El Español
The Espagnol from my team (my Espagnol) resigned today. I was in shock. In my head, I was running round and round like a headless chicken repeating: he's leaving he's leaving he's leaving he's leaving he's leaving. I couldn't deal. Repeating in my head like a broken recorder was the only way I could come to terms with it, the only way my mind could grasp it.
How could he?
I had expected to be the first to leave. I had started making New York noises since March. I'd announced it early on to secure my departure. I'd wanted to be the first to leave. Because, as I'd said before, I'd much rather leave behind than be left behind. I hate the kind of goodbyes where I'm standing on the platform watching the train pull out of the station. And I form attachments mutely and easily. El Español, la Française, de Nederlanders, and me were the four musketeers. Four pillars of our team. Excluding the VPs and above, us four warriors have been the longest standing members of our team. All the other more junior or mid-level people had been hired in over the past year. We'd seen people come and go, and still we held on, had each other. Four legs of a stool. Now one has gone. A four-legged stool cannot stand on three legs.
Dutch boy and I thought that he and I would both leave, but that the Español and the Française would stay on. How smug we were, to think we'd be the first to leave. How unprepared I was to hear the news. I was dazed, my eyes were glazed over, and I had to repeat: "one two breathe, that's right.. it's no big deal. life goes on. people leave all the time. it's the industry." (IT'S NOT! BUT WE'RE DIFFERENT! HE CAN'T LEAVE!)
I had thought I would be saddest if Dutch boy left, and I asked him to please give me forewarning if he was planning to leave. I didn't really think there was a serious threat of the others leaving. But apparently, it matters more than I thought it would. I have lost all of what little motivation I have left (and I have been demotivated for quite some time). I finally cornered the head of my team today and followed up on my NY rotation: there's a space in the specific team I want, they've lost an analyst, I really want to go, between NY and the specific product group I want to go to, I want NY. I tell him that the latest I want to leave by is March. But the next time I see him, maybe I should tell him I want to leave as soon as possible.
It feels somehow like there is nothing left for me in London. My heart is cold and London feels dead. Most of my London friends have left. I've been here five years. I've seen the shape of my team change so much.. I'm exhausted by the number of people who have come in, and come in above me. And so many of my peers have left. We're bleeding to death. And of my lunch buddies from my first year, only J and I remain, and we are barely on speaking terms anymore.
I'm feeling increasingly desperate. There's a rising sense of hysteria within that I struggle to control. It's the akin to the feeling I had years ago when I felt I had to leave Singapore or my soul would shrivel and die. The thought of remaining stuck in Singapore had caused darkness in my mind, and kept me paralysed in bed for one whole afternoon.
El Español leaving is bad enough. I get the edgy feeling like de Nederlanders might leave too. And if even he leaves, then my world as I know it will collapse. This time not because it's specifically him I miss. But because... the truth is, I work, not only for money. I have stayed on, not only for the money, nor for the job satisfaction, and not entirely because of my deeply-held principle that one should stay in one's first job for a minimum of two years... but also because of love. I am deeply fond of the people in my team. And, as the shape of the team evolved, and my relationship with my favourite boss faded, I clung on ever more to bond that we four shared, one of mutual respect, affection, and a survival of two years of our special brand of heaven and hell.
Dutch boy said we have been coddled. Our team is our cushion. It is comfortable. And the easy thing to do would be to stay on. Our team know us and like us. And the people in our year especially have been phenomenal. "I can't imagine the past two years without any of (the four of) us. Can you?" The truth is, no, I can't. In the cut throat investment banking world of posers, political, show-off, materialistic, pushy people, the four of us were probably as intelligent, capable, unpolitical, sincere, and real a group of people as anyone can hope to get. The seniors in our team have always said that we've been lucky to get all four of us who are capable in our team (which is why the competition is also always tough). And it is true. It is true, life would have been very different even without one of us. We'd survived all the additions as one by one the team hired and hired and hired. We'd get increasingly frustrated, disenfrenchised and demotivated as each person was added on. And we'd go: fuck! together, commiserate and bitch about it together, agree that it was increasingly pointless for us all to stay together, we all thought the team was getting too big, and the solution was a hiring freeze or that people need to be fired. We held the same beliefs. But through it all, we collectively held on, stayed on a little bit longer, I like to think because we realised we had something special. I can't imagine another team with as strong a camaderie as ours, especially in one batch.
