Mistakes.

Today, most of the people I started university with got their final degree classifications (well done everyone!) and I had a job interview. So the buzzword for the day really has been all about careers and lives and like ... the future and stuff. You know, that massive dark cloud of uncertainty, fear and despair hanging over my entire generation?

It got me thinking about what makes a good career, a good life, and whether there is a formula for success.

Career-wise, whenever successful people and celebrities are interviewed on TV about their careers, they always seem to say that they just fell into it. ‘Lucky bastards’ I used to wail in my head. ‘Don’t be so modest; stop pretending that everything in your life was so unexpected. Give me the key, the EXACT WAY you got your EXACT LIFE.’ These days I tend to think that they were probably telling the truth. Few people do exactly what they wanted to do when they were in school. I also think that it’s a good thing there isn’t a key, because I don’t really want to be Sporty Spice any more. My 9 year old self could have fast-tracked me on to X-Factor by now … ew. 

This last year, things didn’t turn out the way I had planned. All my deliberation and reasoning around my decision to leave New York circled around the idea of thinking about not just what I want now, but what is best in the LONG RUN. Whether or not in 10 years’ time, I would look back and think that I was stupid to leave.

But I’m not sure that this is necessarily the right way to look at things. The more time that passes since I left, the smaller the event seems. As more stuff happens, that decision becomes less and less relevant to my life. I think in general, in the actual ‘long run’, things matter less. Getting over the initial hurdle of rearranging your life is a big deal, but I reckon that individual moments are, as a rule, rather insignificant in our lives. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t scrutinize and think long and hard about big decisions that we make. -Actually, yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. If it’s the best move at the time, worrying about whether it will still be the best move in ten years’ time is silly, because it ten years’ time it will be in the past. I'm so bored of second guessing my 30 year old self. That’s why left New York. And why I got a tattoo.

It’s pretty much a standard assumption that last year I made a ‘mistake’, giving up an exciting and important career opportunity. My decision has been one I’ve never publicly justified, and one I don’t defend a lot even in private. I think I need to, because I don’t regret it and I really don’t want people to think that I do, or to feel sorry for me.

I think mistakes (if you want to call them that. Although I prefer the term 'detours') are great. They make life more interesting, they make you more interesting, and they keep you on your toes. I hope I make many more. Working consistently within the realms of the reasonable, safe and practical can, I suspect, lead to more regret than a few unexpected debts or compromised living situations. I refuse to be submissive to some fictional, world-weary middle aged version of myself. One who everyone seems to be trying to convince me will be disapproving and regretful of all the irresponsible actions I make that stop me getting a respectable career. People have been warning me of her inevitable arrival since I first sat in a GCSE classroom. At what point do I begin to turn into this killjoy future-me? Probably about the same time I start answering to her.

I suppose what I’m saying is, in the wake of this imposing dark cloud, full of unemployment statistics, living wage figures, pay gaps and Ian Duncan Smith, I refuse to go corporate out of fear. 

At work on Friday, I thought about boardrooms, warzones and language

At work this week (this strange one-day week created by hurricane Sandy, throwing me all off kilter), I was logging the book reviews published in our latest magazine into the database. Our magazine is about corporate and international affairs, and is only circulated round our membership. All articles written in it therefore, are essentially for the purpose of networking. The book reviews section features publications (mostly non-fiction) written by our members: generally CEOs of large multi-nationals who somehow still manage to write books about their profession. It makes me suspicious. Either being a CEO is easier than it looks or the quality of the books is fairly bad. If you are able run a company and publish masterful business commentary on the side, you must be cutting some serious corners somewhere. (I’m sure Barack Obama shouldn’t have had the time to write that picture book.)

Having neither read any of the books featured, or planning to, I can’t give any further insight into this particular problem. In this instance, the thing that struck me most about these highly specific corporate business publications was their titles: they were all overtly war related. (The only exception to this was ‘How Excellent Companies Avoid Dumb Things’ which, judging by title only, I feel might lend some weight to my previous point about something having to give in the CEO/Author life balance to create such works. In the case of this author, time spent on creating an intelligent and poignant title clearly suffered. The one he landed on gives the impression that instead of writing a book, he just went through ‘Market Capitalism for Dummies’ and deleted out the cartoons of confused looking stick women). Some of these eponymous battleground associations included ‘The Commando Way’, ‘Courageous Counsel’ and ‘Army of Entrepreneurs’. I think this reflects a general attitude surrounding the world of business. Whether it’s in the boardroom or ‘The Devil Wears Prada’, the corporate world is constantly presented to us in combative terms: it’s a harsh, unforgiving, aggressive environment. And seeing all these titles listed on the same page in front of me really made me think about how deep the comparison goes. From every angle, business is seen like a warzone; especially at the highest international level, where extreme free-market economics is generally the ideal. Survival of the fittest. The words ‘cutthroat’ and ‘dog-eat-dog’ are savoured in the mouths of both high up executives and beginning entrepreneurs. For some reason, this language is not considered to be reflective of a dangerous or unhealthy environment, but one to be survived and therefore one reserved for the best. I don’t for a second claim to be a business expert (if you’ve read much else on this blog you will know that I profess quite the opposite), but I think this image of business is probably both unhealthy and unnecessary for modern corporations. Or for the people that have to live in the same world as them at least. 

