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29 January The Melbourne & Sydney DifferenceHey All,
It feels weird that I'm doing an update so soon after my previous one (yesterday). It's an oddity, so enjoy it while it lasts!
Anyway, lots of people have asked me in the past what the difference was between Melbourne and Sydney, and which place I preferred more (MELBOURNE!!! :D). I've always said that walking around Melbourne City, it felt a lot more relaxed and laid back, whereas Sydney felt more busy and fast paced. I couldn't give a good reason why though.
Speaking to a fellow Melbournian intern (at Macquarie Bank), I sort of realised what it was. We were talking about how some cities such as London were both the financial/economical and political capital of the country, and how that may be too much for a city to cope with, ie. a city becomes a Metropolis, and the issues become too big for the city. Whilst Sydney is the financial capital of the country (and to a lesser extent, political), Melbourne holds neither of those titles, hence is one reason why the city has a more laid back feel than Sydney.
Another factor I thought of was the fact that Sydney is probably also the tourist capital of the country. Given they have such attractions as the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House (both of which I think are a bit overrated, the more I see them...Opera House as a man-made wonder of the world? Give me the Eiffel Tower, the Colosseum or Stonehenge anyday!), they attract a lot more foreigners which adds to the fast "paciness" of the city. This is because they are anywhere and everywhere, filling the streets wherever you go.
I think I've taken too long to make my point, but what I'm trying to say is that MELBOURNE ROCKS!!! haha...I think Sydney is a great place for a holiday and a change of scenery, but in the long-term Melbourne is definitely the place to be. All in agreeance, say aye!
Anyway, it's that time of day again...dinner time. Those who have travelled/lived in both Melbourne and Sydney, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.
Holler out!
William 28 January A Random Thoughts Hit! Weeks 6-8Hello Reader!
It's been a while, but here's the next instalment of my daily updates, random thoughts style!
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<Week 6>
[Day 24]
RaNdOm ThOuGhTs:
- I noticed this a while ago, but the area I work in is quite male-dominated. But I think there has been a conscious decision to increase female numbers at Citigroup. Out of the 15 interns, 8 are girls
- McCain's fettucine carbonara has served me well in my time here so far, almost as a staple/ stock standard dinner. Served with a bit of rocket salad, it goes down nicely for dinner
[Day 25]
RaNdOm ThOuGhTs:
- we had an internship "health check" with HR today. It was interesting to hear that most, if not all interns were going through similar experiences, eg. frustrated at the lack of structure and sometimes a lack of work
- today was the first time I consumed beer during work hours, over lunch with a couple of interns
[Day 26]
RaNdOm ThOuGhTs:
- one of the fixed income traders is only 27 and has been a trader for 7 years already. He started in New York, did a few years in Tokyo, and a couple more here in Sydney. He's already the head of his desk, and a bit of a "superstar" on the trading floor. Most traders are around 35-45
- I took note of a quote he made during the business lunch today: "One good trade doesn't make a career, but one bad trade can break it". Definitely something to think about
[Day 27]
RaNdOm ThOuGhTs:
- it was long overdue, but I finally used the work gym for the first time. It's a lot smaller than the Monash Uni gym but it's still good for a work gym
- I had an intern presentation planning meeting with my co-presenter. Using my former-presidential skills, I was basically able to use my influential skills to guide the discussion in the direction I wanted it to go! hehe...experience counts!
[Day 28]
RaNdOm ThOuGhTs:
- these days I'm getting things done pretty quickly, so I'm finding that I have a lot more gaps during the day now
<Week 7>
[Day 29]
RaNdOm ThOuGhTs:
- since it was raining this morning, I decided to walk through Town Hall Square from the corner of Kent St and Bathurst St. It literally meant that at least half my journey is undercover! So about 4 minutes of my 8 minute walk is dry! Sweet! It also means that I don't have to wait at the Park St and George St intersection which is always busy
[Day 30]
RaNdOm ThOuGhTs:
- I spent the whole day on the trading floor today. It was weird being away from my desk and usual surroundings for the first time in 6+ weeks
- it was good to sit with the traders to see what they get up to. They all have at least 3 monitors, some with 4 or 5 with various information on each! It's a crazy life
- family arrived in Sydney tonight...a week with a cosy apartment with 5 people at my place
[Day 31]
RaNdOm ThOuGhTs:
- today's business lunch served up a feast! They had chicken carbonara dish, a pesto pasta dish, and some foccacia. I helped myself to plenty of food and boy, was it a good change from the usual Citigroup sandwiches!
