I've had this debate with myself over and over again: should I do an MBA or not? I feel I've reached a stage in my career where I need a fresh start if you like. That in order to move up and about, I need to make it through one of those top schools that charge the amounts they do entirely because of their name; because if you're accepted into say, Chicago or Stanford, then by definition you're a successful person and it sends out the strongest possible signal to all those top employers who come to hire. Plus, with sign-on bonuses that run into several thousands of dollars or pounds, top salaries, and commendable bonuses, the odds are better than even that you'll pay off your student loan within 2-3 years.
The issue I feel with me is that I'm aging ! Ok, not like a tree or a plant or a dog, but I'm 27 (to be 28 in a few months' time). Even if I did sort out the finances, etc. etc., should I really be spending 2 years or so at business school now? I'd be 29 and entering B-school in autumn '10. That means I'll be nearly 31 by the time I graduate in 2012. To start working as an Associate at 31 !!? That's not somewhere I want to be...I think. At 31, people start VP-ing or at least AVP-ing right?
But then, if I don't do an MBA, where will I get to...and when? I'm reasonably happy in my current job, but I don't see myself being promoted. Not because of my lack of ability, but because of the structure of the organisation. Let's just say it's not going to happen (without going into the whys or hows on this blog!!). And the more time I spend working here, with this knowledge that other than perhaps annual raises in salary, some bonus money, may be more responsibility, without really going anywhere, I am going to get stuck here. Jaded.
But the decision to do an MBA is a very very hard one. But easier than actually doing an MBA !! First, it's the finances. Both now, and financing the future, and not working for 2 years. In other words, I do an MBA, get saddled with debt, and find that career-wise I haven't struck gold with an employer of choice (whoever that maybe).
I don't know the answer yet. I haven't been able to convince myself either way.
For now, the debate rages on. I just feel though that I need to resolve it soon. Time. It doesn't wait.
Sunday, 1 March 2009
Monday, 16 February 2009
Stoppppp..!!!
The past two weeks have been more than hectic. Work flying in from all directions; you think you've sorted one thing out, when you realize that there so many others to work on. Think a holiday is needed soon !
Monday, 2 February 2009
It's snowing men
Today was the heaviest I've seen it snow in England, over all the years I've lived here. Near our place (Woolwich, Southeast London), it must have been about 12cm. It's not a lot actually, but considering it doesn't actually snow much in England, it was a surprise. Needless to say, all transport services came to a standstill. Some people expressed outrage and enquired why it was the case that in America, where despite several feet of snow, things still worked, it always seemed to go belly-up here in England.
I partly share their view - Britain, by most accounts, is a developed nation and claims to be so on several fronts. It's surprising to see then why a single day of heavy rainfall or snow can so completely bring such an industrialised nation to a grounding halt.
But, to be fair, if you don't expect it to snow so much, then you just don't plan for it. I don't work in public service, but given the limited resources Councils have in England, disaster-planning and management is not a top priority, when there are numerous other on-going and 'live' problems that need dealing with. Of course, it should be a priority. But it's a simple resource-allocation problem: you allocate resources to dealing with those issues where results are immediate and problems are solved. Contingency planning cannot be a top priority, when by definition, it does not yield tangible, immediate benefits.
I know this is a myopic view of the world, but what should the Councils do? It's wider issues I think that Britain is faced with, which result in such shoddy service: structural financial constraints, a general lack of accountability, and a nation-wide prevailing sense of 'under-dogism' which gives people the excuse of getting away with poor or average results because nothing better is expected of them in the first place.
I partly share their view - Britain, by most accounts, is a developed nation and claims to be so on several fronts. It's surprising to see then why a single day of heavy rainfall or snow can so completely bring such an industrialised nation to a grounding halt.
But, to be fair, if you don't expect it to snow so much, then you just don't plan for it. I don't work in public service, but given the limited resources Councils have in England, disaster-planning and management is not a top priority, when there are numerous other on-going and 'live' problems that need dealing with. Of course, it should be a priority. But it's a simple resource-allocation problem: you allocate resources to dealing with those issues where results are immediate and problems are solved. Contingency planning cannot be a top priority, when by definition, it does not yield tangible, immediate benefits.
I know this is a myopic view of the world, but what should the Councils do? It's wider issues I think that Britain is faced with, which result in such shoddy service: structural financial constraints, a general lack of accountability, and a nation-wide prevailing sense of 'under-dogism' which gives people the excuse of getting away with poor or average results because nothing better is expected of them in the first place.
