When reality bites

First of all before you continue reading this post, I will have to warn you that at certain point you may find that this post will portray me as snobbish, or an elitist depending on how you want to to look at it, but I will write things as they are, and pretty sure a number of people may feel or or have the same thought.

I was in KLIA(Kuala Lumpur International Airport) a few weeks back, taking my flight from home back to Singapore. At the international departure hall, I saw there were a few groups of young people, around 20s, can't be more than 20. There were in a black suits, looking happy, and proud of themselves. They were surrounded by groups of families, their families. The time was about 7 or 8pm. I know those crowds, I know who they are, because I was one of them about 7 years ago.

Those kids were students under scholarship, waiting for their flight to a certain country, flying oversea to further their study. I still remember those moment. I was a proud young boy, and I was happy and ecstatic, and seeing my parents and family looking at me with contentment and pride at that time, that was definitely one of highlights in my life. I felt that that was the first step of me going to a very bright future. Again, as I told you this may sound snobbish and slightly cheesy. You have been warned. Considering Malaysia's status as a developing country, coming back home with a degree from a developed and considered as technologically most advanced country, I would come back as a golden boy waiting for opportunities to knock on my door and beg for me to pick it up. How naive I was. Sometimes I miss that boy, he didn't have to bother much about shits real world have to offer.

Well, I could write a lot of romantic stuffs about my moment on that day or my time when I was in Japan, but that would not be in this post. Skipping that to right after I graduated and got my degree. Needless to say, the reality was not as rosy, filled with butterflies and rainbow as I thought. My first job was not the most excellent job Malaysia has to offer, salary wise was not that great either, and the job that I was doing makes me feel horrible when I woke up in the morning knowing that I have to go to do some meaningless stuff.

The thing about when you studied abroad, you think that you went extra miles to get your degree. And with that extra miles, with that extra effort, you develop a feeling that you deserve more, and should get more. Hence the attitude that opportunities should just present itself to you. It would be unfair if I were to speak for all that studied abroad, but I know a few that had the same though like me. Hell, I hung out with a few after we graduated, and basically the subject of discussion was "how shit is not as great as we thought they would be" and "how unfair life is". But hey, don't start frowning upon your friend that studied abroad, they're probably as humble as a worm, and I am the one that was a pompous ass.

But if you look at another perspective, if you possess a degree from a local University, don't you think you are more deserving than someone without a tertiary education if you two were to compete for a job? If you have a certificate for a certain skill, don't you think you are more deserving than someone without? Like I said, when you went extra miles for something, you feel you should be prioritized. You think that you have a leverage which should give you an upper hand. When that did not go as you expected it to, you're left frustrated and devastated. 

That is the reality of the mentality of people of our generation, we really believe in the power of paper and certificate. We totally neglected the aspect of attitude, aptitude, networks, communication skill, the power to convince people and so on. At least not until we face the real life, ie got the fuck out of the education system and earning our own money. We may have realized the reality after a while, but that idea has been stapled so hard in our mind that even in our career we are still hunting for some certs and papers, convincing ourselves that those papers will generate more income, better career progression and so on. Each career discipline has their own specialized certs, so you know what I am talking about.

This shitty system could've had worked like 20-30years ago, where the amount of people with degree, with certificates, and all those papers were just a few, where executives and professionals are direly needed, at least in Malaysia. But nowadays, those papers are being printed out like mad, with quotas to be met each year. Those Uni professors will be in deep shit if the didn't, and the more people applying and getting professional certs meaning more application and membership fees for those so called independent organisation. Today, If I threw a stone at a crowd of people in Malaysia, I can bet you my 10 year old cigar it will land on someone with an engineering degree. And their title at work will be at least "assistant manager". I will write more about that in the future.

When we were growing up, many of us don't have parents with tertiary education, most only studied till high school, and work with that. In those days, Our parents saw people with those fancy papers, how fast they climb the corporate ladder and excel through life with those things. That was the kind of stories that were told to us and motivated us to pursue those papers. We were told that with those papers, we can be anything and achieve anything. We believed in that.

I am not blaming the generation X for shaping us this way. This is just a generation gap kind of thing. And the world changes and evolves. They couldn't see this coming. They just wanted the best for their kids the way they perceive the World, at the time we were growing. We would do the same things to our kids if we were in their shoes. You young parents would understand better I suppose. Which leaves us with a question, what kind of future generations will we shape? When we keep telling them that degrees and papers are not everything, but attitude, hardwork, and other aspects of life are far more important. I guess we will find that one out in 20-30 years time. Perhaps that day I will be reading my kid's writing about how wrong the things I told him or her. That's gotta be suck

The simple things in life

I had quite a pleasant afternoon with a friend of mine on the Wednesday. We had a lunch at Chinatown nearby my workplace, and he is also working with a bank nearby. They serve quite selection of Malay foods and the price is actually quite reasonable. Anther good thing about this place is they do allow smoking at most of their tables if not all. Being here in Singapore, places that allow smoking are actually coming to an extinction, and finding one is actually quite nice. So we had a fabulous smoke after our meals. Both of us smoke a 7 year old Fonseca Cadet, courtesy of my friend.

My friend did quite a fair bit of talking about investment products that he is planning to buy. Don't wanna bother you guys with the details of the products(also due to I didn't understand them that much in the first place). But at the end of the discussion of those investment products he said that we don't really need to be that rich, and at the end of the day, how much money is enough? True enough, and he shared with me a story about a fisherman and a business school student.