[Day 32]
RaNdOm ThOuGhTs:
- I randomly ran into Yi at a Chinatown foodcourt last night when I was there with my family. I was kinda surprised to see her there cos I had forgotten that she was coming up
- had another business lunch today, but it was back to sandwiches and wraps again. Ah well, the hot lunches can only last for so long
[Day 33]
RaNdOm ThOuGhTs:
- spent about 3/4 of the day shadowing a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Citigroup, Gillian Larkins. As expected, there were a lot of meetings (I totally understood what she had to go through, especially after so many meetings for me last year!). It was a great experience to see what she got up to, especialy sitting in on a confidential phone conference call with about 20 CFOs from around the AP region!
- before one of the meetings, I spoke to someone who was about to meet with Gill. Turns out she used to be in AIESEC at AU in Adelaide, and was talking about AIESEC with a fellow alumni that morning!
<Week 8>
[Day 34]
RaNdOm ThOuGhTs:
- a couple of my managers (Andy and Chris) have been interviewing candidates for the position that I will be vacating. Chris has said that the talent pool is a bit thin at the moment, and a couple of people (Chris and Ben) have kinda jokingly said that I should defer or do uni via correspondence and start full-time work there now!
[Day 35]
RaNdOm ThOuGhTs:
- I've learnt not to trust a $10 haircut place again. I went to a place near Woolies after work. The guy who cut my hair was quite young and obviously an apprentice, as his boss was giving him tips and instructions on what to do. I thought the sides and back was a bit short (he used a shaver but I prefer scissors), but my colleagues thought it was a good haircut when I saw them later
- had a dinner and karaoke night with my team. There were 10 people at dinner, then 8 at karaoke. Everyone gave it a good go, so it was a lot of fun. We were initially going to stay for 2 hours, but it ended up being 3 hours!
- at dinner, someone noticed that our seating arrangement was almost exactly the same as our office seating arrangement. Quite freaky! Creatures of habit for sure...we're so used to it it's probably in our subconscious
[Day 36]
RaNdOm ThOuGhTs:
- our business lunch today involved resume writing and interview tips. Part of the interview tip was to be conscious of your grooming and presentation, and I got noticed by the (female) presenter for being well-dressed, as I was one of only 3 guys who was wearing a tie. Woohoo, another fashion compliment! [Day 37]
RaNdOm ThOuGhTs:
- had a duck/veg/rice Thai lunch with Derek, Morgs and Chris at the basement foodcourt today. It was good value, only $7.90 for a duck meal. Yum!
- had my latest night in the office so far. Due to some stuff ups from operations earlier on in the day, a lot of the team was delayed with their work. I didn't leave til about 7:10pm
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I hope you all enjoyed an abridged version of my updates! It's about time for dinner...going to head to Chinatown for a CNY eve meal. I'll be popping down to Chinatown tomorrow too, just to check out what's happening. Probably see some lion and dragon dances. Oh yeah, in CNY tradition, I'll be wearing new clothes too! hehe
Happy Chinese New Year to all!
William 26 January Belated (& Brief) Update!Hey All,
It's been precisely 11 days since my last alcohol-induced update, and I'm afraid that I can't offer a much more detailed update at this stage! I think I hit the proverbial "updating wall" sometime in the last couple of weeks. I've still been religiously writing up my own accounts in my book, but I just couldn't be bothered translating that into html...haha. But I've decided that I will continue to post my random thoughts for each day, as that is what is most entertaining for most (if not all) readers! As I'm short on time now, I'll do it in a couple of days.
Anyway, since my last update, there has been a bit happening. My family came up last Tuesday night, for a combination of visiting me, sight-seeing in Sydney, and also to celebrate my sister's 13th birthday. It was a bit of a snug fit in my apartment, but my parents brought up a nifty contraption called an "air mattress"...haha. It's really compact, but when it's blown up (via a battery-operated pump) it's a double-bed-sized mattress! So I had a week of free dinners, and some nice ones at that, at some Chinese restaurants rather than always getting food court food (which by the way, isn't too bad!).
I think that's about it for now. I promise a more entertaining posting the next time around. Huy, good to see you're following my lead and writing up a diary too...haha. And Vivi, I wish I could say I was writing up the "Doogling Diaries", but unfortunately there hasn't been too much to report up til this stage.
Ok, I should grab some lunch now. To all the Chinese (and Chinese wannabes) out there, Gong Xi Fa Cai (I hope my spelling is better than my speech)!
Over and out!
William 15 January Apologies...To my loyal readers,
Apologies for not updating my blog today. I was at the net cafe but I got caught up with the emails. I'm currently at a friend's house and feeling somewhat tipsy. I will try to update sometime later this week. Catch ya's later y'all! Holler out!
