Fall From Grace....But the markets up!!!

Once I got my first follower than the blogs would continue and even if only one person reads it, hey, its better then none.

The fall from Grace…after my first blog you might have thought things have never gone right for me, well you’d be very wrong. Part of the reason why things are so hard to deal with now is because I used to be a winner; I never had any intention of getting into finance until I became a loser. The reason was, and I feel I really must accentuate this ‘an average individual can earn an above average salary in no other industry apart from financial services’. You can’t become a doctor, a lawyer, an architect or engineer without qualifications, but in the City, the gift of the gab and balls of steal will see you earn more than all of those qualified sorts, and despite all my begrudging of this place, you have to love it for that.

So…I went to a very good grammar school, I come from a particularly middle class background so slotted right in. Was never bullied, did my work to a decent standard, excelled in sports, won awards and had the respect of all my peers. In addition to all of that, I had a thick head of hair, a waist line that didn’t lead to being mistaken for livestock and a moderately attractive girlfriend. I never tried to get into Oxbridge or LSE but I did get into my university of choice which was something I was quite pleased with.

I don’t know when the exact turning point was, there were a number of things; it might have been the abuse of recreational drug taking, it could have been the foul living conditions, it might of even been when I got 20% in an economics exam because someone convinced me that a couple of ‘these’ wouldn’t effect me that badly tomorrow. When I really think though, it was the shock of being taken out of a comfort zone. When I started University I saw it as my time to really push on and make something of myself. Unfortunately I was hit back by the reality that, I wasn’t that great; in fact I wasn’t very good at all. I got a 2:1 and obtained what I needed, but I didn’t have the high level of ability to get onto the grad schemes or to get the top jobs, I was middle of the road, and so off I went cap in hand to the city, where I knew I could get a decent starting salary.

Growing up is a bitch which ever way you look at it. If you are brilliant then you will always question whether you will reach your true potential, and if you have always been told the opposite then you’re driven and determined to prove all those doubters wrong. If you’re neither then where do you slide into society, your not the inventor and your not the go getter. What are you? Where do you go? Well, judging from the vast amount of my colleagues, you go and work in an operations department at an investment bank, this is our little crevasse of the corporate world, the works not taxing or challenging, diligence is required but in small pockets and you are always easily forgettable.

MARKET RECOVERY

On a lighter note the markets are starting to recover, which in reality I couldn’t actually give a monkeys ass. It makes about the same amount of difference to my life as it would if tomorrow the government decided that Thursday is come to work without your trousers on day, although lovely 65 year old Mary who sits next to me could raise a few eyebrows, but that’s all she would raise.

In all seriousness market movement does affect the volume of work I do and it means we get appreciated even less, which is always nice. What the market moving should mean for a ‘young hot buck’ in the City such as myself (attach laughter) is job opportunities, but there’s a catch.

If you are a trader, salesman/broker, or analyst which are the main job functions that were being banded all over the news during the sub prime disaster, then an improving market means more money and potentially great job opportunities. The flow of cash is back and the gravy train is about to roll back into the square mile. This does make sense and I at no time will state resentment for these characters because they work hard and are good at what they do.

I have seen some of them in action and why would you give a job to me, when there are guys out there who are so good and so crafty that they could sell a lump of coal to an investor and explain what a great long term investment it is. This pitch is based on the one in a trillion chance that the coal could turn into a diamond and even if it did the process would be so long that the existence of man kind could well be over. But they do it and they are bloody good at it as well. These types get an exceptional amount of bad press, but if you shout at a barking dog to be quiet they will only bark louder.

So where are my job opportunities? This is the catch I was telling you all about. It is true client facing individuals get headhunted the whole time because they have assets, being clients which lead to more money. In my job and many of the others in ops, you learn how to use the bank wide systems and this is where the fun begins. With the exception of Bloomberg, Reuters and a few other gems, bank systems are bespoke and not generic and normally built internally or by some powerhouse such as IBM. So effectively my wider skills picked up at this job are about as useful as being able to weave (not a banking term, I mean actually weaving). My only other option is going to work in Manilla in a servicing office, which due to my dodgy stomach, inability to speak Pilipino and phobia of civil war; it is not really an option.

So that is the situation, once again I hope this instalment has been insightful for you and next month more detail of ‘The Dreaded First Job’. Hope you are well and enjoy…

What's it all About?

I welcome you the reader to what is a real life view of what it’s like to be working as a ‘City B*tch’. You may or may not have read Geraint Andersons book or blog City Boy where he speaks of how he became overwhelmed with City Life and stories of hedge fund managers, private jets, cocaine, Porsches, strip clubs and 7 figure bonuses.

Well, I am not going to dispel those stories as it all does exist in the city, but for the large majority of us we’re not City Boys but City B*tches. We shovel the coal in the engine room of the worlds largest organisations but don’t get paid overly well or receive thanks or notice. Instead we work long hours, get ignored, receive abuse and spend the majority of time counting down the hours to the end of the week as I’m doing right now.

Despite the name ‘City B*tch’ I am male but I feel the name sums up the derogatory view that the ‘City Boys’ look upon us with. In writing this Blog I hope to achieve three main goals;

1.To educate those of you who are maybe thinking about taking a job in 'The City', which isn’t client facing, highly analytical or generating money for the bank in some form, to not bother!

2.I want to make you feel good about yourselves. There is no hiding the fact that people’s successes often belittle others and an individual’s shortcomings will usually put a smile on someones face. Envy is unavoidable but it can always be remedied with a heavy distribution of pity. You can always turn to yourself and say "hey, things ain’t so bad; at least I’m not him" and in the lead role as ‘him’ is me.

3. If the concept of the City and financial services is foreign to you as it was once to me and unfortunately kind of still is, then I want to counteract the bad press that circulates the City. We’re not all money hungry, Ferrari driving, reckless playboys with no moral core, in fact that is the minority in the Square Mile.

So…now you know about the blog I should formally introduce myself. I am City B*tch, I work for a large Multinational Investment Bank for their wholesale division within the Operations team. For anyone reading this who also works in operations in a big bank will know it is the most boring, tedious and unrewarding job that anyone could do. I’ve heard it referred to before as ‘elaborate admin’ and that definition isn’t far off if you minus the elaborate and replace it with Awful.

I’ve been doing it for a few years now after graduating from University and am now working for my second bank, which would lead some old fat pin stripe wearing toff, to make the comment, ‘what are you moaning about boy? You’re barely wet behind the ears’. This is the sort of comment that would really rub me up the wrong way. In my line of work boredom and frustration are defined by ones capacity to cope with the task that they have been assigned, for some people it’s 40 years for me it was about 6 hours and I’ve been gritting my teeth ever since.

I’m in my mid 20’s still live at home, haven’t paid off my student loan, don’t have a girlfriend, drive a banged up car, I have a receding hairline and a slightly swelled belly and based on my smoking habit, the amount I eat and drink probably a couple of decades away from some major heart problems, but hey if you can’t do it when your young when can you.

I don’t want this to come across as a big moan because amongst all the trials and tribulations of what I’ll tell you about over the forthcoming months, there are things which are good in it all. There are lessons to be learnt and some great characters. The intention is to write the blogs with the past and present so I’ll keep you in the loop of my day to day goings on. Nothing left to say apart from enjoy reading the life of the City B*tch.