The little voice inside my head

So, that little lawyer-shaped devil inside my head has been talking to me again. Loud. The first time was last Sunday, as I spent a couple hours giving a friend legal advice on her business plan, and found myself getting more excited than I had been in ages. And it didn't seem to matter that I didn't know what on earth I was talking about (that's right folks, just because your friend/relative/random person you meet at a party has a legal degree, it doesn't mean he or she necessarily knows anything about the laws relating to divorce/intellectual property in the Middle East/fishing licences in Vanuatu/fill in the blank...)

A few days later, as I started working on my second project since I started life at BM, I realized my thoughts had inexplicably turned away from the proper alignment of boxes on my powerpoint slide to pontificate loudly on the inherent and possibly dangerous legal ambiguity in a document my client was about to sign. Fortunately, the client was not in the room, but the rest of my team was looking daggers at me (and possibly contemplating having me committed to a mental institution... or a due diligence cupboard).

And then there's the fact that I seem to be the only person in my immediate vicinity who thought the most interesting thing in the news this week was that Obama took the oath of office for a second time. But I could just see in my mind the myriad of legal arguments I could make, if asked, for both sides of the fascinating question of whether or not he had been acting ultra vires in his first day in office. (And right now you're thinking that just the fact that I'm using the term ultra vires in a sentence should be enough to have me committed...)

So what should I do about this little devil on my shoulder, whispering sweet nothings in my ear? Ignore it? Consider a switch back into law? Have my hearing checked?

A question of trust

So one evening I walked out of the office, late at night, when I was accosted by a mild-mannered, slightly befuddled looking middle-aged man. After satisfying himself that I could speak English, he proceeded to explain that he was from Switzerland, on holiday in Paris with his wife, and that his credit card had just gotten gobbled up by the ATM. Anxious to get back to his hotel (especially given the late hour, the cold, and the rain), he found himself in a bit of a pickle, given that he had no cash to pay for a taxi. You see where this is going. Anyway, after receiving numerous assurances of good faith from this man, I gave him my contact details and 20 euros that he promised to return the very next day.

This was two months ago. I have not heard from him since.

Now why do I tell you this story? Simply because it is symptomatic of a broader inner struggle I have been having within myself. Many people will tell you that, over the past few years, I have become someone with "trust issues". These same people have also managed to convince me that being able to trust my fellow man (woman/ organisation/ feral cat) is the key to finding personal happiness.

Taking this precious advice on board, I have resolved to be more trusting, putting a little faith in people where before I would have built fortresses of cynicism. And this, in all aspects of my life: from the man in the street to the more recurring characters in the Res Ipsa play, from my professional life to my personal life. So far, this little experiment has in most cases resulted in debacle, à la Swiss taxi guy.

So now, on this day where millions are putting their trust in the new incoming American president, setting aside disbelief and years of previously dashed hopes, I ask: what now? Is saying "I trust you not to steal my twenty euros", "I trust you not to make my job a nightmare", "I trust you not to break my heart", more or less delusional than saying "I trust you to solve all of the world's problems"? Should I soldier on, trusting that one day all this trust will be repaid in happiness, or is it time for the safe, tried-and-tested protectionist era to return?

Christmas Pot-pourri

Yes, it's been a while since I've posted. No, it doesn't mean I don't love you.

The reason for the silence is mostly that I've been submerged with work, and during my free time have prioritised living my life rather than writing about it. Which, I think you will concede, is a reasonable choice.

However, it is the holiday season and as such, time for some introspection and taking stock of the current state of affairs. Feeling rather scattered, however, I offer you a hodge-podge collection of my thoughts, only loosely organized into a three-part framework structure of my life.

The good...


1) I have a job. That counts as a "Good Thing". Especially in light of the current crisis, which has resulted in hundreds of highly-qualified, deserving MBAs finding themselves still unemployed, 6 months after graduation. I take this opportunity to call upon any alumni who might be reading these pages to make an extra special effort and show some solidarity in these trying times. Any of you who would be interested in receiving Res Ipsa's Zagat rating of top ten employable MBA J08s should feel free to get in touch...

2) I have a social life. Granted, I still occasionally have to cancel plans, and meeting friends for dinner during the week is a quasi impossibility but still, there's been tremendous progress since my last foray into the job market. And between family, pre-mid-life-crisis friends, INSEAD friends, and the far-away friends that I promise to finally get around to visiting, there's plenty to keep me busy.

