Love in the Age of World Domination

A Slacker's Guide

Remember that French woman who wrote that book advocating laziness at work, which created quite a sensation a while back. The one that reads a bit like the Communist Manifesto, except replace "proleteriat" with "managers". It tells them to rise up and throw out their laptops, organigrams and mission statements.

I don’t know why I am thinking of her today. Probably because I have a major work trip to plan, a 40 slide power point to prepare, an intern to hire, an analyst to interview, and a major publication that needs final review. All of which is making me… surf the internet. So anyway, here are some of the rules from that book:

No. 1: It's pointless to try to change the system. Instead, sit back and enjoy the ride, and amass as many influential friends as possible.

No. 2: What you do is also pointless. You can be replaced from one day to the next by any cretin sitting next to you.

No. 3: So work as little as possible, and spend time having lots of coffee cultivating a strong personal network so that you're untouchable if anything were to happen.

No. 4: You're not judged on merit, but on whether you look and sound the part. Speak lots of leaden jargon, and generally sound confident like you know your stuff.

No. 5: Be nice to people on short-term contracts. They are the only people who do any real work.

No. 6: Learn to identify kindred spirits who, like you, believe the system is absurd through discreet signs (quirks in clothing, peculiar jokes, funny smiles).

And here's the most important thing I have learnt: go for a job in an area like strategy or business development, where it is impossible to assess your 'contribution' or measure results. Your responsibility is to make it sound like strategy is what the most intelligent people do. You see I have enjoyed spending these last 9 months in hard core research, but thats serious work.. like you have to constantly check your facts. Say accurate things. Like, who wants to have to do that?

Nice to Know my $100K was Well Spent

So apparently the best and the brightest don't bother with business school anymore. Because well, the highest paying finance jobs in hedge funds and private equity don't really require it.

Not that we didn't know that. Hedge funds and PE firms always went for the quant jocks, the PhDs in stats, over the more generalist MBA. Math and science was always preferred among this little coterie of uber-nerds.
What is new today, however, is that the $350-500K a year that these guys make is inflating the pre-MBA salaries of the competition at regular investment firms, to the point that the latter group don't see the value of going to B-school either.

And so the most talented young people at these places make so much money today that they don’t want to take two years off for business school, "even if it’s a prestigious institution like Wharton or Harvard."

Ouch. Really lovely to learn, and couldn't have come at a better time, because finally after 3 years, I just wrote a check for $108,000 paying off my b-school debt. By the way, there is something incredibly surreal about writing such a check. I kept thinking - really? like, seriously? Do I have to do this? Can't I just spent this money on a year long cruise to the tip of Africa?

I've got to say though, what I got out of my MBA wasn't really a lucrative job at a Bank (that was never the goal). It was more the experience of multi-tasking, learning teams, leadership activities, and essentially two years with highly ambitious and competitive people, some of whom I hope rubbed off on me and made me more, um, serious? :) And even though at the time I kicked and screamed, I am eternally grateful that I now have some basic finance skills. Its always useful in life, whether you are buying a house or making some other investment, to understand cash-flows.

The other thing one gets is instant credibility. Anytime I have used the Wharton name, questions of knowledge and experience are immediately dropped. To be honest it can be a tad distressing, for people suddenly expect you to know what you are talking about.. and, well, that makes me very uncomfortable.

BTW Wharton is SO much better than Harvard. At least people graduate knowing how to add two plus two and get four... yes even me.

Leaving the World Bank + New Job

They say the horizon is only as far as you can see. When you get there, you see a new road and a new horizon in front of you. Must be true because I feel like I just came around another corner of my life.

Last week, after almost three years, I left the World Bank. I am moving on to new challenges in climate change and alternative energy work, so I am psyched, but I am seriously sad to leave the World Bank, my first job post-MBA. I have gotten to know some very brainy and accomplished people at the Bank, whose ideas, hearts, and minds I will miss. I will miss the Community Development Carbon Fund, the next-to-impossible projects we worked on from Guinea to Mongolia to Nepal, as well as my cool-headed clued-in boss.

