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.