Q&A: follow up to the changing jobs post

Hello again everyone. As soon as I wrote my last post about changing jobs at 45, I was already expecting a backlash from my haters. I am glad I got their attention - many gloated that I lost my last job but they conveniently ignored the fact that I have already found a new one. Perhaps part of the reason why people reacted is because I wasn't particularly clear about some of the circumstances that happened. So today, I shall clarify some issues here for what it is worth and hopefully, it will also help my readers prepare themselves for such a situation in the future if they ever find themselves having to change jobs later in their careers. I am also going to address the issue of how some older people have a really terrible attitude and they could be their own worst enemies. So stop worrying about others and start looking in the mirror! 

Q: Was there anything that you could have done to avoid getting pushed out of your old job? 

A: Hindsight is 2020 of course - my feeling on reflection is that the writing was on the wall and it was a question of when before I was pushed out. I hate to blame the pandemic but it was actually one of the most crucial factors: I was especially good at face to face meetings, I thrived at events where I could work the room and speak to many new people. Of course, none of that was possible during a pandemic - events, conferences and symposiums were cancelled or postponed indefinitely. Even when my former colleagues were visiting a city like Geneva, the people I contacted there adamantly refused to meet in person because of social distancing rules, suggesting that I arranged a conference call via Zoom instead. Given that the pandemic has prevented me from doing what I was hired to do, what I excelled at - well, it was hardly surprising that the company found it hard to justify keeping me on under such circumstances. The last straw that broke the camel's back was a relatively minor dispute that was blown out of proportion - even if I had someone avoided that dispute, I recognize that it would have been just a matter of time before something else came along that would have led to the very same outcome - I accept that the outcome would have been inevitable, regardless what I did. 

Q: Did you see this coming? Did it take you by surprise? 

A: If I may be honest, I should have been a lot more aware - allow me to give you an analogy. When I got Covid earlier this year, it shouldn't have come as a surprise as the UK was really struggling at that point with extremely high infection rates. But there was a part of me that was in denial - I thought that I was being very careful, I wore my mask in public, I am in very good health and I also pursued a theory that I probably already had it without even noticing it as it was so mild. But when I finally did get infected, I got quite sick for a week. In hindsight, of course getting infected almost seemed inevitable given what was happening in the UK then but somehow, I still allowed the situation to take me by surprise. By the same token, yeah now in hindsight, I can of course see that what happened was probably inevitable, that it was a question of when rather than if - but it is so easy to tell yourself, "yeah I'll be fine, they like me, I'm so good at my job" whilst conveniently shoving any evidence to the contrary into a massive blind spot. But at least now, I can look back at what happened and be honest with myself (and with my readers) as to how this all happened. This was a process that happened a few years ago when they closed down the London office and gave them a choice: accept this severance package or you can move to Tallinn to continue doing your job. My former London based colleagues all accepted their offer of redundancy and have all since moved onto greener pastures. I do miss the old days when I got along with everyone in the London office really well, but those days are gone - things have changed so much since 2016 and 2017. 

Q: Any regrets about leaving your previous company? 

A: No. There's no point in 'regretting' anything since they were the ones who pushed me out - I didn't play a part in that decision. In the time I was there, I had seen the company hire so many high flying directors who had parachuted in from very high profile investment banks on very high salaries - do I have such an impressive CV? No. So I could never count on being promoted when the CEO favoured people who were already working in a high profile investment bank - the rationale was that these people were extremely well connected in the investment banking world, so they could simply open their phones and persuades their mates to do business with the company. Of course, it is never that straight forwarded. I have seen such people fail, when they were "John from UBS" or "James from JP Morgan", people would clear their diaries and make time for them because they were from UBS or JP Morgan. But once they no longer had that prestige that came with their employer's high status in the industry, they often floundered in a much smaller company. No, it takes a different kind of mindset to thrive in a small to medium sized company, where you have to constantly prove yourself rather than just assume that people are going to do business with you because they are so familiar with your brand name. I don't want to question my ex-CEO's judgment by hiring people with such impressive CVs, but if that's the kind of people he wants in his team, then we have to all agree that I am no longer a good fit with the team he is trying to create and given my cynicism about such high profile candidates from much bigger banks, then let me be the first to say that I'm better off seeking greener pastures elsewhere. So I took the path of least resistance by leaving without any fuss. 

