Looking into the minds of my trolls

Oooh guys, I knew I was being provocative in my recent post 'Corporate death by a thousand paper cuts' but I seem to have really offended quite a few Singaporeans with it - they have found my Instagram account and have sent me hate mail there. Like hello, I shout about my Instagram all the time on my blog, I'm a total social media whore, I want people to look at my Instagram but I would really prefer if people sent me hate mail here - then at least I can turn it into a discussion with my haters in the comments section. It is really cowardly to insult me in private like that because if you have a valid point to make, if you believe that I had said something very wrong in my blog, then by all means please approach me via the comments section in blogger rather than Instagram because hateful messages there are private and I'm highly unlikely to answer them. Having said that, I'd much rather get hate mail than nothing at all, because at least that tells me that my post is indeed being read by people and I am provoking a reaction - that's far better than spending hours crafting a long piece only for it to be totally ignored and read by no one. So at least I got what I wanted - I got these people to read my blog and I provoked a reaction. I didn't want to engage my haters on Instagram, so instead I have synthesized their hate mail into a Q&A format here to deal with some of the insults and points they've made there.

"You're a fucking idiot - you don't know anything about corporate finance. You're so stupid. Everything in your blog post is totally wrong. You should just fuck off, eat shit and die a horrible death by killing yourself now." 

Oh I actually got quite a lot of that - if you really think that I have made a mistake in my post, then by all means tell me what exactly I wrote that was so incredibly wrong or offensive then perhaps we can have a civilized conversation about it like two mature adults. But no, this kind of people want to tell me that I'm stupid, that I'm wrong but they stop short of telling me exactly what I had written was so wrong. It seems that their intention is to hurt my feelings with insults like "fuck off, eat shit and die" to make me go away and stop blogging but words like that only reflect poorly on the people who talk like that. Look, you can never censor someone on social media - you may not like what they say but you cannot use threats of violence or vulgar language to somehow make them disappear from social media. You really only have two choices: you can ignore them (as I choose to ignore a lot of people on the far right of the political spectrum on social media) or you can engage them and try to understand their point of view and discuss the issue with them in a civilized manner - the latter is always challenging of course, but at the very least you may learn a thing or two about why they feel the way they do. I choose not to respond to people like that because they don't deserve my time or attention if they're not prepared to behave like civilized, well-mannered adults. They have a total lack of social skills to resolve conflicts and I don't need people like that in my life. Like I said, I'm not that arrogant - if I am wrong about something I have written on my blog, please feel free to tell me why I am wrong but just telling me to "fuck off" is no substitute for a cogent argument.

"You're a fucking nobody, you're just a glorified placement agent in the world of corporate finance. Loser!" 

I've always struggled with my job title in my job - I don't know what to call myself and I really don't think that matters. I default to the word 'consultant' as I think it doesn't sound too pretentious. Yes I do work in placement and if you want to call me a placement agent or even a glorified placement agent, then yeah - that's pretty accurate and I don't have a problem with that. Placement agents get to make a lot of commission each time they successfully broker a deal and within the wide array of roles available within the realm of corporate finance, it is a pretty lucrative role to be in because it is essentially a sales job. You're not dependent on a 'salary package' from your employer - the more deals you can successfully broker, the more you will earn: you get to write your own paycheck and determine how much you're going to earn this financial year. I've just closed a sizable deal today and despite the fact that I've just returned from holiday in Poland, I'm back on the internet this afternoon researching where I want to go on my next holiday (oooh I really want to go to South America this summer) - that's the beauty of working as a placement agent. Now contrast that to people who have a full time job and have only a limited number of days of leave to take a year. I do like my long holidays - remember in 2017 when I traveled to Australia and New Zealand? I was away from London for an entire month during which time I did virtually no work, those are the perks that comes with doing a job like mine and I fully intend to do the same thing again this year by taking at least a month off for Argentina. It's not a bad life at all as a glorified placement agent if you ask me. I don't do the hard work structuring the deals, I'm merely brokering them and taking a cut. You could argue that I don't add much value to the whole process and so I don't deserve to be paid much at all - that would be a far more valid argument than telling me that I'm just a placement agent. Do you know how much a great placement agent can make?

"You're so fucking stupid. I'm much cleverer than you. I know far more than you about corporate finance." 

