6 Figure Career Management

By Andreas Hippin

The Somali pirates, renegade Somalis known for hijacking ships for ransom in the Gulf of Aden, are negotiating a purchase of Citigroup.

The pirates would buy Citigroup with new debt and their existing cash stockpiles, earned most recently from hijacking numerous ships, including most recently a $200 million Saudi Arabian oil tanker. The Somali pirates are offering up to $0.10 per share for Citigroup, pirate spokesman Sugule Ali said earlier today. The negotiations have entered the final stage, Ali said.

“You may not like our price, but we are not in the business of paying for things. Be happy we are in the mood to offer the shareholders anything,” said Ali.

The pirates will finance part of the purchase by selling new Pirate Ransom Backed Securities. The PRBS’s are backed by the cash flows from future ransom payments from hijackings in the Gulf of Aden. Moody’s and S&P have already issued their top investment grade ratings for the PRBS’s.

Head pirate, Ubu Kalid Shandu, said: “We need a bank so that we have a place to keep all of our ransom money. Thankfully, the dislocations in the capital markets has allowed us to purchase Citigroup at an attractive valuation and to take advantage of TARP capital to grow the business even faster.”

Shandu added, “We don’t call ourselves pirates. We are coastguards and this will just allow us to guard our coasts better.”

Below is an old banking joke doing the email rounds in the City. I’ve heard it before, but it still brings a smile to my face.

A man flying in a hot air balloon realised that he was lost. He spots a man down below and descends. ‘Excuse me’, he shouts. ‘Can you help me ? I promised a friend that I’d meet him half hour ago, but I’m lost. Where am I ?’.

‘You are in a hot air balloon’, the man below replied. ‘You are hovering approximately 30 feet above this field. You are between 40 and 42 degrees north latitude, and between 58 and 60 degrees west longitude’.

‘Thanks’. replied the lost balloonist. ‘You must work in Operations’.

‘I do’, said the man below. ‘But how did you know ?’.

‘Well’, answered the balloonist, ‘Everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of it all, and the fact is that I’m still lost!’.

‘And you my friend’, said the man below, ‘must work in Front Office’.

‘I do’, said the balloonist. ‘But how come you knew that ?’.

‘Well’, replied the man with his feet on the ground, ‘you don’t know where you are, or where you are going. You made a promise which you are not going to keep, and you are now looking to me to solve your problems. And the fact is that you are in exactly the same predicament you were in before we meet, yet somehow all the blame is now being laid on me!’.

A summary of some of the jokes being circulated in relation to the financial crises. It’s just some light humour - but if you’re at all sensitive then please click away now and don’t read any further…(especially if you’re Islandic)

(By the way, I know you should never try and explain a joke - but some of the jokes below are UK specific so for readers outside the UK I’ve tried to explain in brackets afterwards!)

• Quote of the day (from a trader): “This is worse than a divorce. I’ve lost half my net worth and I still have a wife.”

• Resolving to surprise her husband, an investment banker’s wife pops by his office. She finds him in an unorthodox position, with his secretary sitting in his lap. Without hesitation, he starts dictating, “…and in conclusion, gentlemen, credit crunch or no credit crunch, I cannot continue to operate this office with just one chair!”

• Q: Why are all MBAs going back to school?
A: To ask for their money back.

• The last time Iceland had a crash like this aisle three was closed all day (Explanation: in addition to being an Artcic state Iceland is also a supermarket chain in the UK)

• I had a cheque returned earlier. “Insufficient Funds” Mine or the banks?

Click here to read the rest…

During the last financial services downturn in 2002/03 I worked as a recruiter in London’s financial district. The market was tough and we were all feeling pretty low - not too dissimilar to the mood across the industry today. 

Then one Friday lunchtime in the summer of 2002, the UK tabloid newspaper, The Sun, brought a group of bikini clad Page 3 models into London’s Square Mile on top of an open top bus in an attempt to “cheer up the City” (and of course create a nice little story for the weekend press). Whilst many of the girls in my office were far from impressed with the whole circus going on outside, all the guys rushed outside to see the passing of the ‘parade.’ We were like excited kids running outside to see Santa’s sleigh passing the house at Christmas (..very sad, I know).

So it was with a smile on my face that I read the story of Playboy offering Wall Street bankers the opportunity to earn extra cash by stripping off for an upcoming “Women of Wall Street” feature.

“When the news gets bad, then maybe that’s a chance to make people smile by coming up with something that puts a different twist on it”, said Gary Cole, Playboy’s photo editor.

But there is a more serious point here - a career lesson to learn from this story. 

Click here to read the rest…

Happy Monday

If you’ve got the Monday morning blues, then have a quick look at this job advert.

A little juvenile I know, but it will bring a smile to your face.
;o)

This week, I broke one of the unwritten laws of travelling on London Underground trains - I spoke with a stranger! Indeed, I had a laugh and a joke with 2 strangers (gosh horror).

As London-based readers will know full-well, being friendly or chatty to strangers on the tube is a complete no-no. An activity that is strictly reserved for ‘nutters’, stalkers and Tenants Super drinkers (how can they drink that stuff at 8am?)

So what prompted this act of folly on my part?

Well, it was all prompted when I burst out laughing whilst reading the entertaining new book “City Boy - Beer And Loathing In The Square Mile” - an outburst which resulted in a discussion with 2 fellow passengers about the book and life in the City.

‘City Boy,’ is Geraint Anderson’s no-holds-barred account of what it’s really like to work in London’s financial centre. It’s an entertaining account of greed, corruption and the competitive spirit within the sector, along with the hedonistic lifestyle Anderson lived.

He has built up quite a following from writing an anonymous and widely-read column in
The London Paper over the last couple of years.

After 12 years in the City, Anderson realised that he could no longer tolerate his job or the lifestyle and left his role with Dresdner to write a book.

I’m only half way through the book, but so far it’s funny, shocking and true in so many ways.

It’s never going to win a Booker prize or change the culture within banking. But it will certainly make you laugh and get you thinking. And who knows, maybe you’ll even find yourself discussing it with complete strangers on the Tube.

So what are you tolerating?

Like Anderson, many of you are probably tolerating many things about your job, career and subsequent lifestyle.

This week’s newsletter article highlights some of the things many of the clients I meet are putting up with. Which ones apply to you?

See Also: 

The Lighter Side Of Subprime

The Career Change Experiment

Q&A - Are You Pigeon Holed In A Job?

Subsidising Your Dream Career

Satisfied With Your Bonus?

This short video below is a great reminder of how we create stories and excuses in our heads for not getting things done.

We procrastinate over tasks which are important and instead find reasons to do the unimportant stuff.

Maybe you are putting off a meeting with your boss to discuss your performance and career progression. Perhaps you are procrastinating over updating your CV / resume before you start searching. Or maybe you’re holding back from calling recruiters or people in your network for some help and advice with your jobs search.

At some point, we all dream up novel strategies to avoid taking these steps. Watching this video will just make you stop and think the next time you start procrastinating.

So what’s your most common way of avoiding getting your stuff done..?

I came across this excellent clip on YouTube recently.

It’s a comical interview about the subprime issues which is role played by the british  actor/comedians John Bird and John Fortune.

If you’re looking for some light relief from all the depressing news surrounding the credit crunch, the economy and the job market then turn up the volume and sit back…it’s about 7 minutes long.

(Before you ask, I have no idea what language those subtitles are in..!)