What Happened Inside Job
by shz
During my half way of watching this documentary which was narrated by Matt Damon, filled with too many financial or economic terms that I did not understand, I said to Fakhrul on my way to the toilet, “Does Matt Damon even understand what he was talking about? I mean, he’s just an actor. I’m a university graduate and still struggling to understand it!”
“Matt Damon is a genius, you know..” he sillily replied.
“You know he’s not the real Good Will Hunting right?”
“No. He’s the Talented Mr. Ripley”.
Well, just to open this post with a conversation with Fakhrul which I found funny. Sorry if you don’t get it but I was still idiotically grinning after flushing the toilet, thinking how stupidly funny it was. And only later I found out that Matt Damon might be a genius after all. He was accepted to Harvard and wrote Good Will Hunting for his English class. Dropped out however, but not for nothing I guess. And after watching this important film (believe me, its a lot more crucially important than Breaking Dawn. Even if you’re not interested of what happened), I have grown respect and admirations to people who majors in finance or economics or anything like that. It seems bloody hard! It’s not like architects with our easy words of windows, walls or doors.
By the way, at the end of it, I did get it. The documentary was so unbelievable it made my blood boil. It basically gave me an understanding of why the recession in 2008 happened. In a layman’s words like myself, it actually went like this: the big investment banks in U.S did some risky trades that resulted the collapse of AIG and Lehman Brother’s bankruptcy, the stock market went crashing, the U.S government used their taxpayers’ money like 700 billion USD or something to bail them out, the CEOs or individuals responsible for this still walked away with their fortune intact, people around the world hit by recessions and unemployment and the Obama administration apparently isn’t doing much at the moment to recover the situation either, instead he hired people who made bad decisions in previous terms as his current advisors. There you go. Some serious shit happened in the real world I’d never thought I’d knew.
Truthfully speaking, I was one of the many people affected by the 2008 financial crisis. I was working in this architectural firm with offices around UK, which I joined after resigning from another a practice also based in Oxford. I was there only for over a year and a half when the project I was working on became one of the many government projects selected to get a big budget cut. Ultimately they had to put the project off and consequently, I and some others unlucky ones were made redundant as they couldn’t put us on any other project at that time.
I was not so shocked when it happened, I kind of knew it was coming. Most of our Malaysian friends had left months before and setting up nicely back home due to the same thing. I didn’t cry or wail or stare at the ceiling, instead I took a flight back to Malaysia the next day. The timing for them to drop the bomb couldn’t have been better, I left for 3 weeks break and never came back to the office. I also felt that it was some sort of “call” that my time in UK was up. 6 years – if I had stayed any longer, I would probably ended up like one of those people who doesn’t want to leave or waiting for the right reason to. Fakhrul on the other hand was surprisingly doing great in this small practice he joined about the same time as I did. But we felt like we didn’t want to push our luck any further; plus at that time we just found out that we were expecting Daisy.
I had made great friends at work (one was Grainne) and actually enjoyed a little bit of those luxury shopping without breaking the bank. But truthfully speaking I despised my work. I was a CAD monkey who doesn’t have any ownership to any projects, stuck to boring tasks like preparing door or window schedules for months, calling up suppliers and organizing CPDs for the office, like blergh! And my life became like a routine which was so dauntingly and discouragingly boring! But I only have myself to blame. If I had been more interested and proactive, people would’ve probably noticed. You know all this office politics or politic of any kind – I’m plainly bad at it.
There were just so many reasons to go back, and like those people, I was actually waiting for a reason to. And I guess Allah had it all planned out for me, turned out it was the best plan after all. Grainne couldn’t stop saying how being laid off was actually the best thing that could’ve happened to me. I agree. The situation back in UK has not really improving, all of office gang who were saved in 2008 eventually made redundant last year (there were rounds of redundancy if things aren’t improving) and Grainne is the only one left standing. Even that, they just started a 10% salary cut last month and she’s eyeing on other countries to relocate and kept making joke if I would hire her.
For awhile I was quite bitter about it, it’s always a sad thought to leave the country where you studied and landed your first job. I kept answering, “It was time..” when people asked why I was leaving UK. And how convenient that I was also pregnant then. But you know what, it actually was time. And soon enough I accepted that redundancy was not about performance or anything you’ve done wrong, it is not as if you’re freaking fired. And come on, I’m not going to waste your time telling how much I have been enjoying both my life and career more since coming back. Even if Daisy hadn’t happened, I still feel I’m happier here on my own soil.
So in a way, although Inside Job did make me feel pissed at a lot of people, I can’t also help but feel that it was a blessing in disguise. It was one of those things that was meant to be and luckily for me, it was for the best. I can only hope it’s the same to others affected as well.
That was 2008, which I have put it way behind my back. It’s 2 more days to 2012. I think I shall look forward to that instead.
Untitled Journal 
Begitu ceritanya.
Happy New Year, kak.
Happy new year you too.
Hi Sharliza,
I’ve reading ur blog ‘on and off’ but this time, however, I feel compelled to drop a few lines. I share the same sentiments as you. I left UK half-heartedly but looking back, I think its probably one of my wisest decision. Our profession is less affected by the economic downturn, I was offered a job but I didn’t feel good after accepting it. I took that as a hint that it’s time for me to move back to M’sia.
Enough rambling on my part, I’m glad you’ve now seen the light. We can now hold our head high 🙂 *high five*
Hi Ecah.
Good for you. Really. High five!
Dear Kak,
Recently of two days ago, my friend from my Manchester days arrived. Malaysian, of course. He is a physician, or doctor as everybody would say it. Hehe. Oh, he is entering this year for his twelfth year in good ‘ol Britain!