Did I ever claim to be some kind of expert in corporate finance? No, I never made that claim - in fact, I had specifically pointed out that I've worked with a lot of people who are far smarter than me and know far more about corporate finance than I do. However, I have certain skills in engaging clients and negotiation (along with the many languages that I do speak) that have made me quite useful to these corporate finance experts - enough for them to want to use my services and pay me pretty good money for it. Do I have to remind you that I'm actually pretty darn old? Oh I'm a bald middle aged man, I'm no longer in secondary school. Oh I remember the kids who used to run around the room and say shit like, "how much did you get for that test? Only 76 marks? Ha! I beat you, I scored 83 marks - you're a loser! Loser!" I did write a piece not so long ago about how some seemingly brilliant students have struggled to make money in the working world. It really doesn't matter how clever you are - even if you are a walking Wikipedia when it comes to any aspect of investment banking and corporate finance, the key question is whether or not you are able to monetize this knowledge. Are you able to secure a very well paid job where you are richly rewarded for having this incredible wealth of knowledge that you could put to good use? If so, then good for you - but if not, then oh dear, something is really quite wrong. One thing is for sure - people in my industry get paid good money for getting work done and not for simply being 'clever' or having a lot of knowledge. That's why that comment in particular took me way back to my secondary one classroom, oh boy - those were the days. And if you're that knowledgeable about the topic, why not blog about it instead of bitching over what I have written? If you are dying to tell the world what you know about corporate finance, what's stopping you then?

"You're so piss poor. You're such a fucking loser. I earn so much more money than you in Singapore." 

Oh this one's funny because I never actually mentioned how much money I earn. I have hinted that I do earn quite a lot but have never ever disclosed an actual figure. How much I earn is between me and the taxman and quite frankly, the only other person who knows exactly how much I earn is my husband because that's what marriage is about - I tell him everything. But for me to broadcast my earnings on my blog is not something I will ever do because that's just distasteful. In any case, it is a moving goal post - remember, as a broker, I am working for commissions so some months can be extremely lucrative if I manage to close a lot of deals, but other months I may earn very little (like if I decide to fuck off to Australia and New Zealand for an entire month) so I usually take a snapshot of a whole financial year as that gives me a clearer idea of what I earn as it varies a lot from month to month. So without knowing exactly how much money I do earn, how can anyone claim that they earn more than me since there is a distinct possibility that it is untrue? Is this hater perhaps making the assumption that I don't earn very much and that I'm struggling to get by? But here's the thing, just because you wish something is true doesn't mean that it will come true - it is quite common to wish for something horrible to happen to someone you hate. I remember a colleague who once said, "That woman is such a bitch, I wish she would get hit by a car on her way home today." But of course, unless my colleague was prepared to deliberately run her over with his own car, that wasn't going to happen and by the same token, just because you hate me and wish I was poor, doesn't actually render me poor. Maybe my haters can try some kind of voodoo witchcraft to put a curse on me instead.

The only way that claim can be 100% is if this person is some billionaire and then yeah, I'm happy to say that I'm not a billionaire and you earn more than me - but I am quite sure that billionaires won't go round telling millionaires that they are like so much richer. Oh I've met people who are insanely rich (think Crazy Rich Asians) and have even worked for some of them in the past. Truly rich people actually prefer to keep quiet about their wealth and it is only those who are quite insecure about how much they do earn who go around bragging to others just how much they earn - that makes me think that the person who used that insult on me probably isn't actually that rich at all. Besides, the only way we can confirm who earns more money is if we both release our tax returns for the last 5 years to get an accurate picture of just how much money we have earned. But this person who attacked me on Instagram is completely anonymous, so I think we're highly unlikely to get him/her to release all his/her tax returns for the last 5 years, even if I am willing to do so. It is really quite a stupid way to try to insult a person - it's like coming up to me and claiming, "I've got a bigger dick than you." And my response would be, "okay, go on, prove it. Take it out. Let's see it please." So unless you're prepared to get it out next to mine for a fair comparison, then it's a question of calling my bluff - can you somehow convince me that your claim is genuine? But if you are not prepared to back up your claim, then you really shouldn't make that claim in the first place.

I actually also want to introduce a different way to measure how much you earn as most people simply default to a number like, "I earned £200,000 in the last financial year." But that number doesn't tell me how many hours a week you worked on average and how many days of holidays you took last year. This was an issue that came up in a conversation with my sister recently - you see, she earns more than me as she is in a very senior position in a company in Singapore but when you account for the fact that she works so crazy hard, like she puts in 80 - 90 hours a week at work compared to the way I work between 20 - 30 hours a week, then I command a far higher rate than her. Furthermore, I take far more holidays than her - I'm usually disappearing for a short break in Europe every month and those breaks are usually between 5 to 7 days and I would tend to also take a much longer long-haul holiday every year (in fact last year I did that twice and I'm going to do it twice this year as well). On top of all that, I don't work for the last two weeks of December and hardly do anything in the first week of January. So whilst my sister is barely taking any time off from work, I am in fact working between 2 and 3 weeks a month on average. My sister joked that I'm only working part-time by Singaporean standards, "imagine if you actually got off your lazy ass and worked full time!" But seriously, she is quite envious of things that I take for granted - such as getting eight hours of sleep on average every night. She works so hard that something has got to be sacrificed and that tends to be her sleep - she gets by on between five and six hours a night, often less. I have no idea how she works that many hours a week. Yeah, try putting a price on my beauty sleep or having enough free time to go for loads of fun holidays or do gymnastics regularly. It suffices to say that whilst my sister may earn more than me, she would definitely agree that I have a much better quality of life since my hourly-rate is so much higher than hers.