Q: "I can't believe you didn't even try to look for a new job, you're potentially missing out."

A: Yes, totally 100% guilty as charged. I had three job offers on the table already and I am only capable of doing one job at a time, I can't possibly accept two jobs from two different companies at the same time. All of these job offers came from people within the same industry - when you're a specialist like me, you would look for a job in a very specific part of the industry. I am not looking to retrain to become a graphic designer or dentist at the ripe old age of 45. I am looking for a role where my years of experience with fixed income distribution can be put to good use. Take 'Elena's boss' for example, one of the three CEOs who offered me a job, him and I have over 500 mutual connections on Linkedin because we are in the same industry and have dealt with a lot of the same people over the years. So really, it's not like there are that many companies within London that I can apply to as I am looking for something very specific and unsurprisingly enough, three companies who were directly relevant to my area of expertise were the ones who stepped forward to offer me a job. They weren't asking me to do something that was radically different from what I used to do, but it was similar enough that they knew I would be a safe bet. It is a double-edged sword of course: when you're older and more experienced within a certain niche area, then it can make you very attractive to a certain kind of company but if none of them are currently hiring then you will be faced with a massive pay cut to do a job you are so massively overqualified for. 

Q: What about the acting, are you giving that up for good now? 

A: Well if I may be totally honest, the acting career has been going nowhere for a while now and even if I do get a part, it would be for a few days filming here and there - I'm unlikely to get a big part in a long running TV programme that would keep me employed for many months. Everyone needs a hobby outside work and that's just the way I see it - so if I do get a part then I'll just take some time off and do it. It's no big deal, there's a lot more flexibility in this industry than you think. 

Q: Aren't you afraid of offending the other party (ie. 'Elena's boss') by turning down his offer? 

A: No, he is a very nice guy and understands that I can only accept one job offer at a time. I would have been in the exact same position if I had accepted his offer and then I would have to turn the other two companies down - when dealing with a candidate that is in hot demand, then this is the expected outcome and such CEOs do not take such 'rejection' personally. I told him that I was extremely flattered by his kind offer to join his team but I felt I could make a greater contribution and impact in a smaller, younger company - he was totally understanding and respected my decision. I would compare this to dating: imagine if a guy asked a pretty girl out on a date and she said no, some guys would just respect her decision and move on whilst others will take that kind of rejection very personally. I would point out that in this scenario, if someone takes rejection very personally and gets angry, then they are the one with the problem whilst any reasonable person would then just accept this rejection gallantly, whilst respecting the other party's decision. 

Q: Why do you think some older people end up as 'angry taxi drivers' then? 

A: A lot of that has got to do with their mindset at work and this is something which starts all the way back at one's upbringing. Allow me to share with you an incident that happened during one of my tutorials with my nephew - here's how his A level exams work. He would be given an 'extract' - this would be a multi-part report on a theme and he would be then asked questions based on the extract. Some of these questions would be pretty straightforward and whilst others are a lot more difficult, requiring him to think outside he box. So one of these extracts presented a series of policies that the Singaporean government has used to tackle structural unemployment and for 8 marks, the question required my nephew to analyze whether or not these policies are going to be effective. So when I talked about the paradox of a government undertaking an ineffective policy to make them look good with the voters, my nephew disputed that, "this is about politics, this is not in the syllabus." And I was like, tough shit, this is exactly the kind of questions you're going to be asked in an A level exam, no one ever promised you it was going to be easy - you're not going to find the answers in your textbook, your teacher isn't going to ever mention anything about this in class but you're simply expected to work out the answers in your head by employing some critical thinking in analyzing the extract you have been presented. This bothered me more than him not knowing the answer - it was his mindset to constantly find excuses for not being able to answer the question that made me think, "oh he's going to struggle in the working world if that is his attitude whenever he encounters a problem like that." You see, I'm not just teaching him economics - I'm also helping him with his social skills. 