So there is this business school student, he met a fisherman watching his kids playing. He asked the fisherman what is he doing? The fisherman said that he just finished with his daily fishing and now watching his kids playing. After that he and his kids will go home and eat dinner that his wife cooks. He asks the fisherman what is he going to do tomorrow? the fisherman answers, "the same thing. Fish, watch my kids play, and my wife will cook my dinner for me".

The business school student says that instead of just doing that, he should make sure that tomorrow's catch is double than today, and make sure that the catch amount grows each day.So that the fisherman will have more income everyday. Fisherman says, "Good idea. But what shall I do at the end of the day?". Business school student answered, "You can go home, watch your kids play, and have your wife cooks dinner for you."

The business school student continues with his suggestion. He said that with the extra income that fisherman gets, he should saves up money, buy another boat and employ someone to fish for him. Making sure that the amount of catch increasing everyday, he can keep expanding his business and buys new boats. The fisherman looking interested and says, "Very good idea, but what will I do at the end of the day?". Business student answered, "You can still go home, watch your kids play, and your wife will cook dinner for you."

The business school student comes up with his closing proposal. He said that once the fisherman's business grew big enough, he will help the fisherman to make his business public, he will help IPO his company, and by that time the fisherman should be worth hundreds of millions. The fisherman agrees that it is a very good idea and asked what will he do at the end of the day.The student says, "You can watch your kids play, and your wife will cook dinner for you."

To cut the story short, the final question the fisherman asks the business student is, "Am I not doing them now?". So there you go. There are a lot of morals in this story that you can pick up, but I just wanna highlight that sometimes, in our pursue of of wealth and riches, we forgot to enjoy these "simple things" in life that actually matter the most. I don't have kids to watch them playing nor a wife to cook for me, but I go back home, read some books, watch some shows, stalk people in fb, smoke cigars or other menial things. But damn I enjoy every second of those time.

Of course you can always argue the simplicity of the argument from the business student, and there are ways he can debate and make his case stronger and more solid, but that this story is pretty much made up to serve the moral I just mentioned. Shit there are a lot of shitty Malay drama in the TV nowadays and they sure as hell has a shittier story and shittier morals that are pretty much destroying our newer generations. This fisherman v business student story beats the crap out of any Malay dramas/movies in my book.

From Engineering to Financial

So something I consider big happened in my life few months back. I have made a huge turn in my career by switching from engineering into financial industry. 

For those close personal friends of mine, they probably have seen it coming, since I had been spewing out a lot about financial things for the past couple of years. Now I am not saying I am a financial wizard that can triple my investment in a year time, but it has been a growing interest of mine. The fact that many of my friends here in Singapore do work in financial industry kinda like pulling me more and more towards this thing. It's kinda like an inevitable thing, I suppose.

I have spent about 2 years of my life in engineering industry before I realized that it is not the right thing for me. Which makes me wonder why did I choose to go and study it in the first place. I think the biggest reason in the first place is just how I was brought up in the family. My grandfather, as my dad said was a carpenter(in a way engineering and technical person), and my dad is an engineer. Has been one for more than 30 years and still working as an engineer.As the only son in the family, I was brought up knowing that the heritage of the male of the family to be a technical person. I am not blaming nor saying he pushes me into it, but when you spend years listening to your dad talking about engineering and technical things to you, it kinda gives you an idea that you should be one too! 

The other reason that I can think of is how the education system is in Malaysia. I did quite good when I was in school back in Malaysia, and the way how education system works in Malaysia is that students with good grades are pushed towards studying the core sciences subjects which eventually will make them ended up with Medicine or Engineering career. Any Malaysians would agree with me if I say back in the high school life, if you were to take the economics or accounting, you are considered second rated, and people will ask you "you're not good enough to get to sciences class??". People will look at you thinking you are a dumb brick with not-so-bright-future. Little that those high school kids know about the paycheck of people in financial industry. No offense to those people that took the economics/account but it was what it was, right? Which is kinda sad, because let's face it, high school kids are just gonna choose the best they think they could get(which in this case the science classes), but not really what they want. But then again, high school kids mostly don't really know what they want (at least I could say that for myself). Which brings me back to the first reason, that I thought I wanna be an engineer because my dad and my granddad was one. 

I am going to write a bit about the recruitment process that I went through to get this job. Actually I started looking for a job with intention of just testing the water. I only sent out resumes to very few companies, mostly are big mainstream banks you have seen their advertisements in major sport events. I didn't put too much hope into it and just be glad if I could get a reply. But after a few days I got a reply from this company that I am working with, and also another very famous(or infamous depending on your POV) American investment bank. I got the job only after one interview, and the process took me less than 2weeks, which is considered super fast. To think that I had spent 6months++ to get my previous job after sending out a lot of resumes to oil and chemical companies, and a couple of weeks to get a banking job. I checked my bachelor degree just to make sure it is written Chemical Engineering, not Finance. 

I guess things worked in my favour because this company just lost 2 of their Japanese staffs and they needed a replacement asap. Having a third language ability doesn't look too bad yeah? The very reason why I don't really regret to find this financial job at a later stage of my life, because the journey that I went through helped me into it. After all it is not just about the destination, but the journey getting there. And now that I am here, I just have to figure out which part or specific job I wanna do? client advisory? stays in operation?client onboarding? transaction filtering/investigation? product specialist? Interesting how I write client advisory in the first order....hehe.

All in all, I spent 2 years of my life in engineering and I didn't like it. I am not bashing engineering line, but I was just a man in a wrong place. I may have been working harder or longer as compared to my previous jobs, but at the end of everyday, I feel satisfied and I feel a sense of achievement. I am happy. After all, you are still going to work for tens of years of your life if you are not a child of a millionaire like me, so you better at least make sure you are happy. And different people gets happy over different things.

I am home, and I am happy