The 'new horizon' is called the World Resources Institute. They recruited me as a Senior Associate into their Climate Team about two weeks ago, it all happened very suddenly, what can I say... the Universe conspires and moves in mysterious ways.

The reason why I am interested in this job, enough to leave the great (and by that mean the awesome lifestyle :) of the World Bank are threefold. First, the position is within the Capital Markets team at WRI, and it involves the financial aspects of bringing clean technologies to market. And well thats right up my alley. A HUGE part of the equation in solving the climate problem is getting the capital flowing from big iBanks and Silicon Valley VCs into the clean tech firms that have the technology. 99% of alternative energy sources and clean technologies that we need are there today, but deployment of it at scale needs a lot of $$$. 

I am also psyched because I will be working on the big picture, in particular in America. At the World Bank, I worked primarily on a small part of that big picture - carbon offsets under an international agreement - Kyoto. However, CDM is only a small part (11%) of the carbon market, and the 'carbon market' i(ie. cap and trade) itself is only one possible solution out of a broad gamut of solutions. Voluntary restraints, national legislation, and a carton tax are some of the others. And of course, the critical player without whom no solution is worth the name, is the United States. Therefore, I find climate work that concentrates on the US agenda uber-relevant, especially right now, what with 3 Bills before the new Democratic Congress.

But seriously people. This is, umm, like, serious. Except for George Bush, I think everyone has now got the memo (IPCC AR4) that the scientific debate on climate change is settled - ie. its real, its here, and its man-made. There is currently momentum, like never before, behind doing something about it.  Richard Branson offered $25 million for a carbon sequestration technology, Tony Blair is leading a Global Legislators Forum on it, and Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth won an Oscar.

But its when the private equity firms get in on it that you know  for sure that things are 'heating up' :)
You don't want to miss this train when it leaves the station.

Is a Job Really Necessary?

Seriously? Do I have to? I mean there's got to be a better way to generate income..

Many people of my generation, compared to previous generations, go down non-conventional career paths, and by that I mean anything that does not involve getting up in the morning and going to an office building and becoming a cog in the wheel of a larger operation for a monthly paycheck. I am also excluding doctors and lawyers. I am talking about the number of people today who are writers, comedians, actors, yoga instructors, music teachers, landscape artists, chefs, art gallery owners, and real estate investors. They are doing what they love. Maybe this trend will continue and eventually nobody will work for anyone else but will find smart ways to directly reap the benefits of their own labor and talent without passing through the "middleman" organization.

People always say "but a regular job provides security!" I don't know. Does it? When you work for someone else, no matter what the circumstances, ultimately your professional growth and general welfare is in that person's hands. You are at the mercy of your manager/boss/horrible HR person. They can fire you, demote you, be mean to you, not pay you, and you have zero power. By the way what is up with people in HR? Have you ever met anyone nice who works in HR?

Second, you only get compensated for part of the value you create. When an employer calculates a salary package they include not just benefits but also things like office space, heating, supplies etc. I read somewhere that at least 30% of your hard earned income goes to subsidise the building and pay managers. Big shot employers like investment banks will tell you that you amount to very little in the market without the brand of your company behind you. As a certified brand junkie, trust me I know. But the truth is that you pay for that. And for the paper clips and staplers.

Third, you are a slave - maybe a well paid one in extremely prestigious surroundings - but a modern day slave nonetheless. And since you are part of the system you are obliged to sing its praises and say things like "my organization is the best widget making facility in the world ever" or equivalent.  And you are constantly under pressure to let people know that you are NOT in fact a wage slave but a liberated highly-paid professional basking in success and lovin' every minute of it.

So, all else being equal I would take independence of thought and action over job security any day. But all else is not equal. What if you are lazy like me, and you attach a premium to taking the path of least resistance? Then the trade-off between working for yourself where you can never 'leave work' and having a boss and a team, and a support network is kind of cool. So thats why I prefer to go the 'job route' for now (and more that later..).

But whats your excuse?

Seriously? Do I have to? I mean there's got to be a better way to generate income..