Q: Are you saying it's simply an issue of having an attitude problem?

A: Some people have a bad attitude when it comes to being asked to do something above and beyond what is being required of them. I could just see my nephew roll his eyes when the answer took on a political dimension, he was probably thinking that he was always struggling with economics and now he expected to learn about politics as well?  I would have hoped that my nephew would have had a more positive attitude towards learning about politics with his uncle, but clearly, he doesn't. I did give my nephew a stern talking to about his attitude but I'm disappointed that the problem exists in the first place and I'm left wondering how the hell am I going to try to fix it. People with attitude problems tend to be the first to fall prey to scams when they get offered a chance to "get rich quick" without putting in much effort or hard work, but of course, these scammers will lure you into believing that all you have to do is invest your money and you will never have to work again in your life. There's a fascinating story on the BBC at the moment about this scammer called Gurvin Singh who managed to dupe thousands of people into handing over millions to him. On one hand, I roll my eyes and thought, are you seriously dumb enough to hand over your life savings to a stranger who has promised to make you rich? Like, for real? But then again, these people are already looking for short cuts in life, they are easy prey for the scammers. When I told my nephew that I had graded his paper and I gave him a score of 21/45 (46.7%), he said that's still a pass but I said that's just not good enough. You should be aiming to score a lot better than that and there's a lot more hard work that needs to be done. This is why I am really struggling with my nephew's attitude. 

Q: Is it just social skills? Or emotional maturity when it comes to dealing with an unfair world?

A: We're dealing with a complex and unfair world here: allow me to tell you about this really rich guy,  let's call him Richard, or Rich for short (obviously not his real name). Rich has such fabulously wealthy parents and he didn't take his education seriously. He ended up at Brighton University - one of the worst universities in the UK after failing his A levels but no worries - his daddy simply made a few phone calls and then Rich managed to get a job with a prestigious investment bank after his graduation because daddy had called in a few favours. Yup, this world is ridiculously unfair - how do you react to the fact that corruption and nepotism is rife out there? Well, allow me to give you one story from my army days: let's call this guy Goh (not his real name), he was unhappy with the fact that he had to give up 2 years 6 months of his youth to serve national service and his way of 'getting back' at the system was to do as little as possible, he would always try to get away with doing the bear minimum. This often meant that when we worked as a group, he would make the smallest contribution and that would always annoy the others he had to work with. Goh wasn't getting back at the system per se, because the people who had to pick up the slack when he refused to contribute were the very people he had to work with. Now imagine if Goh had to go work for someone like Rich - how is Goh going to react to the injustice of that kind of situation? Well, he is going to try to do as little as possible in a desperate bid to level the playing field and create some kind of artificial advantage for himself as he is not as privileged as Rich but that kind of attitude would simply make him most likely to be the kind of person who would be retrenched at 45 and end up driving a taxi for the rest of his life. Thus it is so important to have the right kind of attitude, when facing our challenges in an unfair world. 

Q: You just couldn't resist attacking your father in that last post, could you? And now you're even complaining about your nephew - why are you really harsh on your own family members? 

A: Sorry if I sound like a broken record, but I just had to get my frustration off my chest. Here's the thing about my family members: my father and nephew are by no means the most annoying people with bad attitudes I have come across. Oh let me assure you I have met far worse people than them, but when I meet someone like that, I simply shrug my shoulders and decide to exclude them from my life. There is this guy at my gym who once gave me attitude - I was trying to help another gymnast and he told me I didn't know how to teach properly. And I thought, I'm the former national champion gymnast and a qualified coach - who the hell are you to lecture me about gymnastics? He wasn't even a good gymnast. Did I lash out at him and get into a big argument? No, I simply gave him the cold shoulder. I don't acknowledge his presence, I would walk past him in the gym and stare blankly ahead without making eye contact. With someone like that, it's so easy to cut them out of my life and pretend they don't exist at all. But I can't do that with my own family members, no, not my father and nephew - I have to find a way to get along with my father in spite of all his faults and it's even more challenging with my nephew because I am not only trying to get along with him, I'm also trying to help him. It's not just his A level exams I am trying to assist him with, but also that whole aspect of improving his social skills so he will find going through life easier. Part of the reason why I am frustrated with my nephew is because I can see how much work needs to be done to get him from where he is today to where he needs to be not just for his exams but also to face the adult world in the army when he enlists in less than a year. There is much to do in so little time, hence my frustration. 

