In recent weeks, I have found myself becoming increasingly unsettled about the economic situation not just in the US, but in the world. Below is an article written by Michael Lewis (Bloomberg) in response to a letter he received from a recent college graduate and employee of a financial firm in NYC. Although it is a bit long, it is an easy read.
Lewis states that “We’re at the beginning of a recalibration of the role of finance in global economic life.” This is an interesting point and it definitely gives me a new perspective on this economic crisis. He goes on to say “ . . the same rule that applies to properly functioning financial markets applies to other markets: There’s a direct relationship between risk and reward. A fantastically rewarding career usually requires you to take fantastic risks. To get your seat at the table on Wall Street you may have passed through a fine filter, but you took no real risk. You were just being paid, briefly, as if you had.” For the most part, much of what Lewis says hits the nail on the head. He puts in words things I have thought about, but have never articulated. I’ll let you be the judge . . .
A Wall Street Job Can’t Match a Calling in Life: Michael Lewis
2008-12-10 05:03:00.0 GMT
Commentary by Michael Lewis
Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) — Recently I received a letter from a young employee of a well-known financial firm, who asked that I not mention his full name, his employer or anything else that might give him away. Though a bit short on self-pity and self-dramatization, this letter was otherwise a fine example of a sort I’ve received often these past few months.
“I am writing you for advice,” Anthony (let us call him) began. “I graduated in May of 2008 and since July have spent my time entangled in the culture of (his well-known New York bank). I’m thinking about leaving. My dad labored his whole life so I could have the opportunity to do something like this, so leaving isn’t exactly what I want to do. I know if I stay here I could work unbelievably hard and move through the ranks, or maybe move firms… (but) I guess I’m starting to question the whole securities industry.”
The young man went on to concede that what attracted him to Wall Street was the chance to get rich quickly, and the excitement — but that both of these things now seem gone forever. “So I have this plan to go to Hollywood,” he wrote, but then instantly undermined himself. “I feel confused, a little stupid, but yet somewhat confident. I mean, I read your book, I figured out how to get to Wall Street from a non-Ivy League school, and I got here. The only question now is, if I leave, where do I go?”
Let me try to help sort it out:
Dear Anthony,
On several occasions I have taken my own advice and it has almost killed me, and so I’m a tad uneasy about offering it up to you. But if you promise not to take it any more seriously than I do, I’ll answer you as best I can.
Let’s start by putting your problem into perspective: You still have a job. You work at one of the world’s biggest banks. It’s true: The thrill and money is rapidly being drained from such places. Your big bank, like all the other big banks, seems to be in the process of being nationalized — thus the longer you stay the more you may find yourself in something resembling a government job. But that’s not all bad: Government jobs are secure. You are also young, in your early 20s, and without a family to support. That is, unlike the vast majority of the people on and off Wall Street, you have the luxury to wallow in your misfortune.
Now let’s wallow. We’re at the beginning of a recalibration of the role of finance in global economic life. The excitement and the money that attracted you to Wall Street will probably not return for a long time. If these really are the only reasons you became a financier you probably should find something else to do with your life.
Hollywood Lurch
But before you go lurching into Hollywood let us make sure you aren’t simply repeating the mistake you made by lurching onto Wall Street. That is, let us focus less on your immediate condition — safely employed but disillusioned — to the habits and beliefs that led you into it.
You were never exactly wrong. If you’d been born 10 years earlier and behaved exactly as you have done, your career might well have made you as rich and seemingly successful as you imagined your father wanted you to be. You simply came to Wall Street too late, and are in the strange position of a man who won the lottery on the first day there was nothing in the pot. The mistake you made, in your view, is to have played the lottery on the wrong day. The mistake you made, in mine, was to have played the lottery at all.
There’s a question you might ask yourself: Am I looking for a job, or a calling? On the one hand the importance you attach to your career suggests a desire for a calling; on the other, your instinct to abandon your chosen career the moment it ceases to offer an easy path to fame and fortune, suggests that what you’re really in the market for is a job.