Many people of my generation, compared to previous generations, go down non-conventional career paths, and by that I mean anything that does not involve getting up in the morning and going to an office building and becoming a cog in the wheel of a larger operation for a monthly paycheck. I am also excluding doctors and lawyers. I am talking about the number of people today who are writers, comedians, actors, yoga instructors, music teachers, landscape artists, chefs, art gallery owners, and real estate investors. They are doing what they love. Maybe this trend will continue and eventually nobody will work for anyone else but will find smart ways to directly reap the benefits of their own labor and talent without passing through the "middleman" organization.

People always say "but a regular job provides security!" I don't know. Does it? When you work for someone else, no matter what the circumstances, ultimately your professional growth and general welfare is in that person's hands. You are at the mercy of your manager/boss/horrible HR person. They can fire you, demote you, be mean to you, not pay you, and you have zero power. By the way what is up with people in HR? Have you ever met anyone nice who works in HR?

Second, you only get compensated for part of the value you create. When an employer calculates a salary package they include not just benefits but also things like office space, heating, supplies etc. I read somewhere that at least 30% of your hard earned income goes to subsidise the building and pay managers. Big shot employers like investment banks will tell you that you amount to very little in the market without the brand of your company behind you. As a certified brand junkie, trust me I know. But the truth is that you pay for that. And for the paper clips and staplers.

Third, you are a slave - maybe a well paid one in extremely prestigious surroundings - but a modern day slave nonetheless. And since you are part of the system you are obliged to sing its praises and say things like "my organization is the best widget making facility in the world ever" or equivalent.  And you are constantly under pressure to let people know that you are NOT in fact a wage slave but a liberated highly-paid professional basking in success and lovin' every minute of it.

So, all else being equal I would take independence of thought and action over job security any day. But all else is not equal. What if you are lazy like me, and you attach a premium to taking the path of least resistance? Then the trade-off between working for yourself where you can never 'leave work' and having a boss and a team, and a support network is kind of cool. So thats why I prefer to go the 'job route' for now (and more that later..).

But whats your excuse?

Generation X Job Angst

When Douglas Coupland wrote the book that crafted the term, he described his Gen X characters as "overeducated, underemployed, unpredictable", he must have been thinking of me.. or rather what I would become.

I am getting close to completing 3 years at the World Bank, and well...  3 years is usually when I get the urge to up and move on to "something else."  I am thinking about a job change (thankfully not a total career change this time - I do want to continue in the clean energy field)  but I'd like to be around new ideas, new people, a new environment. Somewhere stimulating, doing something relatively creative like bringing clean/green technology to commercial scale, now that there is so much interest in that.

This is a typical Gen X type of move. Never holding a job for too long, always looking to the horizon for cooler challenges, searching for the Next New Thing.

The children of baby boomers, Generation X is losely defined as those born between 1965 and 1978, basically anyone who grew up on MTV, Madonna, and Melrose Place, and who was in their 20s some time during the 1990s. [NB: if you are in your 20s now, then you are part of Generation Y, the younger siblings of the Xers who grew up on computer games, the internet and Friends.]

Things have never been as clear cut for us as for our parents. Our parent's generation aspired to go to university and become successful professionals. For my generation, they need to try out a few things, travel, go to grad school, co-found a startup company, have an IPO, retire at 35, and spend the rest of their lives doing something that is their "heart's passion". In any event we have found that traditional paths to success - hard work, and saving for a rainy day - don't work any more. The world today is far more competitive.

Even religion is more complicated for us. All my friends are either downright anti-religious or believe in a more spiritual "higher power". Hardly anyone still goes to a traditional church. We studied the Cold War at school but then watched the Communist collapse and the emergence of the American superpower. Our generation is the first to go beyond the traditional family model, to consider divorce as a norm, to support gay rights. We have had to question and weigh many more issues and ascertain the truth for ourselves. There is no one - not parents, nor church, nor community - telling us 'this is right' and 'this is wrong'. 