Q: Okay, so what is the point of your last post then? Are you just boasting that you're capable of finding another great job very quickly because you're so fucking brilliant? 

A: I am sorry if that's the impression I gave - this has nothing to do with boasting, but I wanted to address the elephant in the room and this is more about fighting ageism. There is the impression that once you get to a certain age like 45, then you're too old to do anything new: forget about trying to find a new job, no one will want to hire someone as old as you. On top of that, people will also assume you're too old to do sports, you'll be capable of no more than a gentle yoga class for the elderly. Oh, there's also the assumption that you're too old for love and sex - that you're no longer attractive to anyone at that age because you're so ugly, fat and old; that the only kind of relationships you can get into are the freaky kind of Donald and Melania Trump type relationship where clearly, Melania is after money and security whilst being absolutely physically repulsed by Donald's physical appearance. Older people face so much ageism, people assume the worst of us but there's no smoke without fire! I have seen older people literally just give up on themselves in so many ways: they lose any kind of ambition when it comes to their work. Typically we're talking about adults in poorly paid jobs who have failed to achieve much after struggling for like 20, 25 years doing the same crap over and over again - they simply lack the motivation to keep trying. I also see adults that have given up on their bodies in their 40s - they give up trying to stay fit, they give in to the temptation to eat too much, maybe they drink too much alcohol as well and become very fat. Perhaps they are already married so they feel they simply don't have an incentive or reason to try to keep fit or look attractive anymore so they let themselves go and they start to decay: this slow rot decades before they actually die. 

We should look at the big picture and not focus on one tiny aspect of an individual's life - if you have simply lost the motivation to keep trying to improve yourself in one area of your life, then that sense of malaise would infect other aspects of your life. You can call this a bad attitude or attitude problem, but it's actually pretty widespread amongst adults my age. The problem is that we are quite quick to reprimand children and young people with 'bad attitudes' but people tend to leave older adults with attitude problems alone because we're simply less willing to reprimand someone who is 45 compared to say, someone who is 15. I suppose this is because we feel that we can still teach and help younger people when they have a bad attitude as they are still young enough to learn and change but with older people who have a terrible attitude, we just throw our hands up in the air and give up on them. Hence the positive message that I wanted to send out is that life doesn't necessarily get harder when you're older - the tide doesn't turn against you just because you're 45 years old: so much of your fate is in your own hands and much of that depends ultimately on your attitude when it comes to dealing with new challenges. If you're an older person, take yourself out of your comfort zone: go learn a new sport, a musical instrument or a foreign language to make sure you always have the right attitude to adapt to the modern world. I hate to kick a man who is already down but when you see these 45 year old angry taxi drivers who used to have decent jobs - well, you need to dig a bit deeper and try to find out if they're completely innocent or if they are at least in part responsible for the dire situation they are in. Hence this means that you're in total control of your fate, you can control your destiny because the only person responsible for your attitude is yourself - take control of your life today. 

Q: That's nice in principle but many of us don't have the time to go try a new sport or learn a new language!

