wash hands.

All for £206. 

Telling it how it really is

Mr Tosh and I laughed at the new Fly BMI advert tonight.

Business travel is seen as a desirable aspect of a job until you have to do it.  Working in a corporate environment, you pitch up in the business area of a city, you work long hours so you can get home a day early and then you go home. 

The ad sums up our working away from home.  Sad but true.

How to lose $30 billion

Following on from yesterday’s post on how money can deal with some of the issues we face today, I was comparing the numbers highlighed by the Copenhagen Consensus against an summary table of bank write offs.  For example, you could save 500,000 lives by spending $1billion on malaria treatment and prevention, in comparison to the $382 billion that the banks have written off since Jan ‘07.  Even the Asian banks write off at $2.8 billion could have saved so many lives.

I think to restore my faith, I may need to do some research on charitable donations by the banks.  Watch this space.

How I would spend $30 billion

Interesting piece in today’s Times on the Copenhagen Consensus.

It raises the question of how you could spend $30 in dealing with some of the world’s issues, with options provided including tackling malaria, tuberculosis and HIV, or funding nutrition in developing countries or even dealing with climate change.

Ten topics have been chosen and the Times have designed an interactive page to allow you to add your own views. Here is my ranking

After recent news headlines, may have changed number 10 to ‘dealing with teenage violence’

You just can’t get good staff (or grandchildren) anymore

While catching up on my reading, I gasped when I read this copy of the Ombudsman News.

The first case is the type of scenario at work that leaves me asking the question ‘why?’  A bank employee changes a customer’s name and lists his occupation as ‘professional shoplifter’  You can only imagine what the name was changed to… While you may feel an initial sense of pleasure of mocking someone while changing their name and occupation, it is only a matter of time before it catches up with you - is it worth it?

The second case always makes me sad and I know that I can never work in complaint handling full time as I would pay out on cases like this.  A grandson (who has now gone to jail) stole his gran’s cashline card and pin number.  He had found the well-hidden card during a number of visits to house and stole the card just after she had suffered a stroke and while the family were waiting for the ambulance to arrive.  He took the money while she was in hospital.  The bank said she had acted negligently.  It is difficult to defend this, the grandson is jailed for theft but the bank blames a stroke-affected pensioner. 

People behave in a funny way.

Booking a holiday

Mr Tosh is away in the US at the moment.  While he is away, we have agreed that I can book a holiday for us.

Well, the Guardian today decided it for me.  Motivated by this, we are off to Tokyo.

I sooo want one.