Yesterday I heard from yet another professional previously employed in the sector formerly known as finance. The story was again tragic and at the same time in an outside the box thinking sort of way hopeful. We went through old names from rolodexes long discarded (does anyone even know what a rolodex used to be any more?). Name after name from entire institutions long since gone up in smoke.
Whole rolodexes, once the prized resource of the on the move finance professional, rendered entirely worthless. The world of finance as we once knew it gone.
Now it seems as if we have no choice but to re-create ourselves. Being a finance professional is no longer an option for about 50,000 of us as the sector has shrunk by approximately that many jobs in the last year. So what do we do?
Some of us will pick over the carcasses of institutions like Bear Stearns, Lehman and AIG to see if there is any remaining value there. But many more of us will launch out into totally new and hopefully creative and fulfilling directions. Many of us are about to discover the joy of life without the monster mortgage, without the four figure per month auto expense, without the private school tuition bills for the children. Many of us will be returning to the simpler life of the last century.
Is a slower, less frantic, easier and simpler, if somewhat less monetized, life all that bad? Well we are about to find out. Let's hope not.
Whole rolodexes, once the prized resource of the on the move finance professional, rendered entirely worthless. The world of finance as we once knew it gone.
Now it seems as if we have no choice but to re-create ourselves. Being a finance professional is no longer an option for about 50,000 of us as the sector has shrunk by approximately that many jobs in the last year. So what do we do?
Some of us will pick over the carcasses of institutions like Bear Stearns, Lehman and AIG to see if there is any remaining value there. But many more of us will launch out into totally new and hopefully creative and fulfilling directions. Many of us are about to discover the joy of life without the monster mortgage, without the four figure per month auto expense, without the private school tuition bills for the children. Many of us will be returning to the simpler life of the last century.
Is a slower, less frantic, easier and simpler, if somewhat less monetized, life all that bad? Well we are about to find out. Let's hope not.
No comments:
Post a Comment