Our expectations are also higher. We were told that we could be anything we wanted. That we could Have It All - the career, the marriage, the kids, and me-time for a yoga class. Just as long as we believed in ourselves and passionately pursued our interests.

The choices I have today are dizzying, and I am truly grateful to be living in this era in this country - but sometimes I yearn for simpler times. A time when a 'respectable job' was good enough. A time when there would be no question of leaving a place like the World Bank. A time when decisions were made for me. And I didn't have to bother my pretty little head with all this thinking.

On Being Honest at Work

Recently we had a work retreat - you know one of those touchy feel-ly team building things - where you can play endless rounds of Buzzword (BS) Bingo and win a couple of rows before the 2nd presentation is over. My favorites are synergy, leverage, paradigm, and building trust.

Employees are also often asked to "speak their mind". Now, I find this whole business of speaking one's mind at work puzzling. What exactly does that mean? Have you ever said to your boss, "that is a totally stupid idea!" NO. I didn't think so.  As long as you are not heading your daddy's company, as long as you work for someone else and there is a paycheck involved, the set-up by definition does not allow you to 'speak your mind' or 'be yourself'. Most people will say - that is a great idea Boss , I applaud your leadership, please let me know how I can help you, you have incredible vision, I am overjoyed that I am part of this team bla bla.. 

Isn't it perfectly obvious that there is a basic conflict of interest? Its like the parents of a teenager asking the kid to be honest with them about a raucous party last night, just before deciding on his allowance. Whats more, being given the illusion that you can actually say what you are thinking under such duress is misleading and sadistic.

The evil twin of speaking your mind (SYM) is thinking outside the box (TOB). TOB is the single biggest management crock in the history of work. The thing that holds organizational structures together is conformism and respect for hierarchy, not creative spark. NEVER EVER think outside the box at work. TOB is threatening to your team, and too much of TOBing will land you in hot water and accusations of being difficult. How many times has it happened that you pursue a brilliant "out of the box"  idea only to be told that you are not a team player.

To which, if you really want to be honest, you'd reply "there may be no I in Team but there are two in Idiot".

Go on. I dare ya. 

Prestige Addict

Paul Graham's article really made me think.

It is true that in high school / undergrad I had no clue. I wanted to be a lawyer, because well a) it looked cool on TV and b) it sounded like the sort of career an 'ambitious studious Asian girl' would sign up for. Trouble is, I was neither studious nor ambitious. The former was obvious from undergrad days when I spent more time falling off bar stools and nursing hangovers than in class studying Plaintiff Remedies for Breach of Contract. The latter took longer to figure out. It was post several banking stints and an MBA that eventually it dawned on me that the idea of ambition appeals to me far more than the actual behaviors required from an ambitious person (for example, hard worker, early riser, diligent).

Luckily, money was never a major distracting factor and neither were parents. My father’s ambitions for me alternated between school teacher with long vacations raising kids in the idyllic Swiss countryside, and professional working at the UN with long vacations raising kids in the idyllic Swiss countryside.

On the other hand prestige (as Graham writes so articulately about) certainly was a factor. Law, Finance, Wall Street, Lehman, Wharton- I fell in love with the sound of those words. How they roll off my tongue, how people's heads perk up when they hear them. I was caught up in the image of lawyers and bankers in their sleek dark suits and designer eye wear, how grownup they sound when they talk about the ‘long hours’ they put in at their ‘important jobs’. I also wanted to talk that talk. So I applied, interviewed, kicked ass, and got myself those jobs. But when it came to actually doing the work, "putting in the long hours", I was like "uh excuse me- do I look like the kind of person who puts in long hours at anything other than browsing the profiles on Myspace? Umm.. NO."

I was unhappy. But the cause of the discontentedness and restlessness was always someone else's fault. The bad boss. The jealous colleague. It never occurred to me that at a very fundamental level, I was not interested. it just wasn't my thing. Its like there was a complete disconnect in my brain between what I aspired to (a hard core, conventional career, measurable successes) and what I genuinely enjoyed (unconventional work like magazine article writing, cooking, and on a good day some of the cooler poverty and alternative energy projects I now work on at the World Bank).