"You just work in placement, I have a very senior position in a big bank. You're a nobody in the business."

Firstly, if this person wants to claim to have a very senior position in a big bank, then s/he should supply his full name and position in the bank so I can verify if this claim is actually true. But no, once again this attach came from a totally anonymous person on Instagram. Let's face it - if you're not prepared to back up your claims like that, then you have as much credibility as the scammer who claims that he is a wealthy Nigerian prince and wants to share his inheritance of US$500 million with me, all he needs is my bank account details. Yeah right. Am I aware that there are more senior people than me in the industry? Of course I am, but I'm just not used to language like that because at least in the West, we have a corporate culture where we appreciate and respect everyone in the company regardless of their role and how much they earn. For example, I used to work in this company where there was an office manager/receptionist - let's call her Liz (not her real name). Everyone in the company treated her with respect even though she was clearly the lowest paid member of staff in the entire company because we recognized the fact that she made a very valuable contribution to the company. Besides, what kind of disgusting asshole do you need to be to want to disrespect and bully someone like Liz just because you earn more than her and happen to be more senior than her at the bank? Indeed, anyone who treats someone like Liz badly simply for that reason is nothing more than a bully and that reflects very poorly on their character. I actually recognize where this kind of poisonous attitude is coming from because I've encountered it before in Singapore.

The only time where I saw this kind of bullying, with so much emphasis on rank was when I served national service (NS) and oh yeah, the recruits get it the worst because you're more junior than everyone else and there was so much bullying going on then. In the military, you simply have to obey orders from someone of a senior rank - even if they were asking you to do something downright stupid, you did not have the right to challenge or defy them because you are on an inferior rank. Well thankfully things are not as fucked up in the civilian world! I remember how even the senior directors would ask Liz for her opinion because they knew she was very observant and they valued her insight; she was exceptionally good with people and it was never about 'rank', it was about what you could bring to the table, what value you could add to the team and that was why Liz was never made to feel inferior even as she dealt with the senior management. I'm not saying that bullies don't exist in corporate finance (I'm sure they do - there's bad people everywhere in every industry), but even if I were to give this hater the benefit of the doubt and actually believe that s/he holds a very senior position in an investment bank, then goodness me - I feel sorry for the staff who have to work under him/her because s/he is such an asshole devoid of any kind of soft skills. Indeed, you cannot win an argument by trying to pull rank like that - no, if you even attempt that kind of approach in an argument, then you will just come across like an autistic asshole. You win an argument by being convincing the other party with a cogent argument and if you can pull that off with me - you will win my respect. Hence right now, I just think this person is either a complete liar or a total asshole.

In conclusion: some of my personal responses and thoughts. 

I've talked about some of the random attacks I get on social media from internet trolls and haters - I can deal with that, no problem; that's all part of participating in social media today. However, it seems that this current wave of hate mail actually came from a few people in Singapore who clearly work in corporate finance or at least know quite a lot about it. If they were willing to be a bit more polite and have been prepared to engage me by discussing the points where they didn't agree with me in a more civilized manner, then I would have actually been quite interested to hear what they have to say. However, you don't start a conversation by hurling abuse, insults and vulgarities at someone - once someone tells me to "fuck off, eat shit and die a horrible death", then there's no conversation to be had. I don't want to talk to someone who is that hostile and incapable of behaving in a reasonable manner. The fact is if someone is going to approach me on Instagram with that kind of language, my only response is to block that person immediately and not even engage them. But if these people really feel strongly that I have said something that was quite wrong or misleading, then there's always the door open via the comments section below for them to start a conversation with me - indeed, some of the readers who leave a comment don't always agree with what I have to say. Sometimes they convince me to change my mind, other times they don't but we always have an interesting exchange of views as two adults who are open minded enough to have a friendly, respectful discussion on the issue. This leads me to wonder how these seemingly well-educated people working in my industry in Singapore can have such very poor social skills that the only way they can express themselves is with this "fuck off, eat shit and die" kind of language. Aiyoh - can you imagine what they're like in real life?

