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#129187 - 11/13/03 10:32 PM
Re: If there life after banking...
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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Quote:
That is sort of how I felt about it! You just keep looking 'cause you just can't believe it. Fortunately I am feeling quite mellow as I just returned from vacation. Dawn would have liked it because we drank a LOT of wine!
Mellow, Oh No, that's how the old queen bee feels during the first cold days of winter!
By the way, there is more than one anon posting here, so ID is way off the mark. Although, it probably would be best if you get off the couch and go over the the Watercooler or take care of some business.
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#129188 - 11/13/03 10:40 PM
Re: If there life after banking...
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100 Club
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 205
Dallas
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Quote:
By the way, there is more than one anon posting here, so ID is way off the mark. Although, it probably would be best if you get off the couch and go over the the Watercooler or take care of some business.
You mean there is more than one anon with R's outlook, attitude, and style? Noooooooooooooooo!!
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My opinions are just that...my opinions.
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#129189 - 11/14/03 12:15 AM
Re: If there life after banking...
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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Quote:
You mean there is more than one anon with R's outlook, attitude, and style? Noooooooooooooooo!!
There are thousands, possibly millions. Whoever "R" is, he's our leader and possibly the smartest person on the planet.
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#129191 - 11/14/03 04:44 PM
Re: If there life after banking...
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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An old man, a boy and a donkey were going to town. The boy rode on the donkey and the old man walked. As they went along they passed some people who remarked it was a shame the old man was walking and the boy was riding. The man and boy thought maybe the critics were right, so they changed positions.
Later, they passed some people that remarked, "What a shame, he makes that little boy walk." They then decided they both would walk! Soon they passed some more people who thought they were stupid to walk when they had a decent donkey to ride. So, they both rode the donkey.
Now they passed some people that shamed them by saying how awful to put such a load on a poor donkey. The boy and man said they were probably right, so they decided to carry the donkey. As they crossed the bridge, they lost their grip on the animal and he fell into the river and drowned.
The moral of the story?
If you try to please everyone, you might as well...
Kiss your a** good-bye.
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#129192 - 11/14/03 07:32 PM
Re: If there life after banking...
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Diamond Poster
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 1,678
United States
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I like that!
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Opinions expressed are solely my own.
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#129193 - 11/17/03 03:43 PM
Re: If there life after banking...
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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Sorry for being the original Anonymous to post this thread that created such spirited feelings and debates... I was having a bad week and thought I could post the question for a stress release...the good news is that I just came back from vacation and feel great... who would have thought...  3:16
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#129194 - 11/19/03 09:27 PM
Re: If there life after banking...
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100 Club
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 232
Connecticut
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Original Anon - glad to hear your vacation perked you up.
In the spirit of the original post I'm going to add my two cents.
I've been in banking since I was 16 yrs. old. Started as a junior in high school on a co-op job doing data entry. I've been in Operations, Lending, Retail and now Electronic Banking so I've seen a lot over the past 20 years.
And, I've been looking for one of those industries that could use my experience, with no luck.
I'd like to try something different, some type of spin off, just haven't found the right one yet. What's really sad is that I wanted to be in graphic arts and photography. I've had people say it's not too late, but once you have a family and financial obligations you can't just quit and go back to school.
So, I'll keep looking for that ideal career, one that will allow me to be more creative, use my experience, and try a new challenge.
Hope the post vacation buzz lasts longer than a few days.
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#129195 - 11/20/03 04:40 PM
Re: If there life after banking...
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Platinum Poster
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 942
Kentucky
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OMG, reinkesd! I think we're twins separated at birth!! I started at 18 and have been in banking for almost 20 years, and like you, I've worked in virtually every department imaginable. I never expected to be locked into this career because I wanted to go into art and photography as well. How weird is that! So if you find some new whiz-bang job involving art/photography/banking, let me know about it!
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Opinions expressed are mine and not necessarily that of my employer.
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#129196 - 11/20/03 05:31 PM
Re: If there life after banking...
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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I'm thinking web development for banks. That would involve the graphic piece. Or marketing, haven't tried that department yet! Too funny on the parallel careers!! OMG! 
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#129198 - 11/20/03 05:47 PM
Re: If there life after banking...
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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You people are finally getting the point - there is no life after banking, generally speaking, with a re-start in any other industry required, e.g. salary, benefits, etc.
As for providing services or a product to the banking world, that would be difficult - at best - and most bankers are not cut out to go it alone, especially with the refrigerator in the next room. Let's face it, don't let your kids grow up to be cowboys or bankers!
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#129200 - 11/20/03 09:31 PM
Re: If there life after banking...
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Power Poster
Joined: Jul 2001
Posts: 3,708
Las Vegas Nevada
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The most frustrating part of what I am reading here is some of you won't even try.
A lot of you are very talented,and creative. Please don't accept automatic defeat because someone else says you will be. When I first started my peer group snickered and smirked, but it wasn't long before a lot of them started calling and asking for a job. Is it for everybody, no, but the few of you that dream can make it happen.