Job vs. Calling
The distinction is artificial but worth drawing. A job will never satisfy you all by itself, but it will afford you security and the chance to pursue an exciting and fulfilling life outside of your work. A calling is an activity you find so compelling that you wind up organizing your entire self around it – often to the detriment of your life outside of it.
There’s no shame in either. Each has costs and benefits. There is no reason to make a fetish of your career. There are activities other than work in which to find meaning and pleasure and even a sense of self-importance — you just need to learn how
to look.
Reading between the lines of your letter I sense that some of your anxiety is caused by your desire for the benefits of each — job and calling — without the costs. Perhaps that is what led you to Wall Street in the first place, and why your mind now turns to Hollywood.
Doing Well
What Wall Street did so well, for so long, was to give people jobs that they could pass off to themselves as well as others as callings. Such was their exalted social and financial status: Wall Street jobs made people feel special without actually having to be special. You never really had to explain why you were doing it — even if you should have.
But really, the same rule that applies to properly functioning financial markets applies to other markets: There’s a direct relationship between risk and reward. A fantastically rewarding career usually requires you to take fantastic risks. To get your seat at the table on Wall Street you may have passed through a fine filter, but you took no real risk. You were just being paid, briefly, as if you had.
So which is it: job or calling? You can answer the question directly, or allow time to answer it for you. Either way, I think you’d be happier if you stopped thinking of what the world had to offer you, and started thinking a bit more about what you had to offer the world. Real excitement isn’t just in whatever you happen to be doing, but in what you bring to it.
In the end, you have to look for it not on the outside, but on the inside. In my experience, if you find it, the other stuff will take care of itself.
(Michael Lewis, author of “Liar’s Poker,” “Moneyball,”
and “The Blind Side,” is a columnist for Bloomberg News. The
opinions he expresses are his own.)
To contact the writer of this column:
Michael Lewis at mlewis1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this column:
James Greiff at +1-212-617-5801 or jgreiff@bloomberg.net
I believe everybody that has a job right now should be happy because I know many people from Wall Street and other sectors that aren’t that lucky.
If all that attracted a person to a job is the money than I think that person chose the wrong occupation. I think the main motivation to chose a certain job should be because you like doing it, if it pays well great if not that still shouldn’t stop people of pursuing it.
I can’t imagen having to go to work everyday to do something i despise.
I agree with Michael Lewis when he says that “There’s a direct relationship between risk and reward. A fantastically rewarding career usually requires you to take fantastic risks”. Everybody has to decide for themselves if the reward is worth the risk.
I don’t necessarily believe that just because you lose a job, it was never your calling. Sometimes, it continues to be your calling; however, the timing of it all is not quite right. I had a wonderful job two years ago working with children who were abused and neglected and was fired nine months later because of my “constant inappropriate contact” with the children. Hugging them and showing them affection was just a huge no-no. Who knew I was doing anything wrong (I still don’t believe I did) to these poor kids who were thirsting for love? Because this happened, does that mean that job wasn’t a calling? It was, and still is, to me, regardless of what happened. You could fire me over and over again; if I got a job again like that, I’d continue to show those kids the affection they deserve.
To some people, having a job means making money. To others, it means making a difference in society. I find that most people, including myself, having a job means doing a bit of both. The bills aren’t going to pay themselves, so of course, money will always be an incentive. Maybe if the economy didn’t suck as much as it did, it wouldn’t have to be.
Great post with a different perspective on this situation. I agree with Sarah in that a job should be more than just your salary or wage. If that’s all you’re looking to get out of it, you’re being greedy because if a sense of accomplishment isn’t a priority, your attitude will turn sour at the first sign of trouble.
This young man graduated and took this job 7 months ago. Granted this is an exceptional career pot hole (even sink hole) to hit, you have to give the situation time to play out. It would be like going to the college you chose, and deciding you wanted to transfer the next day.
What I’m saying is that if you have no need to accomplish something other than receiving a fat paycheck, than your tolerance for rough patches is going to be very low.