Allow me to state something that is really quite obvious: even within corporate finance, there are loads of different kinds of jobs to suit people with different kinds of skills. Some people are suited for the highly technical roles whilst others like me have other skills like my languages that makes me far more suitable in a sales role. It is wrong to say that one kind of job is better than another - that's almost as bad as someone trying to say that tennis is a better sport than ice-skating or that learning to play the violin is better than the piano. Rather, in life we simply make our choices according to what our skills are and what we can perform best so it is meaningless to try to make comparisons like that. I suspect that a lot of the more technical people in my industry would struggle in a role that requires more social skills such as sales but then again, I can't do what they do the same way they can't do what I do. As long as we're happy to recognize that, we can happily get along in the spirit of mutual respect. It is only when people refuse to see things from another person's point of view when they start feeling superior. Imagine if I said to another person, "I'm a former national champion gymnast but you can't even hold a handstand - therefore you're stupid compared to me because you can't do what I do and I'm superior!" Oh that would be an extremely self-centered way of viewing the world because that other person may have other skills in areas where I totally suck at. Do you have the social skills to learn to appreciate others who may be radically different from you? The message I seem to get from my haters seems to be, "you suck because you're not like me!" and my response to that is simply, "and thank goodness for that - I'm quite happy being me, thank you very much."

I'd like to finish by making a point I've made before, I'm sorry for repeating it but I think it is a very important message.

Calling someone stupid doesn't make you any cleverer. 
Calling someone fat doesn't make you any thinner. 
Calling someone ugly doesn't make you any more beautiful. 
Calling someone poor doesn't make you any richer. 
Calling someone short doesn't make you any taller.
Calling someone lazy doesn't make you any more hardworking.
Calling someone a failure doesn't make you more of a success. 
Calling someone a loser doesn't make you a winner. 

I do wonder if these haters and internet trolls realize that after venting their anger online by spewing their hate at me or some other random person on the internet, they still have to go back to their own sorry lives and face those same problems which had made them so angry and unhappy in the first place? We all have our problems in our lives, that is inevitable. But about a month ago, when I had a difficult episode at work, I was really quite stressed and upset. So what did I do? I simply messaged a few of my best friend and I ended up talking about it with them for many hours. Some of them were able to meet me in person to chat, others picked up the phone and called me even if they were too busy to meet me. I spent ages talking to my sister, trying to get advice on what the best course of action would be for me. And in case you're wondering, yes I have fortunately managed to resolve that issue eventually and thankfully, things are alright now. But that's what I do, when I have a problem, I focus on trying to find a solution and I'll turn to my friends for that - what I don't do is log onto the internet and vent my frustration on a random person who has nothing to do with my problem. What good would that do for me? I may be able to let of some steam by hurling insults at someone, but it wouldn't bring me any closer to trying to solve the problems in my life. Whilst I hate being at the receiving end of their abuse, there's a part of me that says, "wait Alex, don't get angry with them, not just yet", because I don't know what kind of problems they may have in their lives and sometimes, it is just easier to choose to give them the benefit of the doubt.

I know some of my regular readers would say to me, "why are you even blogging about the hate mail you receive? You're feeding these crazy trolls. They want your attention and you're giving it to them, you should just totally ignore them. Delete the messages and block them, so they'll get bored and target someone else. Each time you write a blog post about your hate mail, you will invite even more haters to bombard you with hate mail. Is that really what you want?" Well yes, there's certainly a logic to that and many people do recommend that you should never ever respond to trolls in any way, shape or form, directly or indirectly. In using their hate mail to form a post like this, I am (indirectly) acknowledging their hate mail. But I know that if I can be a target for hate mail like this, anyone can be a target and that will include a lot of my younger readers who may not have as thick a skin as I do. Gosh, if that's one thing that NS has taught me, it is to grow a very thick skin and not let people upset you. I'm able to handle these internet trolls a lot better in my 40s and I'm not sure I would have had the social skills to do so back when I was a teenager or even in my 20s. This is an important issue that needs to be talked about so the next time someone becomes a victim of this kind of trolling, then hopefully my article here will add to the wealth of useful material out there to help others learn how to cope with such a challenging situation. I've been there and done that, hence I just want to share what I have learnt with anyone who needs this insight.

So that's it from me on this issue - what do you think? Have you ever received hate mail from complete strangers? How did that make you feel? How did you deal with it? Did it change the way you used social media? How widespread is this problem and are young people adequately prepared to deal with it should they ever attract the attention of trolls? Is cyber bullying a serious problem or just another part of modern social media we have to live with? Why do internet trolls do what they do anyway? Do let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment below please and many thanks for reading!