The bad...

3) The general mood is crap. Let's face it, this is the ultimate anti-depressant-popping era. Markets are yo-yo-ing, jobs are disappearing, and us 30-somethings are stuck in the middle of this mess with all the normal difficult life stuff to deal with as well. Several of my friends have been having a really hard time of it lately, and the gloom seems to be spreading like chicken pox in a playground sandbox. Here's hoping that 2009 brings the smiles back.

4) Temperatures are sub-arctic. So this is not quite on the same level as, say, famine in Africa or the Middle East peace process, but it is nevertheless one of my chief concerns at the moment. Paris has turned into a polar-bear friendly environment in recent weeks and, to my utmost dismay, the client site I am working from is essentially unheated. Why an organisation would pay to bring in BM consultants but fail to invest in an efficient central heating system will remain one of the great mysteries of life...

The as yet undetermined...

5) I have no idea where my career will take me. Yes, I am happy that I have a job. Yes, there has been a noticeable lifestyle improvement. And yet. I just can't seem to shake this nagging feeling that this job is not for me. More worrying, there's a rather nasal little voice in my head that keeps suggesting that my perfect job is in fact... international litigator. Damn. What does that mean about what I should learn at BM? how long I should stay? where I should go from here?

6) I have no idea where my life will take me. This is a whole other kettle of fish, although intimately related to the point above. Until now, my life has pretty much boiled down to my career, so resolving one meant resolving the other. But having now reached the grand old age of... well, more than 30, should that still be the case? And if I should go out and conquer other of life's territories, what's the battle plan? And how do I ensure that I don't end up in a ditch somewhere minus a few limbs and with a large axe sticking out of my head? OK, perhaps I dramatize a bit, but you see my point. I thought I was making progress by seeking to apply BM problem-solving techniques to my personal life, but unfortunately I got no further than structuring the problem before the plan backfired. I should have known better...!

So there you have it. A snapshot of my brain's turmoils in 6 points and 3 parts. Stay tuned for updates in 2009...

Settling In

In terms of settling into my new apartment, I'm not doing a very good job. There are still a few (too many) boxes around, I'm still sans wardrobe, I'm still taking hours to find my stuff in the mornings, and there's still no food in my fridge.


But in terms of settling into my new Parisian life, I think I'm almost there. I really thought it would be harder, and lonelier, than it has been. While at INSEAD, everyone was talking about Dubai, London, Singapore, and I was worried I was going to get left behind. Instead, I now find myself in the "most happening" city in the INSEAD world! Whether it's because of the current job market, the fact that Paris is on the way to most places, or simply because people have finally realized this is the most beautiful city in the world (there's the chauvinist in me), France's capital has definitely become a hub of INSEAD activity. At least once or twice a week I find myself surrounded by former classmates having dinner, going dancing, celebrating housewarmings or making Charlie Chaplin films (don't ask). And of course there are the old friends, the ones who have stayed true despite the Fontainebleau hiatus during which I fell off the face of the earth, and who are now happily re-found.

So here I am with a busier social life than I have ever had, requiring the investment of significant physical and emotional energy. Don't get me wrong. Despite what some have said, this is not a continuation of INSEAD. Things today are very different; this is not just another "P". The people around me are not the same as a few months ago, or the ones I would necessarily have expected to be part of my new life. Some friends have been lost (or at least temporarily displaced) by the effect of geography, timing or life's unpredictable quirks, and others gained. Happily, there are also the two or three people I am so lucky to have kept close, and with whom I am now developing something perhaps more serious, and more "real" than what we might have had during those fickle INSEAD days.

A new career, a new apartment, a new city, new bonds, new feelings (not to mention a new, historical, US political landscape - go Obama!)... These first few months of my post-third-life-crisis life have been rife with upheaval, an ever-changing cartography I'm now slowly adapting to. Fortunately, some things never change. Like the fact that I can still ramble on for hours about absolutely nothing just for the pleasure of sending my thoughts into the ether. Like the fact that it's often a strong emotional reaction to someone close to me that gets me writing, and yet I never actually write about it (is that frustrating for you, I wonder?!) Like the fact that cigarettes, beer and melodramatic music (Pink Floyd, this time) always get the creative juices flowing.

It's good to know there are some things you can count on.

