29th July 2010
Thank you to the colleagues who made the effort to have lunch and dinner with me the day before I left for Glasgow. After the Glasgow assignment is over, we all know that things are going to be different. Most of our job functions will move to Glasgow and who knows what's going to happen after that... but let's enjoy the moment while we're in it and living it.
It's during drinks and dinner where I learnt more about Wall Street. If America is the symbol of capitalism, NYC the symbol of US's financial capitalism and Wall Street demostrates the successfulness of it all. The 80s to 90s seem is the golden years of it all. If you were working in the right bank, you can expect a damn good salaries and bonuses. You can get a $10k pay increase by changing jobs from bank to bank. Traders opened bottles of champagne every friday at 2pm to celebrate their success. And if you were working for Goldman when it was listed, employees who were with the company for more than 5 years got a min of 200k bonus. The WTC was heartbeat of Wallstreet. Every successful firm had an office in WTC to show that you're one of the top players on Wall Street. I even asked where was it located... I wished I was working in Wall Street in the 80s and 90s. It seems like one hell of an exciting place to work and live in.
Which brings us to the sad event of Sep 11, 2001. To hear the events that unfold first hand from people who have been through it is just unreal. They saw the building collapsed, the cloud of dust that hung over NYC for days, they lost friends and people they knew on that day, they saw cars parked at the train stations for days knowing that the cars will be unclaimed because the owners have perished on that very day... so unreal.
As the Americans like to say, it is what it is. Life moves on.
It's during drinks and dinner where I learnt more about Wall Street. If America is the symbol of capitalism, NYC the symbol of US's financial capitalism and Wall Street demostrates the successfulness of it all. The 80s to 90s seem is the golden years of it all. If you were working in the right bank, you can expect a damn good salaries and bonuses. You can get a $10k pay increase by changing jobs from bank to bank. Traders opened bottles of champagne every friday at 2pm to celebrate their success. And if you were working for Goldman when it was listed, employees who were with the company for more than 5 years got a min of 200k bonus. The WTC was heartbeat of Wallstreet. Every successful firm had an office in WTC to show that you're one of the top players on Wall Street. I even asked where was it located... I wished I was working in Wall Street in the 80s and 90s. It seems like one hell of an exciting place to work and live in.
Which brings us to the sad event of Sep 11, 2001. To hear the events that unfold first hand from people who have been through it is just unreal. They saw the building collapsed, the cloud of dust that hung over NYC for days, they lost friends and people they knew on that day, they saw cars parked at the train stations for days knowing that the cars will be unclaimed because the owners have perished on that very day... so unreal.
As the Americans like to say, it is what it is. Life moves on.
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