Making a run for it

Another friend of mine at my old company, recently contacted me about the best way to quit as an international hire. Seems like ALL the minorities are making a run for it. Ha!

Square Peg, Round Hole - the break with Consulting

So my manager flipped her shit over the passed two weeks and apparently had a couple meetings which will probably result in me being fired earlier than I had hoped... I find out on Monday. They say, that the case I was on was "below my level", so the good work that I did do for 4 months, doesn't count, and for some reason, the opinion of my supervisor (who thought I did great) doesn't count. What apparently does matter, is the dubious last two weeks of the case where I really didn't have much to do at all. All that is left is this crazy manager of mine, who without actually really ever looking at my work and while ignoring the person who does see my work, has decided that I am not up to scratch. But it's not just her, it can't be... someone staffed me in the position where I couldn't win, people refused to listen when my supervisor had a differing opinion, someone decided to have that meeting where neither I nor my supervisor were involved or spoken to, to decide my fate. And my teammates had to be complicit... one fellow is running around showing my work as his - perhaps he will get that early promotion he is gunning for. My consensus reviewer assured me, "your opinion was heard". How is that possible when noone asked me what my opinion was? There is something, wholly inconsistent and deeply disturbing about this whole process.

It begs the question... if they set me up to fail... what did they expect? It posits the answer... they expected me to fail. You can't win if you are constantly asked to change someone's opinion of you.

My consensus reviewer decided to tell me that I had all the qualities to be great at this job, even more so than some people who are great at this job, but something just didnt click... it was like fitting a sqaure peg into a round hole.

After this news, I go back to my desk from which I can see through the glass doors of the adjacent conference room. Inside was my manager and the rest of the team, and projected on the screen was the model I had built to "help" my teammate. In that moment I learnt the definition of so many words... wrath, outrage, insult, frustration...

So, this is not just to rant. But to preserve for posterity. And hopefully warn any of you against the dangers of corporate america and in particular big consulting firms. These are not meritocracies, you will not be judged on the quality of your work, you will be asked to do shitty things for money and the worse thing you can do is not fit in.

Below is pretty much a day in the life.

Recruiting and Social Capital

So here I am on the other side of recruiting.... playing my part in the interview process for the firm on my old campus. I feel luckier than ever now that I actually see the randomness that goes into whether you get an interview or not....

And just in case you were wondering... knowing someone on the inside does help (social capital at it's best/worst) and groups tend to unconsciously replicate themselves... that's why it's so hard to introduce diversity into the corporate world.

Are you Happy? Sad? Jealous?

This last week's economist ran an ad that started "Are you Happy? Sad? Jealous?; Understanding the importance of your emotions in 24 lectures from an award winning professor." It's an odd little course you can order from Dr Robert C Solomon and the write-up goes on to claim that,

"By probing these thinkers and presenting his own views, The Passions: Philosophy and the Intelligence of Emotions will lead you to a remarkable conclusion: Emotions have intelligence and provide personal strategies that are vitally important to our everyday lives of perceiving, evaluating, appraising, understanding, and acting in the world."

Maybe it was reading those words, or the hours of what I now realize was subconscious agonizing that finally put a light bulb over my head. Either way, something became clear yesterday when a work colleague gave me some mixed news. She told me, that she had a clandestine wedding - she got married after 5 months of dating some guy - and that she was quitting the job next month because "consulting was just not for her." Putting aside the fact that she is probably not telling me the whole story, the news washed over me in waves of unfamiliar emotions. I felt ... cold shock, followed by a brief dip into sadness and then a brightening, clear, honest jealousy.

That's right, jealousy... and it felt so good because with it came realization... no, I do not want to be married right now, but I do want to be free of this job. It has nothing to do with my ability to get the job done. No one at this point could possibly accuse me of laziness. It's not even that I am not cut out for the work force. I simply derive very little pleasure from the work I do and the people I work for. In fact, now that I am admitting things to myself, I think it has been making me a little unhappy. I have made a terrible mistake. I have made an even bigger mistake letting the job get in the way of me preparing for my future and doing the things that make me happy.

Don't worry. I am not quitting and I am not going to stop working hard. I just feel light and clear. Now I know why I have been feeling a bit off. It is resolved in my mind and now I can emotionally de-invest and reapply myself to the things in my life, present and future.

Enjoy the Arrested development reference while I try and sort out my life

Think Less

" One of your strongest skills - your high level thinking - is irrelavant for you current position at this company." - My manager to me last monday

How utterly absurd...

And who will defend me?

check this out

My friend is here visiting from NYC and we were sitting in the living room discussing the H1-B. It's that time ladies and gents. At the end of this month the lawyers will send in our applications. 50% of them will be automatically rejected - randomly chosen to not even be considered. The other 50% will await the kindness of the US government to see if we can continue to work here.

As if our futures were not uncertain enough there is the added complication of the bail-out, the stimulus bill, the depressed economy. My friend is telling me that companies on the TARP - troubled asset relief programme - are not allowed to apply for work visas for their foreign employees. "Buy American" has become "Hire American" and is disturbing in both spirit and effect. Every time there is a problem this coutry kind of rolls up into a ball - like an armadillo, or Buster from Arrested Development. Will they do more harm than good this time? we will have to wait and see....

Ahoy G20!

Authority and desire

Today I retire the confession "Me hate authority. Authorty hate me," even though that is still very true. I think I can be extremely frustrating to my supervisors not because they feel like I am incompetent, but because they see nothing standing in between them and what they want from me except my own stubborn unresponsive will. The problem is, they can't make me want what they want, mostly because ... I don't know what I want.

In other news, I went for drinks with this guy from the office. My roommate has informed me that that counts as a date. He had hinted a couple months ago that we should go out for drinks. I thought it was a casual team thing - we work together - so I was enthusiastic. Last week when he came over to ask me to drinks that night, it would be dishonest of me to say I didn't sense the date vibe. He was WAY too nervous. He hesitated, his voice stumbled, he practically whispered the invitation. I resisted the urge to run. The honest part of me was therefore not surprised when we were the only ones at the bar that night. We had fun.

I got a job!!

It turns out, that interview did not go well at all. But my second and third went swimmingly and now I have a job!!!! It is like getting into college early decision again, but better!! Security is a wonderful thing.

All week my friends had been telling me that they were sure I had gotten the job. In part I think it was a defence mechanism - some of them had interviewed too - but now I think I also need to be grateful that I have friends who believe that much in me. At the same time, they might have just wanted to torture me... They knew I didn't want to get my hopes up.

One thing is a bit bizarre though. Right out of under-grad I'll be making more than my Dad. Mind you, my Dad is a surgeon. It just so happens that his job is undervalued and in a third world country while mine is over-valued and in a first world country. Makes you think that something is seriously wrong with a market that would pay me more than him.