Tuesday, 27 January 2009
A shady nexus
Ok, so two months have passed since India's latest (and worst) terrorist attack. While NDTV dutifully exercised its monopoly over English news reporting, other channels (notably Star TV) pulled no punches in Bollywood-ising the unfortunate incident. While the general coverage of the incident was quite poor in India I thought (I abhor Barkha Dutt and her pseudo-intellectual patronisation of anybody remotely more intelligent than her!), a lot of outrage was - rightly - expressed by news reports on how this incident was so brazenly allowed to occur. The almighty and all-powerful politicians were being fired left, right and centre, and angry citizens aired their views on generously provided air time by channels such as NDTV.
I noted of course how people such as Bal Thakrey and similarly jobless yobs kept quiet on the incident, but was surprised why no news channel reported this. (Given that until the attacks occurred, the same yobs were getting high beating up innocent North Indians who chose to make something of their lives by arriving in Bombay)
Two months later, it's all back to business as usual of course for the news channels. Nationalism and patriotism is history once more, as media dedicates its energy to resume covering the nitty-gritty of the Indian polity. Today I watched in horror as some yobs (belonging to another one of those yobby, tin-pot political parties in middle India) decided to beat up women because they were in a pub....And we're back to what we do best. While the Honourable Prime Minister gets his heart fixed, and the country is without a leader, some goons in Bangalore say, "fu&* this...I'm bored...let's go and beat up some people..." No arrests will be made obviously. Obviously the media will report this and obviously Barkha Dutt will gather another "We The People" meeting and enjoy the sound of her own voice.
There is a very shady nexus between the politicians and the media in India, and they both know it exists. The one could not survive without the other. Now you might say that this nexus probably exists in a lot of other (Western) countries, too. True, it might. But the point is that in India we keep going on about sound-bytes like "change", "progress", "India shining"...blaah. The reality is that Indians are incapable of any meaningful progress. And that's because we're an incredibly selfish people.....
I noted of course how people such as Bal Thakrey and similarly jobless yobs kept quiet on the incident, but was surprised why no news channel reported this. (Given that until the attacks occurred, the same yobs were getting high beating up innocent North Indians who chose to make something of their lives by arriving in Bombay)
Two months later, it's all back to business as usual of course for the news channels. Nationalism and patriotism is history once more, as media dedicates its energy to resume covering the nitty-gritty of the Indian polity. Today I watched in horror as some yobs (belonging to another one of those yobby, tin-pot political parties in middle India) decided to beat up women because they were in a pub....And we're back to what we do best. While the Honourable Prime Minister gets his heart fixed, and the country is without a leader, some goons in Bangalore say, "fu&* this...I'm bored...let's go and beat up some people..." No arrests will be made obviously. Obviously the media will report this and obviously Barkha Dutt will gather another "We The People" meeting and enjoy the sound of her own voice.
There is a very shady nexus between the politicians and the media in India, and they both know it exists. The one could not survive without the other. Now you might say that this nexus probably exists in a lot of other (Western) countries, too. True, it might. But the point is that in India we keep going on about sound-bytes like "change", "progress", "India shining"...blaah. The reality is that Indians are incapable of any meaningful progress. And that's because we're an incredibly selfish people.....
Sunday, 25 January 2009
What life throws at you..
No one says life is easy, but sometimes it can get excruciating - whether it's difficulty with money, problems at work or at home, or general frustration at where you think you're not headed ! Different people in different places and circumstances face their own problems, and while some are clearly, visibly, tangibly, worse off than others, the argument that "..you must be grateful for what you have because so many don't even have what you do.." can get annoying: I don't give a sh&T. I am unhappy here and now and that's all that matters, right?
It's very easy to go down that route (I know I have), but the problem in so doing is that you risk losing all perspective on life itself. When you seriously try and make yourself realise that this life...whatever it maybe, good, bad, great, etc. is only going to last for the next, I don't know, 50-odd years at the most, that feeling of dispensability dawns on you. Then you have to tell yourself, "I will not let this get me down...I will rise...I will change..I will make the most"...why? Well, because unless you have suicidal tendencies, you don't really have a choice. The day when you're not alive anymore will arrive.
You might as well make the most of it...or try to anyway.
It's very easy to go down that route (I know I have), but the problem in so doing is that you risk losing all perspective on life itself. When you seriously try and make yourself realise that this life...whatever it maybe, good, bad, great, etc. is only going to last for the next, I don't know, 50-odd years at the most, that feeling of dispensability dawns on you. Then you have to tell yourself, "I will not let this get me down...I will rise...I will change..I will make the most"...why? Well, because unless you have suicidal tendencies, you don't really have a choice. The day when you're not alive anymore will arrive.
You might as well make the most of it...or try to anyway.
Saturday, 24 January 2009
Continuation of a previous musing
....I didn't finish a previous post on my own musings on trading, i.e. whether or not it makes any difference to the collective wealth of a nation. In retrospect, maybe it was a stupid question to ask - bad trades can surely decrease nations' wealth as is evidenced by the current recession, which is largely a consequence of sub-prime bets gone badly wrong.