I kept recalling on this entry in my mind as we were sitting down having our lunch yesterday, talking about the old days. And the future. Well, he is for one that will have his retirement in 2047, as a successful General Practitioner, insya-Allah in England. Haha.
His story not much different than yours. More on the mind challenge than financial. Where most of the time, he only has is his wife and his two adorable daughters. And how life in England is for him and the sets of sacrifices he has to make so that he and his family will make it. By God, he is one strong fellow. 12 years now.
I suppose my comment here is that I’d to ask you, “What if things turned out to be different, for you?” Nevertheless, I scanned through this entry and you mentioned it, “…if I had stayed any longer, I would probably ended up like one of those people who doesn’t want to leave or waiting for the right reason to.”
As I go further back in your past entry, there were this one, back on January 16, 2009:
“Sorang lagi kawan dah tinggalkan tempat ni. For good. Bila Fakhrul dan aku dengar berita tu di tengah-tengah masa mengejar bas pagi ke tempat kerja, kami berdua terkedu memandang each other. Dalam bas pun senyap sepi, tak macam selalu, membebel pasal hal kerja dan hal duniawi. Dalam diam bisu kami berdua, mungkin terbayang apa A tengah buat kat Malaysia. Bestnya. Mungkin dia tengah lepak dengan kawan-kawan lama dekat warung mana-mana yang teh tariknya harga seringgit dua. Atau berbual dengan mak ayah kat meja makan menjamu selera. Tak dapat kerja lagi pun tak apa, semuanya selamat. Tapi A tinggalkan UK sebab dah dapat kerja di sana. Bagusnya, rezeki dia lagi murah di sana dari kat sini.”
But then, another entry of the first few weeks or months you just arrived here in Malaysia and you were pregnant; how there were bad Malay dramas and getting out of a junction…haha. Perplex.
And I would like to say that your job could suck here a lot, but it could also be a terrible one in say, Leeds or Sheffield. And, you could somehow get get sneers from your aunts of your singlehood, but then it is always a lonely time in January winters.
Time and again I conclude that and I am glad, you always say in many of your entries,
“Life is what you make it”
Somehow, that is what one need to hear, isn’t it?
p.s As I re-read again this journal, I came across Daisy’s second name, “Sibylla” in the passport photo. But, there was one entry, you wrote it was “Sybilla”. Spelled like the English, “Sybil”. Yang mana satu, ya? Just asking. And…because I watched “Downton Abbey” and relate that Lady Sybil Crawley is quite pretty lady with quite a sexy voice. Hehe!
Dear Dik.
If my blog was a module and there’s a 3.00 pointer for it, I’m sure you would’ve scored.
Of course, when I first got back in M’sia it wasn’t easy. We had a life in UK and then we had to start all over again, even when it was at a familiar place. Most dramas are still disappointing, what do you expect when my regular night TV were Dispatches or other Channel 4’s documentaries, Kevin McCloud’s Grand Designs, Louis Theroux’s stuffs.. not that I’m trying to act “intellectual” but those were the only programmes I found interesting after dinner and sort of forced to see it when nothing else were worth watching. But then again I still enjoyed Skins, Little Britain alike, even followed X Factor at one point and tuned E4+ after work for Friends re-runs.
Job could still suck here in Malaysia but I think it wouldn’t be as depressing because you’re not lonely. At least I’m not. If I could conclude one negative thing about my stay in England it will be that – loneliness. Even with Fakhrul by my side, it wasn’t the same. Sure there are British friends, but it’s like starting all over again jugak. They don’t really know me the way my high school friends know me right?
I guess what I’m trying to say is there are no perfect places unless you make it perfect. That’s why now that I’m back (and even for you), we’ll be living a long life if we keep being pessimistic and negative about our surroundings. If we keep comparing here and there and wonder of what could’ve and should’ve been. Turn a deaf ears on your aunts’ sneers, after all this isn’t the 60’s anymore AND you’re a guy! What’s the worry? Chicks dig older and financially stable guys nowadays, hahaha.
Life is what you make it. I hope that will be what you listen to.
P.S: We actually wrongly spelled her name Sybilla instead of Sibylla. We realized it when she was 8 months old and fortunately we could still change it in her birth certificate before she turned 1. Both are the same name, just one was spelled in French one in Greek/Roman, and in Malay context, its easier to go by Si instead of Sy since people could wrongly pronounced as “Sai”. And since you mentioned it, Daisy do have a deep voice which I find sexy already. Haha.
Hi,
I watched that documentary until the end because of Matt Damon’s voice. Very shallow, I know. hahaha. Another documentary narrated by him that I like is “The People’s History of America”, basically he was reading the book of the same title by historian Howard Zinn.
Back to the movie. I already knew most of the stuff before, but what really ticked me was how the action of small group of people in a large corporation managed to bring the whole company and the whole world’s economies down too. Only 400 AIG’s employees were involved, and at that time they have 116,000 employees worldwide and 6000 within NY. This is really the case of “kerana nila setitik, habis susu sebelanga.” I somehow felt betrayed, especially since I am in this industry too, albeit just supporting them. I mean this is a publicly-traded company which should have it finances/accounting records disclosed to the investor (i.e. the public). So, how it is possible to not even account a business dealings of this magnitude in their yearly auditing? What they have done really undermines the free market spirit. Maybe I’m to naive to understand the complexities, but with all the red tape and a lot of regulations and paperwork to trail every little thing in this industry, how on earth does THAT line of business get excluded from all this? We get picked on by Audit for not having the file name convention right.