We know that the highest corporate boardrooms are a boys club, and always hear complaints about women not being able to break the glass ceiling into the offices surrounding Wall St and St Pauls. The constant presentation of business in such an aggressive and warlike way probably has no small part in that. The high up executive positions, like in the army, are advertised to appeal to men. Combat has been presented in this way since the dawn of time. I mean we all know war is justsophallic. Impaling spears gave way to stabbing swords which were replaced with ejaculating missiles. Even the term CEO, Chief Executive Officer, evokes battle-zone vocabulary. I know ‘Officer’ has the word ‘office’ in it, but I’m sure it was an army term before it was a business term. And I’m also sure that it wasn’t lifted from combative ranks unintentionally. Even if it wasn’t a conscious decision, the connotations of the title of ‘officer’ are significant at least on a subconscious level, in conveying what the expectations of the role are, and who is going to desire it. Much like in the army, the title of Chief Executive Officer is just another way for the less physical but equally competitive men in our world to metaphorically display the size of the gun they are carrying. The only thing missing is the pervasion of an offensive, ironic, sexy-CEO Ladies’ costume, mirroring that of ‘army girl’, to make the same gender bias official.

I don’t think business needs this reputation of violence and aggression being the way to succeed. It seeps through every section of corporation until it becomes normalcy. And you only need to watch one episode of ‘The Apprentice’ to see that those aggressive qualities in isolation do not make for a good business environment. They don’t even make good T.V.

It’s a sickening culture, and language is just the tip of the iceberg. We’ve all been agreed for a while that real international war-zones are bad, and should generally be avoided where possible. Even the Prince of warmongering, George W. Bush, conceded that he thinks ‘war is a dangerous place’ (well done G). So it can’t be a positive thing for the same imagery used to make war seem appealing to filter into business vocabulary. It makes (and has made) business exclusively for ball breakers and cutthroats, it perpetuates gender-bias, and excludes potentially successful and intelligent people who don’t fancy constantly being on the attack. People who perhaps could use international commerce as a force for good. It makes the highly questionable moral decisions of the Union Carbides and the BPs of the world that much more common and acceptable. Just as morality is suspended in a battleground, so does it seem to be suspended when corporate greed is at play.

International business should not be a war-zone. And if all war could stop too that would be great. Thanks, world

Yours Sincerely,

Siobhan Palmer.

Coping Test

Thursday night was BritishAmerican Business’ Transatlantic Business Awards Dinner. An annual event at the Pierre Hotel in New York’s Upper East Side, where tables go for over 25, even 50,000 dollars; high powered businessmen drink wine and scotch, eat well, and watch four honourees accept awards for their contribution to international business relations. The whole thing is fucking swish: black tie, precision planning and the utmost professional conduct throughout. How exciting! It’s the biggest event in the BritishAmerican Business events calendar. Forewarned by my colleagues that - having never been to a black tie event of this calibre before - I would be enthralled by the precision and class of the night, I decided to use the evening as a benchmark. Perhaps being surrounded by bravado and success would finally spark my latent passion for business.

Metaphorical litmus paper having been dipped in the acid of a world class business awards dinner, I can now officially declare the evening thoroughly vom-tastic. The whole thing made me literally sick. From leaving the office at 4pm to leaving the Pierre at around 11pm, I had a slightly pukey sensation at the back of my throat. While I sat infront of my $5000 dinner, listening to some of the most powerful men in the business and financial sector making blasé comments about the state of the euro-zone, having a casual chuckle at the expense of starving Greeks, my gag reflex threatened to completely give in. In fact I would have loved nothing more than to have personally thrown up on the expensive tux of every attendee.

Getting driven from the office was very strange. Speeding down 5^th avenue in a black town car with leather seats, the driver apologizing for the state of the traffic, felt surreal.  In the end I had to close the scenario for the night (which I had had open on my knee, memorising the names and faces of the guests of honour), and get out my notebook instead. The only words I had time to scribble down before we turned on to 61^st were ‘So I quit. I don’t feel snazzy’.

My sense of unease increased when I stopped at the Pierre, and had the door opened for me by the hotel doorman, and shut behind me by my driver. Intentionally swinging my crinkled h&m plastic bag by my side for all to see, and feeling slightly rebellious, I walked inside.