The perfect little consultant

Well, as you may have guessed from my silence since the last post (apologies to those of you who have been clamoring for news), things have livened up a bit at BM. Although my weekends have remained work-free (with the exception of one, outrageously extravagant and blessedly juvenile 4-day "office retreat") my weeks are now choc-full with problem-solving sessions, conference calls, meetings left right and center, and of course the artistic creation of Picasso-esque slides. In French: pages.

That's something else I've had to get used to. It's not enough to have to adapt to an entirely new way of working, new people, new types of problems, I also have to do this in French. Well, a language that pretends to be French, anyway. More like Franglais with a BM-twist. By next month I can guarantee that my family and friends will no longer be able to understand a word I'm saying.

So here I am, dutifully listening to my manager (who is younger than me), drawing pretty boxes and arrows and bubulles, and thinking back with longing of those days when I used to have a social life. And time to eat (the great mystery of why all BM female consultants are so thin having been resolved).

When I'm not attempting to force a business manual down my client's throat (and dodging the errant bullets from angry protesters outside the building), I am attempting to settle into my new apartment. I'm not complaining, the apartment is fabulous. Or will be, once the gigantic cardboard-box maze running through it finally gets cleared and my belongings become somewhat accessible. This morning witnessed the first breakfast, as I finally found cereal bowls and one spoon (why on earth there was a box containing a single, lonely spoon, I will never know).

So now that I've managed to ramble on incomprehensibly (not very consultant-like of me...) I will leave you to your fabulous lives and exercise my amazing powers of persuasion on my colleagues to see if they can be convinced that 2pm is not actually too early for lunch.

Tedium and Nostalgia

On my way to work this morning, my ipod stumbled upon "Relax" and I almost cried. This is not a good sign. I think I may be suffering from PTSD.

Perhaps the pangs of nostalgia would subside somewhat if things picked up a bit at BM. Unfortunately, I seem to be de trop on my current assignment (whatever it is), and my manager has yet to find any use for me other than going through a small library of background documents (all of which I've already finished reading; one of the side-effects of having been a lawyer is being able to digest mountains of information in a very short timespan). So, instead of being productively employed and thus suitably distracted from my INSEAD-driven thoughts, I am sitting at my sad little desk, staring at my sad little computer and (discreetly) blogging.

The silver lining (and there always is one) is that the lack of anything BM-related to do has left me plenty of time for flat-hunting, my current number 1 priority. I mean, it's nice to be living the teenage dream of having my mother coddle me while still being able to go out whenever I want, but all good things must come to an end. It is time for me to trade in home-cooked meals, clean laundry and a vastly oversized living space for a "room of my own", à la Virgina Woolf, where everything in the fridge will be past its due date, six-months old editions of ELLE will be littering the floor and two cats will be on the verge of murder-suicide. But the parties will be legendary (apologies to my future neighbours). It's not a done deal yet but I think I may have found the perfect bachelorette pad, in my favourite neighbourhood in Paris. Fingers crossed.

BM 007

In theory, I start proper work tomorrow. I say in theory because my manager at BM has yet to contact me to tell me what the heck I'm actually supposed to be doing, or even where I'm supposed to be. I'm taking an educated guess and hoping that somewhere in the Paris area is my general destination. Perhaps on my way to the office some woman will stop me and say "gee, there sure are a lot more people in red t-shirts than there used to be" and I'll say "well, red is the new black", at which point she'll hand me a briefcase with fingerprint-encrypted DVD instructions inside that self-destruct after 30 seconds. "Your mission, should you decide to accept it..."

Of course my "mission" is top secret. As is everything at BM. We are not allowed to tell strangers we work for BM. We are not allowed to disclose the name of our clients, or to tell people where we are travelling to in case they can deduce the identity of our client based on the destination. We are not to use the BM name to reserve a table in a restaurant, in the apparently quite likely event that enemy agents decide to sit next to us and spike our drinks and end up torturing us for information.

On the one hand, it's rather intoxicating to think that I'm a new, corporate James-Bond-type figure (in a dashing, fitted Hugo Boss pant suit and Jimmy Choos, of course). On the other hand, it's a massive conversation killer and basically guarantees that I will never get a date again. Imagine the scene: it's a crowded, no-longer-smoky bar, the margaritas appear, a tall, dark handsome stranger leans in and asks: "So, what do you do?" "I can't tell you." "Oh. Will you be in Paris next week?" "I can't tell you." "Right. Oh look. I think I see my friend over there. Nice meeting you. (Aside) Nut case."