It never stops...

Today one of my good friends left the bank. He was a junior, from Stanford, joined 1 year after me, into structuring, same as I. He's a French Jew - and that was really cool since I learned a lot about the culture of not just France but Israel - and learned a few foreign words. Like "mazal tov" which means congratulations.

We never got really close - somehow I always have this barrier up with colleagues - for the whole year that we were in the same team. It was fun, sure, but I never really considered him a close friend. But then I left structuring to join trading, and when things got really bad with the takeover of our bank, we turned to each other for support. We never did much together, perhaps played a few football matches, watched a couple of movies, knocked down a few pints, and I tried my best to be a "wingman" for him one particular party...

He's a really smart, funny and capable guy... the kinda guy you think would be arrogant and ambitious... but the odd thing is he told me some time ago he really respected me. I know, odd right?

The unlucky thing for him was that his boss, soon after the takeover about 18 months ago, moved to another team and he was stuck in limbo doing nothing for like 6 months. Two of his team of three were cut very early on. He got "absorbed" into another team but he couldn't manage to integrate himself with the guys who he viewed as sub-standard. He was like an outcast. As time went by he felt he was wasting himself away... and slowly began to wish he was made redundant so he can escape from such agony...

But I'm selfish. I didn't want him to go. He shared laughs with me...

He's happy to go... but I'm so upset.

The big boss who recruited me to the bank almost 4 years ago has also been made redundant. My boss was asked to leave the day before. And now my friend.

Fuck.

Ubuntu

I was spending a lot of time playing around with Ubuntu trying to get it set up the way I like it. I have a logitech keyboard and mouse and use a lot of the extra buttons on the keyboard and mouse for shortcuts and stuff. Took a bit of learning to get to what I wanted but finally I think I'm happy with the end result. All the programs I usually use works - except for Skype that doesn't have compatibility with my webcam on my 64bit OS. Its a really specific bug (only 64bit systems with that webcam with skype) so I doubt anyone would fix the problem... so I would still have to use windows to skype... But mostly I'm really happy with Ubuntu.

Many cool visual stuff too. First there are more workspaces (like multiple screens... you can drag stuff off the screen into another workspace and the whole screen kinda flips into the new workspace) and then there's other stuff like an "expose" feature that allows you to zoom out and see all 4 of my webspaces (default is 2). Or you can enable this cube thing that allows you to see all 4 webspaces rolled around a cube. Or like in windows vista when u press the windows-tab key and you see a preview of the windows open in 3D mode - ubuntu has that too. Cool effects like when u drag a window, the window actually squishes and distorts as you drag it so u really feel like your dragging a real object. awesome stuff man. And the transparency stuff is uber fantastic too. Check out the screenshot.

Ok i'm hungry.. gotta go..

Frankly speaking

Thursday, my boss wore a tie and a suit. He doesn't usually do that so it was very unusual. Turns out he just had his meeting (I call it the exit interview) with HR, and was put "at risk of redundancy" (we all know it really means retrenchment). As mentioned in an earlier post, he had already decided to leave, so it was no surprise. But still it was a very sad day for me.

A few reasons why I'm upset. He's a really good guy. He's one of the last remaining people from my original bank before the takeover. He thinks highly of me. There is no-one now to fend for me. I'm like a little fish in an ocean - exposed to sharks and other predators.

That evening, he offered to drive me home (since he lives about 5mins drive away from me). After more than a year of working with him, I finally had a very frank conversation. I asked him questions like, "how do you decide who leaves?". He says usually the weakest leaves. I asked, "how did you decide on X?" (X is one other colleague who works for him and had to go.) He said that it was between X and Y and X hasn't had a lot of work to do. Then he reassured me that I really had nothing to worry about.

I asked him also about Z, this guy that doesn't really do much, who's a lot more senior than me. Unsure of how my boss would feel, I phrased it carefully... "What about Z? I don't know what he does." His reply was so damn straight... "Z? He fckin pisses me off man. I told N (his boss) that we should get rid of him, but he's too good friends with N. They were saying that they needed more senior people, especially if I'm leaving." Wow. I wouldn't have expected to hear something like that.

Sigh... All good things will come to an end. Its time to move on...

Computer issues

- Windows gave me the black desktop and a little (ok, actually a pretty big one) notification that "I may be a victim of counterfeiting".. Seriously, I have absolutely no idea how my copy of Windows isn't genuine... But I was fcking pissed off that they offered me a copy for 99 pounds (wtf man, winXP is almost obsolete and I can get it off the shelf for way less than that). I have decided to switch to Ubuntu. Haven't installed it yet, because...

- My fckn LAN connection died. No idea how or why. Just one morning, for no apparent reason, I couldn't see my network connection anymore. I'm using my laptop now, in case you're wondering. And I bought a LAN card. Hopefully that will work.

On the work front - business is slowly picking up and I'm getting busier. Which is good cause it keeps my mind off things and you leave the day knowing that you've done work. But as the date of when my boss leaves approaches, I feel more... alone.

Personal life - well, I'm trying play more sports. Going to the gym is boring the hell out of me. Trying to pick up tennis (I only played a few times so am nowhere near where I'd like to be) and continue on badminton. Racquet sports are definitely safer than contact sports like football... although safe to say my passion is still with football. Well, lets see how far I can keep this up. :)

And I bought my air tickets to Cali, flying off in June for a week. Should be good, though i should also start planning for it.

AWARE Saved

You can read about it here.

Quite a turn, really. The NCCS (the umbrella body for the churches in Singapore) issued a statement saying it did not condone the use of the pulpit for the controversy; the pastor for the church of our savior apologised; the new exco was given a vote of no confidence and the former president has been reelected.

Hopefully the drama has come to an end.