Ultimately its the difference between doing something that looks good and something that feels good. It is not always an easy choice. Outside influences assail me from all angles. I am a big sucker for prestigious things - making an impression - great accomplishment. Which is all fine and well. But for a person like me who is naturally built for comfort, not achievement, I have to face up to facts. I ain't ever going to wake up at 6am for anything other than the death of a parent.

How to Do What you Love

But if you are not interested in making money, you could try "doing what you love". But what does that even mean? Well I have just read an absolutely excellent article that explains it perfectly. If there is nothing else you read today, read this. Courtesy of Paul Graham here are a few excepts:

• Doing what you love is complicated. The very idea is foreign to what most of us learn as kids. When I was a kid, life had two states: some of the time adults were making you do things, and that was called work; the rest of the time you could do what you wanted, and that was called playing.
  
• Even in college you get little idea what various types of work are like. It's wise, early on, to seek jobs that let you do many different things, so you can learn faster what various kinds of work are like. If you work hard at being a bond trader for ten years, thinking that you'll quit and write novels when you have enough money, what happens when you quit and then discover that you don't actually like writing novels?
  
• A friend of mine who is a quite successful doctor complains constantly about her job. In high school she already wanted to be a doctor. And she is so ambitious and determined that she overcame every obstacle along the way-- including, unfortunately, not liking it. Now she has a life chosen for her by a high-school kid.
  
• To be happy I think you have to be doing something you not only enjoy, but admire. You have to be able to say, at the end, wow, that's pretty cool. This doesn't mean you have to make something. If you learn how to hang glide, or to speak a foreign language fluently, that will be enough to make you say, for a while at least, wow, that's pretty cool.
  
• The test of whether people love what they do is whether they'd do it even if they weren't paid for it.. even if they had to work at another job to make a living. How many corporate lawyers would do their current work if they had to do it for free, in their spare time, and take day jobs as waiters to support themselves?
  
• You shouldn't worry about prestige. Prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you'd like to like. Prestige is especially dangerous to the ambitious. If you want to make ambitious people waste their time, the way to do it is to bait the hook with prestige. It might be a good rule simply to avoid any prestigious task. If it didn't suck, they wouldn't have had to make it prestigious.
  
• The other big force leading people astray is money. Money by itself is not that dangerous. When something pays well but is regarded with contempt, like telemarketing or prostitution, ambitious people aren't tempted by it. The danger is when money is combined with prestige, as in, say, corporate law, or medicine. A comparatively safe and prosperous career with some automatic baseline prestige is dangerously tempting to someone who hasn't thought much about what they really like.
  
• The advice of parents will tend to err on the side of money. Parents tend to be more conservative for their kids than they would for themselves, simply because, as parents, they share risks more than rewards. If your eight year old son decides to climb a tall tree, or your teenage daughter decides to date the local bad boy, you won't get a share in the excitement, but if your son falls, or your daughter gets pregnant, you'll have to deal with the consequences.
  
• If you know you can love work, you're in the home stretch, and if you know what work you love, you're practically there.

How to Make Money

If you are trying to decided what to study in college or grad school, or a professional thinking of a new career, and money is an important factor, you'd want some guidance on what makes $$ these days.

You see, wealth and income earning in most countries is concentrated. The top 1% will hold or earn anywhere between 20-50% of it. So if you want to be in that top 1%, follow the rules of thumb below that I have summarized from the full article here: 

• Don't study African feminism, Bulgarian poetry, or anything wishy washy like that, that does not lead to hands-on practical skills.
• Study things that can be used to provide services to people - law, medicine, accounting, engineering - anything that helps other people become healthy, wealthy, or solve their problems.
• Don't become a civil servant or take any job where the salary is capped (unless its one with a lot of power and mega networking potential- ex. a US Senator).
• Wall Street is good. Finance is the ultimate gig - there's lots of cash 'sloshing through' and grabbing even a tiny part of it can be big bucks for one inidividual cog in the wheel.
• Manage/trade wealthy people's money (I've done this) - its mind numbingly easy and it pays well - if you don't mind the fact that its void of any intellectual challenge and that you are a total parasite, adding no real value what-so-ever.
• Learn skills in designing things, making stuff, or understanding mortgages, wills, and stock options. Go get that MBA.