A: Allow me to respond with a story from my childhood. My mother had always had a dream about being able to play the piano - it was her fantasy. So what did she do when she was rich enough to buy a piano? She made her three children learn how to play it - my two sisters went along with it because they're too passive to argue with my mother but I hated every moment of it. My mother dismissed me as an ungrateful devil child - she was giving me an opportunity she never had and instead of being thankful, I was complaining that I didn't like it. I was a sports jock, I enjoyed gymnastics and had zero interest in learning the piano - it simply wasn't my thing. My mother's justification was that she felt she was just way too old by then to learn a musical instrument as an adult,  she had thought that only children could pick up a new skill like that with relative ease and it was impossible for adults to learn like that. She didn't even try - she gave up before she tried. My sister did tell me that years later, after my mother retired and had plenty of time on her hands, my sister did try to teach her how to play the piano but oh dear, my mother was the worst student in the world because of her terrible attitude. She kept saying, "I'm too old, I can't do this, there is too much to remember, this is too difficult." She was so negative and pessimistic she could barely bring herself to even touch the keys on the piano. My sister tried her best to be as patient and encouraging as possible - but even she found it impossible to overcome my mother's defeatist attitude, as my mother had already decided that she was just too old to learn and hence even trying to learn anything was pointless. 

Was my mother too busy to take piano lessons when she first bought the piano for her children? Perhaps - she was holding down a full time job whilst bringing up three children. But therein lies the problem: my mother felt she had valid excuses for failing to learn how to play the piano. First she had no money when she was a child, then she had no time when she started working and when she retired, she was too old to learn. All those excuses stood in the way of her achieving her ultimate fantasy: to be able to sit down at the piano and play a piece of music. That will never happen because of her poor attitude to learning. However valid her excuses may be, she is still staring at the piano in her living room everyday, longing and wishing she had the ability to play a beautiful piece of music on it. Would she have ever become a great concert pianist? Of course not. But could she have at least learnt a little, enough to enjoy herself playing the piano in her own living room (especially during the pandemic) if she had a better attitude? Yes she could have, but she is a prime example of an older person who has an attitude problem. This is why I am harsh with my nephew whenever he tries to use an excuse but I can see exactly where that attitude is coming from, his grandparents have been setting an awful example for him. My new boss has a total of four children but he is intent on setting a great example for his children when it comes to learning - he has some of the most innovative trading strategies in the business and it is a privilege to work for a man like that. Being older or having children doesn't mean you have a valid excuse to simply give up on improving yourself - this is why it is very important to hold older people to account when they have a bad attitude. 

Q: Okay so what is your message to older people worried about losing their jobs? 

A: Allow me to use Covid as an analogy to make my point. I had Covid earlier this year and I recovered, it was nasty, I was sick for a week and the symptoms were most unpleasant. However, the key reason why I managed to recover relatively quickly was because I had always taken good care of my health and I am not overweight. This enabled my body to fight off Covid because I was strong and fit - I was prepared for Covid. In sharp contrast, those who are overweight and unfit tended to suffer a much more serious bout of Covid, often requiring medical treatment, oxygen and hospitalization. Because I am strong and fit, I was able to cope with the challenges of recovering from Covid - by the same token, because I had invested in my career and have a good attitude at work, it has allowed me to find a new job very quickly and avoid a long period of unemployment. Most people who lose their jobs experience a lot of stress whilst trying to find a new job whilst the only stress I had was to try to make the right choice amongst the job offers I had already received. You reap what you sow - the Covid-pandemic has taught us the importance of making sure we take good care of our bodies and for crying out aloud, I have to be totally un-PC by saying this: if you're fat, then go on a diet at once since you know that can make the difference between living and dying from Covid. We can actually control so many factors that determine how we weather a crisis: be it surviving Covid or losing your job. Some older people do need a reminder to have a great attitude and always invest in their futures. Remember - your future and fate are in your hands.

Okay, I could go on but I think I shall stop here as I really want to make sure I get this post out before I go to Northern Portugal at the end of the week. I'm kinda nervous about this trip - as much as I am desperate to travel again, France and Germany has already closed their borders to the UK because of a small rise in cases here due to the Indian variant and there's a sense of "let's quickly get this trip done whilst we're still allowed to, who knows what may happen in a week or two." Please let me know what you think and leave a comment below. Many thanks for reading and your kind support.