So, it's not a "zero-sum game": while some people made money by going short on mortgage-backed securities, those who went long on the other side of the trade lost big time. This would classify as zero-sum on its own, but surely when looking at trading from a macroeconomic point of view, one cannot consider only the impact on party A and party B of a trade? In other words, the extent of systemic damage must be part of any trade-off.
But this then becomes a wider game-theoretic problem - in usual matrix-type choice-payoff games presented at game theory lectures, the "game" only considers payoffs to the players, i.e. the impact of their strategies on any one else outside the game is, by definition, excluded. Therefore, (Nash) equilibria in such games, while perfectly rational and optimising for the players, may not be so for people not directly participating in the game.
One way to incorporate this impact on the outside world is to link payoffs of a strategy to its impact on the outside world. A representative agent of the outside world, e.g. government or local regulator would have to enforce this link.
....More on this later.
So, it's not a "zero-sum game": while some people made money by going short on mortgage-backed securities, those who went long on the other side of the trade lost big time. This would classify as zero-sum on its own, but surely when looking at trading from a macroeconomic point of view, one cannot consider only the impact on party A and party B of a trade? In other words, the extent of systemic damage must be part of any trade-off.
But this then becomes a wider game-theoretic problem - in usual matrix-type choice-payoff games presented at game theory lectures, the "game" only considers payoffs to the players, i.e. the impact of their strategies on any one else outside the game is, by definition, excluded. Therefore, (Nash) equilibria in such games, while perfectly rational and optimising for the players, may not be so for people not directly participating in the game.
One way to incorporate this impact on the outside world is to link payoffs of a strategy to its impact on the outside world. A representative agent of the outside world, e.g. government or local regulator would have to enforce this link.
Wednesday, 21 January 2009
Just another day...(WARNING - contains a near-rant on matters pertaining to finance!!)
Was a relatively good day today...until the last minute when there was a 'minor' tiff with someone at work who decided something was my fault, even though it blatantly wasn't ! Guess it doesn't help that I am the junior-most member of my team - it gives people an excuse to pile the crap on me because they know they can't pile on someone else.
It's times like these I really hope my brain would keep a video of so that when I sit for a future interview, and am asked one of those inane questions that ask you for evidence of people skills, or for how you handled a difficult situation, I can rattle off without blinking an eye. Maybe I should start keeping a log of these moments in a spreadsheet - seriously !!
Anyway, on to something else completely different......
When I was walking to work this morning, actually, just as soon as I started crossing London Bridge , a completely random thought popped into my head (ok, maybe not so random, because it might have had something to do with the whole 'city' feel I get when I walk across the bridge!!) - does / can financial trading activity (i.e. trading of stocks, bonds, commodities, etc.) carried out by investment banks, hedge funds and so on, increase (or worse, decrease!) the stock of wealth in a nation?
I am sure academics / smarter people have considered this question and may even have an answer ! But I am not sure whether or not it does - in financial trading (be it speculative or non-speculative), do the gains of party A to a trade imply equal losses for party B? Intuitively, I would say yes, which would imply that the economy is no better or worse off. However, as is evidenced by the current recession and near financial collapse, speculative trading can indeed decrease the wealth of a nation if the loss-making party to a trade is so systemically involved in an economy's flow of credit and lending that it's collapse would effectivley destroy those companies (auto-makers, retailers, etc.) who rely on that flow of credit.
It's times like these I really hope my brain would keep a video of so that when I sit for a future interview, and am asked one of those inane questions that ask you for evidence of people skills, or for how you handled a difficult situation, I can rattle off without blinking an eye. Maybe I should start keeping a log of these moments in a spreadsheet - seriously !!
Anyway, on to something else completely different......
When I was walking to work this morning, actually, just as soon as I started crossing London Bridge , a completely random thought popped into my head (ok, maybe not so random, because it might have had something to do with the whole 'city' feel I get when I walk across the bridge!!) - does / can financial trading activity (i.e. trading of stocks, bonds, commodities, etc.) carried out by investment banks, hedge funds and so on, increase (or worse, decrease!) the stock of wealth in a nation?
I am sure academics / smarter people have considered this question and may even have an answer ! But I am not sure whether or not it does - in financial trading (be it speculative or non-speculative), do the gains of party A to a trade imply equal losses for party B? Intuitively, I would say yes, which would imply that the economy is no better or worse off. However, as is evidenced by the current recession and near financial collapse, speculative trading can indeed decrease the wealth of a nation if the loss-making party to a trade is so systemically involved in an economy's flow of credit and lending that it's collapse would effectivley destroy those companies (auto-makers, retailers, etc.) who rely on that flow of credit.
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