Now, mind you this is only if money is your primary interest. If you have other more esoteric goals, all bets are off. The above is not necessarily a prescription for intellectual curiosity, honing creative talent, or spiritual growth. its simply relevant advice if financial success is important to you.

Working Almost as Hard as You Are

I love my job. By that I mean I love my job-lifestyle. I work from 9.20am to 7.00pm, my office has plants and pictures, my colleagues are kind intellectuals who ponder about the issues of the world, and most importantly I have plenty of time to see my friends every day (!), and write on my blog every day, and go to a yoga/gym class also every day if I wanted to, but alas I opt for the starbucks and chocolate chip cookie each time.

Well, I must have looked altogether too comfortable, because I have just been handed a whole additional set of tasks. Which is.. surprisingly turning out to be rather enjoyable, Its financial due diligence on our carbon projects, which is easy because we only buy the carbon, we don't make any capital investments in the underlying project, so we are not taking any major financial risk, so I only have to check a few numbers here and there.. I like numbers. Its a change from words. Words are local. Numbers are foreign. Like taking a trip somewhere and having to figure it out. How do you calculate ROIC again? And how is that different from ROE? Wait where are my MBA notes? I know kept this stuff nicely filed somewhere, knowing even back then when I didn't pay attention in class, that what I was paying for was the reference material that I could consult  years down the road.

In other news, we are having an actual meltdown here in the Northeast of the US. DC temperatures are over 100C and unabating. To say its "a beautiful, hot, summer in the city" is an understatement. I am spending most of my time indoors in the cool AC of the myriad bookstores around Dupont Circle reading about how to set up an Ebay business selling something from Sri Lanka - I don't know what yet - I have asked our Man in Colombo to look into it.

Gutenmorgen von Köln!

Well hello from the heart of the Rhineland (Germany).

This is a totally charming little city (alot like old town Geneva) - very quaint, sunny terraces, chic in an old-money-Euro-trash sort of way. There is a breathtaking famous cathedral in the town square, 5 feet from my hotel. The first thing I did when I got here was to go in and light some candles etc.. Then I had a latte at Starbucks, pondered on how lucky am I to have this experience, and went to sleep for 4 hours.

I am here on work, for Carbon Expo, the industry event held in Cologne each year. I am supposed to cover a bunch of press events and write things up.  BUT.. that is before....

Mr. and Mrs we-are-so-unemployed (on their way to Amsterdam from Geneva) just wroooooomed up in the batmobile.  BTW did I mention that M is no longer allowed to drive in France because he almost got thrown in jail for driving at approx. 200 kmph.

M&S got a room in the same hotel, which is beyond cool. We are going to take showers now and go eat Sauerkraut and sausages by the Rhine.

Electri-fused

Why would anyone be so cruel as to conceive of something like this?

The baseline is the kWh produced by the generating unit multiplied by emission coefficient (measured in kg CO2equ/kWh) calculated by taking the average of the operating margin and the build margin where: (i) The operating margin is the weighted average emissions in kg CO2equ/kWh) of all generating sources serving the system, excluding hydro,geothermal, wind, low-cost biomass, nuclear and solar generation; and (ii) The build margin is the weighted average emissions in kg CO2equ/kWh) of recent capacity additions to the system, which capacity additions are defined as the greater (in MWh) of most recent 20% of existing plants or the 5 most recent plants.

Eeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwww. I don't know why people have to make things so inaccessible. But to bring this mumbo jumbo down to earth, all this is really saying is: the baseline is the current scenario; the project scenario (some alternative clean energy source that replaces coal or oil) will lead to less CO2 emissions. The difference between the baseline emissions and the project emissions are the emissions reductions (ERs). These ERs are an asset and is currently sold to rich country buyers for about $10 per ton. There. Got it? Wanna read more?