Anatomy of a meltdown part 1 of ?

For those who don't know, lets get the facts straight.

1. Yes my company went bankrupt. People ask me, "hey i heard the news.. but this doesn't affect you right?" Well my dear friends let me inform you, when your company goes bankrupt it does tend to affect you in some way,usually in fairly bad way.

2. No I am not unemployed, we were bought by a Japanese securities broker/dealer so we are in the midst of getting job offers/transfers to this new firm but payroll is still flowing (although coffee and tea services stopped). Terms to be disclosed very soon. The rumours are some form of guaranteed bonus, so it may not be a bad deal.

3. How are things?

a) Overall they are fine. Hell man, I have almost no loyalty to where I am, I didn't build this company so what can I say? I like it alot, the people are great, I was moving somewhere in this org, so its all a damn shame, but I try not to complain around my peers since for many they dedicated their lives to the cause and were jacked in the end.

b) Being away on vacation created a surreal feel of it not really happening. But now I'm back and I can give my analysis on the situation. Its not happy times. People are not excited to be working for a Japanese company. This includes the Japanese, as they really like working for a foreign company it seems. People are wary of the typical horrors of Japanese work-life. From an IT side it may just be integration hell as well. Lots of negativity at work.

c) Financially I am taking an unrecoverable beating a magnitude worse than I should be due to overleverage. Ah shit, thats life. I still have a job and income so life isn't ending just yet.

d) Career-plan-wise I am at a stumble, a serious one. I was about to enter management, move to HK, head towards VP'ness.. as was my plan before returning to the States. Now the industry is shot to hell, banks are failing left and right, everyone hates investment banks so now there are none left to hate.. puts a spin on my plans.

So anyways I was going to explain in my thoughts what happened with the meltdown of the company. I guess I'll do it in part2 since its 2am and I need some sleep before my boring day at work since it seems nothing is really happening.

Sayonara!

Vacationing

I went on a 2 week vacation, not because I needed to, or had to, but just because I could and felt I should do something while I'm out here. Coincided w/ company meltdown which was good and bad.

My Overall Route: Tokyo->Manila->Macau/HK->Singapore->Macau/HK->Kuala Lumpur->Manila->Tokyo. I spent about 4 days in each country. My overall impressions:

Manila in PI - not the best tourist spot, but there are some very posh areas, along w/ very nasty areas where the beggars come to my taxi [note 50% of taxi's try to rip you off, reminds me of Saigon] begging for money to feed their starving baby they are holding. Then some gang bangers come and wash the windows on cars and start bitching at them if they dont give tips (then again this happens in East LA too). Movies are only $2.50 -- IMAX like $5. Damn this is a cheap town to live in. KFC's are everywhere, wtf is with the love of fried chicken?

Angeles/Clark in PI - totally ghettoo-ville. Oh my god.. I went golfing for the day I was there which is good 'cause the city is nasty hell. On par with typical Saigon and poor Manila I guess. The # of 50yo white guys walking w/ a 20yo (mostly not attractive) filipina girlfriend is somewhat shocking. Movies are $2.

Singapore - quite a nice city. Went to the rich parts to a bar called Attica and let me tell ya there are some hot girls, but word is that the hot ones are all prostitutes. But my overall feel of this town is that the people are down to earth and not as money hungry and trend driven as HK and Tokyo. Hainan Chicken Rice was excellent, had it for lunch and dinner oneday. Clean city, overall thumbs up. Went to the beach resort and that was quite nice too.

Kuala Lumpur - I was quite happy to come here without knowing what to expect at all I just picked a city and went. Being surrounded by Muslims is a bit odd.. requires getting used to. There are some poor parts but overall its a city that reminds me of HK. Lots of tall buildings, good infrastructure, some posh and some local looking zones. I ate a lot of Nasi Lamek, which is some kind of Muslim/Malaysian (?) spicy plate of coconut rice and spicy stuff. I was loving it. Indian food quite good too there. Lots of tourist zones as well, probably perfect for 3-4 day trip.

Hong Kong/Macau - been there so many times nothing to note. Golf costs $200 in Macau and nobody plays. Kind of goes against supply/demand pricing model, but whatever.

Note, gambling in Phillipines is lame. Craps payouts are really bad, instead of 7-6 payout on 6and8, they pay 11-10. Wtf? Yeah its bad. And only single odds. Shit I gave up and moved to Patoong which is an awesome BJ variant.

I was tired by the end of my journey.. what did I take away from it all? Well its fun to go and do nothing and live without purpose. But in the end its always nice to come back home, even if its a transient home.

Tomorrow I find out whats new at work. Wow!!

Buyout

So we got bought by a J-bank. Big securities broker-dealer but we'll see what the fallout is.

I guess worst case we will now get severence packages. Thank god.

