When I was 23, I worked in a financial services corporation and thought I had the best job in the world. I continued to think so for at least 18 more years. During my first interview, fresh out of college, I remember being asked if I read the Wall Street Journal on a daily basis. I am not sure I had ever even seen the Wall Street Journal at that point in my life so I fumbled through the response and still got the job. Today, a lacklustre response to that question would probably stop one at the security guard. I traveled to Paris, Vienna, Budapest. Ireland, Puerto Rico and Mexico on MetLife. I visited at least 15 states enjoying a range of experiences from golf resorts in Hyannis up on the Cape, to Boca Raton and Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona to farmland in Valley, Nebraska. I used to spend weeks at a time in St. Louis with an older Jewish man with only one real eye, who shared stories of his days at Horace Mann and other tales of life as a Jewish kid growing up in New York including fond tales about his wife and two sons of whom he thought the world. He was the video producer for our scripts and seemed as foreign a person as possible to me at the time to have to spend weeks at a time with in a different city. Once, when I went to check into the hotel where we both were supposed to stay, he had jokingly left a note , the writing which was in full view, for the clerk at the front desk to hand me when I checked in saying simply, "Does your husband know?" I was mortified. He grew on me and one of my fondest memories today is the two of us sampling pecan pie in every restaurant in St. Louis as we'd search for which one had nailed the perfect recipe. I once stayed in a villa not knowing that George Bush and Elton John were staying on the property simultaneously. I got to produce retirement videos and plaques on the company's dime and got to see executive men break down with emotion in response on my watch. It was a great combination. I participated in forming some of the original products and services of managed care that we know today such as PPOs and utilization review before MetLife exited the medical business. And I am just touching the surface. It would take a multitude of pages to describe all the experiences, almost all of which remain etched in my memory with some humor or recognition of growth or character or friendship building representing what I experienced while there. A day in the office was peppered with trips down to the nearest local Greek coffeee shop for a toasted bialy in the morning and cups of that infamous coffee now imortalized through the blue and white "We are happy to serve you" ceramic cups you can buy online. I always sum up that typical time as a period where I jumped up at the crack of dawn, despite not having to when I had flexible hours, and commuted with my husband to work down the FDR, every day seeing the sunrise, not so much because I had to, or because sunrises are worth seeing, but I think more because every single day of going into corporate life at that point held something new under the sun. And I didn't want to miss it a minute of it.
So when I read David Brook's recent column in the New York Times, "The Service Patch" where he touches upon the disenchantment by a good portion of young people with service and production capitalism -- in other words the many companies and jobs so many of us have always held and still do, because community service has instead "become a patch for morality, " it gave me pause for thought about many sentiments that have been creeping up in my mind and many others the last decade or so and why that is. In other words, how, when and why did the very companies where so many of us grow up, (and of course where many still work) which provided remarkable experiences, raises, bonuses, great benefits and perhaps most importantly, a damn good reason to get up in the morning, get so battered and shunned by so many young people, Occupy movement types or not, there are many who feel as Brooks says, that the thinking today is that the only way to live an excellent life these days is to make sure you are doing community servive type work since if it is "the sort of work Bono celebrates, you must be a good person."
So when I read David Brook's recent column in the New York Times, "The Service Patch" where he touches upon the disenchantment by a good portion of young people with service and production capitalism -- in other words the many companies and jobs so many of us have always held and still do, because community service has instead "become a patch for morality, " it gave me pause for thought about many sentiments that have been creeping up in my mind and many others the last decade or so and why that is. In other words, how, when and why did the very companies where so many of us grow up, (and of course where many still work) which provided remarkable experiences, raises, bonuses, great benefits and perhaps most importantly, a damn good reason to get up in the morning, get so battered and shunned by so many young people, Occupy movement types or not, there are many who feel as Brooks says, that the thinking today is that the only way to live an excellent life these days is to make sure you are doing community servive type work since if it is "the sort of work Bono celebrates, you must be a good person."
Now Brooks is making a larger point in the column about character and how and where it is built and how deep moral yearnings can be achieved in all walks of life from Wall Street to community service and how choosing one over the another doesn't necessarily guarantee the type of person you will become. And I think he couldn't be more right on that one.
But it all got me wondering about the point where healthy, susutainable success seemed to cross the line of excessive greed, at least in the eyes of many. David Brooks is a conservative. I am not. But I never miss his column because to me he is one of the few analytical individuals more respresentative of politics as it used to me. Consider both sides. Compliment the other guy when he has a good idea. Advocate things that make sense. Recognize when there is smoke, there probably is some sort of fire, albeit to what extent.
Seems to me that whatever side you are on for regulation on Wall Street, and to whatever extent you do or don't buy into the fact that greed began permeating our companies, particularly in the financial services sector, seems like it is time for everyone to start preventing the fires in the first place. Wherever one stands on the issue of federal regulation, seems like when we learn things like how much risk was played down at JP Morgan Chase and that with over 40 examiners from the Federal reserve Bank embedded in the bank, none were in the offices in London and New York that may have policed things more carefully, some change in philosophy might be helpful.
But it all got me wondering about the point where healthy, susutainable success seemed to cross the line of excessive greed, at least in the eyes of many. David Brooks is a conservative. I am not. But I never miss his column because to me he is one of the few analytical individuals more respresentative of politics as it used to me. Consider both sides. Compliment the other guy when he has a good idea. Advocate things that make sense. Recognize when there is smoke, there probably is some sort of fire, albeit to what extent.
Seems to me that whatever side you are on for regulation on Wall Street, and to whatever extent you do or don't buy into the fact that greed began permeating our companies, particularly in the financial services sector, seems like it is time for everyone to start preventing the fires in the first place. Wherever one stands on the issue of federal regulation, seems like when we learn things like how much risk was played down at JP Morgan Chase and that with over 40 examiners from the Federal reserve Bank embedded in the bank, none were in the offices in London and New York that may have policed things more carefully, some change in philosophy might be helpful.
Recognizing all the free enterprise that got us where we are today or at least where we were before things deteriorated, seems like we have to start putting aside activity like "JP Morgan screaming bloody murder about not needing regulators hovering, espcecially in their London office" and recognizing that corporations, and even particularly financial services corporations, brought America to great prosperity. But American corporations did not always have the reputation of being greedy and heartless and disconnected from living a virtuous life. That's not a fair reputation. But at times you can see how it got founded.
I am now in a new profession, and what being a Guidance Counselor has verified for me over the last seven years is that when two people are telling a story, the truth really does, almost always, lie somewhere in the middle. Often, it's right down the middle. Sometimes, it's closer to one side than the other. But it's always somewhere in the middle.
I am now in a new profession, and what being a Guidance Counselor has verified for me over the last seven years is that when two people are telling a story, the truth really does, almost always, lie somewhere in the middle. Often, it's right down the middle. Sometimes, it's closer to one side than the other. But it's always somewhere in the middle.
And all I know is that wherever my own kids or other young people end up in choosing careers, good for them if they pick non-profits and community activism if that's what they want. We do need young people fighting poverty and ending disease. But we also need those same excellent young people in our corporations and down on Wall Street. And I wouldn't want any of them to not have the chance of working for a corporation that made you want to get up at sunrise and not miss a moment of what was new under the sun just because of unnecessary greed.