I wasn’t hit by an aura of money and class when I walked in. My first reaction to the building was how antiquated it seemed. Attempts had been made to bring the tiled entrance hall and old chandeliers up to date with some abstract art on the walls, and a large wooden carving in the lobby, which I’m fairly sure was of Vishnu. I’d apologise for my potential inaccuracy, but I doubt it was positioned there with worship in mind, and I’m sure the person who bought it didn’t have much preference as to which oriental god greeted their guests, so I feel unlikely to have offended them by not being 100% sure. Given its setting, rather than looking trendy or up to date it looked, frankly, colonial.

Preparation for the night began after a quick ‘touch up’ in the ‘powder room’. I don’t think I’d ever heard anyone use that phrase without a hint of sarcasm before in my life. Everyone else seemed to know what they were doing. I slapped on some mascara, more to fit in than out of actual want, and then had nothing else to do really, so sat in the corner and watched everyone else put their faces on. Had a sandwich too. Ham. It was good. The time then came to set up the registration desks, and circle round the ballroom to make sure all the programmes were laid straight on the chairs and to straighten up after the catering staff, as apparently they can sometimes be ‘slapdash’. I got chatting to an old Spanish waiter during the sound check (‘It’s like being in the movies, no? I don’t feel like I’m at work, I feel like I’m in the theatre!’) Positive as the old guy was, rather than make me feel happy and jovial about my surroundings he just reminded me that he was being paid to be there. That sounds very very very ungrateful. And it probably is. I tried to stifle these thoughts, but being completely truthful, that was my gut reaction. His use of the word ‘movies’ and ‘theatre’ in a comical foreign accent, while wearing a white, Manuel-style waiters jacket again made the high-ceilinged ballroom, complete with columns and red curtains, feel intensely old fashioned. I wondered how long he had worked there. And whether his father or his grandfather had come to the States, from Puerto Rico, or Mexico, or Dominica. References to the euro-zone and the economic crisis aside, the whole night could just as easily have happened 60 or 90 years ago. Despite not feeling that the awards were much to be proud of, I was still irked that no women were being honoured at all.

In fact, greeting guests, I noticed very few women entered the reception at all without a male chaperone. I noticed a lot of things which I found very strange actually, for example, about half an hour after registration opened, a woman asked me if I knew of a discreet place she could change her shoes. I was flummoxed. There was a chair right behind her. She had tights on. How much discretion was needed? In fairness, she didn’t realise she was asking someone with what I must assume are lower standards than most for such proceedings. Leaving Reading Festival early one year with two split wellies, I found it necessary to sit down in the edge of the concourse at St Pancras International, get out my shoes, dry socks and baby wipes from my rucksack, and clean and dry my muddy feet before getting on the train home. I still maintain such action was preferable to squelching the length of the world’s longest champagne bar. I directed her to the restroom with the look of a confused child who’s just been asked the square root of pi.

I probably found the whole evening more absurd than it actually was, because I was thinking so hard about how to fit in, analysing and trying to identify accepted behavior with almost autistic precision. I wasn’t sure the British Ambassador, or the chairman of Standard Chartered would appreciate being welcomed to their awards dinner by a smirky girl who drops her t’s, so I tried my very best to be a refined and well-spoken New Yorker. I’m not certain how well this went. I will admit that I’m not the most comfortable of people in any sophisticated situation. I’m the one who feels uncomfortable being waited on in Pizza Hut. (‘No no, don’t worry about rectifying my order, that’s an extra walk for you … Well no I can’t drink the apple juice, but I’ll just drink from the water jug … well if you’re absolutely sure…’). No matter where I am in it, I never deal well with hierarchy. Which is why I warmed instantly to the guest in the red bow-tie who chatted openly to me and high-fived his wife when she pronounced my name right. It’s a pity he’s probably one of the men responsible in the current breakdown of the western economy. 

I’m conscious of appearing (as JP puts it in the new series of Fresh Meat) as a ‘money racist’. I mean, I was brought up knowing Margaret Thatcher to be an evil woman before I even knew who she was, and I do find it hard to put down an Irvine Welsh novel... As a Brit, I’m preoccupied with class, right? But class and money are not inextricably linked. I don’t begrudge these men their hard-earned millions. I begrudge the extra tens and hundreds of millions they made after that, by exploiting their political leverage and crippling the banking system. I begrudge their continued flippancy towards the downturn they’ve created, and their steadfast claims that it takes ‘courage’ (rather than a blind sense of entitlement) to uphold the values they extol in this current climate. When I booked my plane tickets home for Christmas, I was faced with a big banner from Virgin Atlantic: ‘Did you know you’ve just paid the highest air-tax in the world, to the British government? Make a difference, sign our petition today.’ This was news to me, and the knowledge didn’t make me feel robbed. It gave me a warm feeling of patriotism. Don’t give in to the bigwigs, Dave. If I can afford it, they can.