It is not as prestigious but the heyday of ibanking is done for now. The world illumanti who run this country play games w/ industries like this. Rise and fall of dot.com's, teleco's, bio, and now banking. All the banks have scrambled for partners so soon there will be no independent ibanks (in fact only GS and MS are left), but later they will spin off when the profits are so big again that it makes sense to spin them off in a massive IPO split. Its the game thats played in corporates.. merge/spin/merge/spin, generate fake paper wealth, burn the employees. Not to sound bitter, as my bitter employment days are past, but just to speak some cynical reality.

The insider gossip is that the J-bank is going to offer nearly full guarantee bonuses as a staff retention plan. Makes sense since they buy no assets, just people and processes. This year looked like a 0% bonus year, so now i'm back up to my last years deal which is quite a break. Japanese are typically on 16month plans anyways, 12months normal salary, +2 months bonus * 2 times a year. That actually is on par w/ my last years comp, roughly 12+ 4 (maybe +5 but close enough).

I think from an IT perspective integration will be hellish. Oh well.. I guess I need some new excitement in life.

My vacation is nearing the end. Philippines, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur. Good to get around by pack. I found I can wear the same clothes more than 2 days in a row. Haha pretty gross but actually not that bad.

It'll be interesting to get back to the grind to see the fallout on Monday.. I have been out so missed all the action. I wonder if my new role as the Tokyo IT head of Credit will be gone, expand, or stay the same now that Tokyo is again the HQ for operations....

I may never be a rich man..

Well I may never be a rich man, but I can say I lived a semi-rich lifestyle in the day. I'll remember this.. back in the day when I was 30's, making $$$$+ a year as a single man w/ almost no liabilities.. traveled around every month for kicks, gambled, drank, partied.. but then it all came tumbling down. I think most of the excess money I made was lost in a) bad investments (including a foolish stake in my dead company), b) partying, c) gambling, d) real estate. So back to square 1 -- I guess its okay though, I had fun the last few years, but now I must do something different.

My next move is a tricky one. I don't have the right experience in the mix of 500+ people who are now looking for employment so can't quite get the hardcore job I would really want. I think if I just want to maintain my lifestyle and cashflow I can get a similar paying job back at my old SF employer but in Tokyo. Thats an idea for preservation of cash.. but in the end, cash is not that important and I plan to work till I die anyways.

I think my main options are:

1. take what I can get, ala BeeGiAye TK or whatever is around
2. search hard for something better, probably in HKG and maybe take 3months to find a good gig.
3. take 6 months off and go study Chinese in Taiwan/Beijing/Shanghai in some program
4. move back to CA and find a job back in Tech Industry

I'm leaning towards 3 as it sounds fun, although maybe frivilous..maybe worthwhile to do in life. 1 is the easy road.. maintain status quo, work for a friend of mine, but I am not sure if that is the right thing to do in life. 2) I may explore.. but there are like 2,000 IT workers globally looking for jobs, all eyeing HKG as the gold market right now. I know I'm better than 95% of them, but its not easy to weed out....

So my friends don't worry, given I have #3 as an option it means I have enough cash to live for a few years at least.. so I'm ok. It honestly sucks since I really liked my company and was moving up in the ranks.. but thats life man. Nobody can change the end of it all now.

I guess its good I'm on vacation so I can meditate on this.

End is here

I had a good run but its over.

Market has crushed us.  From once heralded bank, to now a wall street casualty.  Its sad.  I enjoyed working here, the people were great.  I finally made rank and am managing a small team, but alas.. thats life.  I guess I will go on vacation and let things pan themselves out.

Yes when it rains it pours.  I need Rhianna's umbrella

Down almost out

People like PG send me news on how bad my company is doing. From the inside, I say we are doing quite bad. Had mass layoffs recently and then our stock plumetted to near death.

I have been thru the downturns before such as in 2001/2002 but this time around I am much more optimistic and hope we can pull thru. I am much less the wild rioter I was back in those days and more the team player that I think my managers back then wanted to be.

Anyways due to layoffs and movement I am now the tokyo manager for the credit team. There are only 3 of us left here as the rest are in HK. Haha. Oh well a minor positive thing I think.

Getting Laid

Laid-off that is. Well I escaped, but quite a few people around me were axed.

Its life at the banks, times are good and times are bad. People gotta get the axe, even though I'd say these guys were all pretty good at their jobs. I think I probably should be in line for it too, but I guess maybe I have some potential or who knows what. Longer you are there, the more they see your weaknesses, so in some regards, a 1st year guy has some edge on not getting axed over a 3rd year guy.

I will ponder it a bit.. but in the end I go w/ the flow. There are no options nowadays, as Tokyo has turned sour really quick in terms of work. I like my job and people around me, but the industry is bleeding like you would not believe. No end in sight for my company!

But.. I am pretty ambivalent about it. If I get laid off I will travel to Vietnam and goof off for 6 months or so and just do nothing but play tennis, rest, read, and relax. While its a waste of money I don't really mind nowadays. Note my spending is slightly out of control due to my travel bing this past and upcoming months.

For now doing quite well and settled.