There is another thread where people are sharing Recipes. See how many hits that thread has. Can you put a Bankers Cookbook together using your art and photographic skills? There are many PC software programs that allow you to create a book. It then is just a question of taking it to a printer. One book leads to another, and you have a business.
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#129201 - 11/20/03 11:43 PM
Re: If there life after banking...
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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Quote:
OUCH! You're obviously not a banker! Are you trying to say we're soft?
Yes, you are part of the soft underbelly of the working world, just waiting for the axe to fall.
A story from October 2002:
When Robert L. Phillips left his job as regional manager for copying giant Savin Corporation to work for a start-up, he always believed he could return if things didn't work out. After all, Phillips had started as a street salesman and finished as a key national accounts manager for Savin.
But 10 months ago, when the start-up folded, Phillips realized corporate America didn't want him back -- at least, not now. Forty weeks later, at 54, the North Andover resident is still pounding the pavement, this time looking for work.
"You want to see how depressing it is, go to a job fair. You wouldn't believe the number of guys in BMWs pulling up and asking how things look," said Phillips, who is divorced and has a 7-year-old daughter.
Phillips even went to a hotel recently to inquire about a job. "I told them I would do everything but bathrooms," said Phillips.
To get by, he cracked open his retirement, paying severe taxes and penalties for claiming the money before retirement age. If companies do not begin hiring managers soon, Phillips believes he might have to take an entry-level job and start climbing the professional ladder all over again.
"It's called getting in the door," Phillips said.
The recession, which two years ago began in technology-related manufacturing, has since spread to general manufacturing, tourism and financial services. While much of the attention on layoffs has zeroed in on production workers, more and more of the blood-letting is hitting middle and upper managers, according to new labor statistics.
White-collar workers are often better educated and better-equipped financially to recover from the loss of a job, but many, like Phillips, face a job market that is more unforgiving for midlevel executives than it is for the rank-and-file.
"It's practically impossible for those people to get re-employed right now. That in-between level is really getting squeezed," said Elaine Varelas, managing partner for business development at Keystone Partners, a Burlington-based outplacement firm.
The squeeze is happening nationally, said John Challenger, chief executive officer for the national outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
In its August employment report, the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 1.5 million Americans had been jobless for 27 weeks or more, an 81 percent increase from a year ago. The percentage of those workers who claimed their previous jobs were "managerial" or "professional" in nature -- or related to technical, sales and administrative support -- was 48 percent, the highest proportion since the Bureau began tracking in 1982.
"It looks to be that the share of long-term unemployed persons who are in white-collar occupations is substantially higher," noted Randy Ilg, a BLS economist.
Ilg, who says the Labor Department can only speculate about why white-collar workers are remaining unemployed, nonetheless finds it disturbing.
Not only does it suggest many displaced workers may be nearing the end of their unemployment assistance and savings, it also suggests consumer spending, which had been one of the economy's bright spots until recently, may be headed for a fall. To the extent high-wage, white-collar workers are the ones remaining jobless, the impact on sales of other companies' products and services could be all the more significant.
"The continuation of prolonged joblessness may be the straw that finally breaks the back of consumer spending," Challenger said.
The exact number of jobless, white-collar workers locally is difficult to track because states like Massachusetts do not keep tallies of workers who have stopped looking for work or separate white-collar workers from others. But the proportions are not likely that different from the nation as a whole, said Eliot Winer, chief economist for the Massachusetts Department of Employment and Training.
Outplacement specialists, who are on the front lines of helping the unemployed find new jobs, have noticed.
"I do see a shift in that we are getting a lot more white-collar workers," said Ann Shaw, workshop coordinator for the ValleyWorks Career Center in Lawrence and Haverhill.
"Because a lot of these people worked for the same company for 20 years, for 15 years, they are out of the loop when it comes to having up-to-date skills on job-search techniques," Shaw explained.
The plight of long-term job seekers is not likely to improve quickly, according to job-placement experts in the Merrimack Valley. Varelas said job searches for midlevel executives at Keystone Partners' outplacement services division, are taking up to 32 weeks in some cases.
"We're seeing people getting a job in four to eight months, but it's one person at this organization, one person at another. It's never 10 people at once," Varelas said.
Head-hunters point to a number of different reasons for the lengthening unemployment lines. Increasingly, pressure from Wall Street has meant publicly traded companies have had to lay off white-collar workers to help reduce expenses.
"I would say the focus over the past year anyway has really been in the management levels," Varelas said.
At the same time, companies that are hiring are doing it very slowly, often delaying the process until the start of a new budget cycle.
"Being brought back four or five times (for interviews) is no longer a surprise. Having a panel of interviewers is no longer a surprise," Varelas added.
Increased security concerns since Sept. 11, 2001, and the slew of corporate scandals that began in 2002 with the Enron Corp. bankruptcy, are also forcing companies to examine whom they are hiring. Because new federal regulations require top-level executives at most public companies sign off on yearly and quarterly earnings statements, those executives, in turn, want to be sure they can trust midlevel managers' reports. In some cases, firms are hiring private investigators to vet candidates for jobs that will fill crucial roles in a hierarchy.
"Companies do not want to hire someone who isn't squeaky clean," Challenger said.