I wanted to cry. My Español, the first Español I've ever known, is leaving. De Nederlanders, is the first and only Dutch person I know (except for one other Dutch colleague I don't speak to often). And la Française, is the first French girl I know well. In that way, they are all my first loves.
This is the end of an era.
How could he?
I had expected to be the first to leave. I had started making New York noises since March. I'd announced it early on to secure my departure. I'd wanted to be the first to leave. Because, as I'd said before, I'd much rather leave behind than be left behind. I hate the kind of goodbyes where I'm standing on the platform watching the train pull out of the station. And I form attachments mutely and easily. El Español, la Française, de Nederlanders, and me were the four musketeers. Four pillars of our team. Excluding the VPs and above, us four warriors have been the longest standing members of our team. All the other more junior or mid-level people had been hired in over the past year. We'd seen people come and go, and still we held on, had each other. Four legs of a stool. Now one has gone. A four-legged stool cannot stand on three legs.
Dutch boy and I thought that he and I would both leave, but that the Español and the Française would stay on. How smug we were, to think we'd be the first to leave. How unprepared I was to hear the news. I was dazed, my eyes were glazed over, and I had to repeat: "one two breathe, that's right.. it's no big deal. life goes on. people leave all the time. it's the industry." (IT'S NOT! BUT WE'RE DIFFERENT! HE CAN'T LEAVE!)
I had thought I would be saddest if Dutch boy left, and I asked him to please give me forewarning if he was planning to leave. I didn't really think there was a serious threat of the others leaving. But apparently, it matters more than I thought it would. I have lost all of what little motivation I have left (and I have been demotivated for quite some time). I finally cornered the head of my team today and followed up on my NY rotation: there's a space in the specific team I want, they've lost an analyst, I really want to go, between NY and the specific product group I want to go to, I want NY. I tell him that the latest I want to leave by is March. But the next time I see him, maybe I should tell him I want to leave as soon as possible.
It feels somehow like there is nothing left for me in London. My heart is cold and London feels dead. Most of my London friends have left. I've been here five years. I've seen the shape of my team change so much.. I'm exhausted by the number of people who have come in, and come in above me. And so many of my peers have left. We're bleeding to death. And of my lunch buddies from my first year, only J and I remain, and we are barely on speaking terms anymore.
I'm feeling increasingly desperate. There's a rising sense of hysteria within that I struggle to control. It's the akin to the feeling I had years ago when I felt I had to leave Singapore or my soul would shrivel and die. The thought of remaining stuck in Singapore had caused darkness in my mind, and kept me paralysed in bed for one whole afternoon.
El Español leaving is bad enough. I get the edgy feeling like de Nederlanders might leave too. And if even he leaves, then my world as I know it will collapse. This time not because it's specifically him I miss. But because... the truth is, I work, not only for money. I have stayed on, not only for the money, nor for the job satisfaction, and not entirely because of my deeply-held principle that one should stay in one's first job for a minimum of two years... but also because of love. I am deeply fond of the people in my team. And, as the shape of the team evolved, and my relationship with my favourite boss faded, I clung on ever more to bond that we four shared, one of mutual respect, affection, and a survival of two years of our special brand of heaven and hell.
Dutch boy said we have been coddled. Our team is our cushion. It is comfortable. And the easy thing to do would be to stay on. Our team know us and like us. And the people in our year especially have been phenomenal. "I can't imagine the past two years without any of (the four of) us. Can you?" The truth is, no, I can't. In the cut throat investment banking world of posers, political, show-off, materialistic, pushy people, the four of us were probably as intelligent, capable, unpolitical, sincere, and real a group of people as anyone can hope to get. The seniors in our team have always said that we've been lucky to get all four of us who are capable in our team (which is why the competition is also always tough). And it is true. It is true, life would have been very different even without one of us. We'd survived all the additions as one by one the team hired and hired and hired. We'd get increasingly frustrated, disenfrenchised and demotivated as each person was added on. And we'd go: fuck! together, commiserate and bitch about it together, agree that it was increasingly pointless for us all to stay together, we all thought the team was getting too big, and the solution was a hiring freeze or that people need to be fired. We held the same beliefs. But through it all, we collectively held on, stayed on a little bit longer, I like to think because we realised we had something special. I can't imagine another team with as strong a camaderie as ours, especially in one batch.
I wanted to cry. My Español, the first Español I've ever known, is leaving. De Nederlanders, is the first and only Dutch person I know (except for one other Dutch colleague I don't speak to often). And la Française, is the first French girl I know well. In that way, they are all my first loves.
This is the end of an era.