Job seekers may be prolonging their own pain by refusing to lower their expectations in the face of tough economic conditions. Challenger, who believes some dot-com and technology professionals were earning as much 30 percent more than their positions called for during the height of the technology boom, said many employees might have to accept less generous compensation packages. Varelas agreed the days of singing bonuses and rich compensation packages are gone.
"The dot-com perks are gone. No one is getting a car as a signing bonus for a $50,000 job anymore," she said.
But most of the blame lies with the economy, which appears to have stalled or may even be contracting. Even in areas that show the most potential for growth in the Merrimack Valley -- businesses like pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical devices and defense technology -- the call to hire new workers has been slow in coming.
In Andover, Smith & Nephew Endoscopy, which develops the medical devices used in knee and joint replacements, says it is interviewing candidates for 30 open positions. The company expects to hire 200 to 300 additional workers, but achieving that growth could take as long as five years, said Joseph Metzger, public relations manager for Smith & Nephew.
Meanwhile, Raytheon Company, the region's largest defense contractor, says it expects to hire engineers and software technicians for a new Navy destroyer program it is helping to develop. The company does not know yet how many of the 800 staff positions existing workers can fill, but most of its hiring will be limited, said Public Relations Manager Steven Brecken.
"We are adding staff in our engineering work force, but within specific disciplines," he said.
Dianne Coppola, 45, of Haverhill lost her job in June, but she is trying to be as flexible as possible about going to work somewhere else. Laid off from Lucent Technologies after working for the company for 22 years, Coppola hoped to find the same sort of job at another company. After testing the job market, Coppola decided to apply for a federal grant to go back to school and train to work in another field. She is now studying full-time at Northern Essex Community College to be a paralegal.
"Things didn't look too good with the skills I had," said Coppola, who helped produce marketing materials in Lucent's public relations department at the telecommunication equipment maker's North Andover manufacturing site.
Being flexible and using all the resources available to them is the key to minimizing time off for a job search, job placement experts said. In addition to outplacement services a former employer provides, federally sponsored career centers in Lawrence and Haverhill are open to the public.
Varelas, who says workers need to think more expansively about how their current skills could work for employers in different fields, said some of the best examples are banking executives who were laid off in large numbers during the country's last recession from 1991 to 1992.
Although most of their jobs were eliminated, Varelas said, many found work in new fields like managing endowments for colleges and universities where their financial skills were needed. White-collar workers should follow the same example, Varelas said.
"They really need to broaden their perception of what it is they do. They need to think of it in terms of skills instead of titles," she said.
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#129204 - 11/21/03 04:03 PM
Re: If there life after banking...
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Anonymous
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Relax everybody. There was life before banking, and there is life after banking. It's just a different life.
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#129206 - 11/21/03 06:02 PM
Re: If there life after banking...
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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Quote:
wedding photography, web site development, buying a floral shop
Anonymous - You don't have a clue about my skills or strengths so back off with the "weak underbelly" thing. I'm not looking to take on corporate america, just to use my experience and education in a fulfilling career.
Oh, but you are part of the group, but don't take it personally. Just take a look at your choices covering alternate employment. Practically anyone, right out of high school, can perform those tasks. And that's the point: it difficult to transfer skills from banking to almost any other industry, but anyone can go off and build a hooby horse.
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#129207 - 11/21/03 06:43 PM
Re: If there life after banking...
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Anonymous
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#129208 - 11/21/03 08:11 PM
Re: If there life after banking...
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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Quote:
What's a hooby horse?
Perhaps, a hobby horse? Perhaps, a subject or plan upon which one is constantly setting off; a favorite and ever-recurring theme of discourse, thought, or effort; that which occupies one's attention unduly, or to the weariness of others; a ruling passion.
Or, perhaps no one here has a hobbyhorse? Or, a child's plaything consisting of an imitation horsehead on one end of a stick; the child straddles it an pretends to ride. In other words, if you transfer your skills from banking, the best that you can do, generally speaking, is build imitation horseheads and ride them around all day.
You may end up with a hooby horse.
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#129209 - 11/21/03 08:18 PM
Re: If there life after banking...
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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Oh, I thought it was some kind of Arizona thing-a-ma-jig...
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#129210 - 11/21/03 10:00 PM
Re: If there life after banking...
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100 Club
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 232
Connecticut
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Quote:
Practically anyone, right out of high school, can perform those tasks.
Yup, you've just confirmed it. You don't have a clue about what I do and what skills are transferable to other careers. I'm not sure what business you're in, but it surprises me that someone with such little respect for bankers would be in a forum for bankers. Hmmm....
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#129211 - 11/21/03 10:10 PM
Re: If there life after banking...
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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To the person stating that banking skills do not carry over into any other career choices. Is banking the only industry you see with that problem? I imagine that there are many careers in which the skills you develop are best used for that industry. With the economy as it is now, there are not many chances for someone that leaves a mid-level job to find something equal or better in a field not related to their most current job. But, in only 24 years of life, I don't profess to have learned a great deal about the job market, but I have learned this.....There are many times where we can not change the person or the circumstance, what we can change is how we choose to look at it. Everyone have a good weekend.
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