William 07 January Citibank Weeks 4 & 5Hi All,
First of all, a happy new year to everyone! Let's hope for a big 2006! Secondly, thanks to my dedicated readers and posters (especially Vivi and Heidi...hehe). And thirdly, apologies in advance for a long update. I wasn't able to do a week 4 update last week due to NYE, and my Melbourne friends arriving! It was a great weekend though. I'll do an update on the NYE and the Melbournian happenings later.
Anyway, here goes weeks 4 & 5!
---
[Day 16]
Today was the first day of a shortened 3-day week due to the Boxing Day and Christmas Day holidays. It also meant that half our team took their annual leave, leaving only 6 of us to carry the workload. And I guess you could describe the day as being eventful to say the very least. It was basically Murphy's Law at work: anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, especially when the person in charge of certain tasks you are doing is away! My buddy, Derek, was away and I took charge of one of his jobs, and it kinda screwed up on me. In the end it got fixed, but it delayed someone else's work for a few hours. Not good!
I completed the rest of my work without too much hassle, but Chris had an issue with the fixed income (FI) P&Ls as they didn't contain any financing, and that problem probably arose from an earlier tasks I did. Bugger! But Chris said it could be amended tomorrow, and I was bloody well hoping that it could!
It was a tough day, especially when we were down a number of people. I hope tomorrow improves!
RaNdOm ThOuGhTs:
- when I arrived back in Sydney last night, I went to Chinatown and saw some people busking. It was kinda said and also quite ironic, in that they were busking in the area of one of the tightest races on the planet, ie. the Chinese (hey, I can say that cos I am Chinese)
[Day 17]
It wasn't as eventful today as yesterday which was good. Things were going pretty smoothly until I came across an abnormally large figure in one of the reconciliation worksheets. I thought that it was because I ran a 5 day count for the second day running to resolve the problems of yesterday. The rest of my tasks went without a hitch.
In the late afternoon, I created a couple of spreadsheets for Juliet, one of my colleagues. I added a little bit of colour to it, so as to lighten up what is usually a pretty plain spreadsheet. She was quite impressed with it, saying that I should be a "clothes designer for Ralph Lauren" or something like that. That was a bit of a laugh! This task took me to the end of the day.
RaNdOm ThOuGhTs:
- I found out today that one of my fellow interns has about 30 pairs of shoes! How crazy is that?! Can any other girl match that figure?
[Day 18]
Today was the last working day before the New Year, so people were winding down and there wasn't as much happening on the trading floor. I was up pretty early this morning for the arrival of my friends from Melbourne, so I made it in earlyish to work again at 8:50am (yes Vivi, that is early...haha).
This was the first day of the week that I didn't have any big issues, so that was good. There were a couple of small ones, but they were resolved pretty quickly. I had a fairly quiet afternoon, so I finished at about 4:30pm and spent about 45-60 minutes doing an awards application for AIESEC Victoria (loyal even though an alumnus!). After that I met my friends for dinner at the Australian Hotel, then drinks at Opera Bar.
RaNdOm ThOuGhTs:
- at the Australian Hotel, we had a roast duck pizza, crocodile pizza, chicken pizza and an Aussie sausage pizza for dinner. The duck was the best by far. The crocodile was a bit dry and lacked flavour
[Day 19]
It was the beginning of a new week today, and the beginning of a new year! But whilst many others enjoyed a relaxing time off on this New Year's public holiday, I was slaving away at work! Yep, I had to work the Monday after New Year's day. Ah well...it's cos we needed to do reporting for Friday as well as month and year end reporting, and it had to be done before the Tuesday. The office was dead quiet though, since the markets were closed and hence the traders weren't in.
I got caught out again with the public holiday dress code. I was in business wear (shirt, tie, black pants), but pretty much everyone else was in casual. Another lesson to be learnt: if you're working in an office on a public holiday, don't dress up! Hmm...hopefully I won't have to work public holidays in future.
Since we had a full team back on board today, I basically spent the day chasing up issues from the previous week when people were away. I pretty much got them all tied up, so it was good to get them out of the way. I finished the day at about 5:30pm and met my friends for dinner, then had drinks at The Rocks at Pancakes on The Rocks (Sydney's equivalent of the Pancake Parlour).
RaNdOm ThOuGhTs:
- I had been looking to buy a yellow polo, but my friends bought me one as a thank you present! Thanks guys!
[Day 20]
This was probably my most quiet day in the office since I started (if you don't include those intranet days). The reason being that since the markets were closed yesterday, there weren't any P&L reports to produce.
I had lunch with my Melbourne posse at Star Bar on George St. Most of us had the $5.95 porterhouse steaks served with chips. It was a good feed for the price. I took them back to my place after to collect their things, before they left to catch a taxi, before flying back to Melbourne!
The remainder of the afternoon was spent working on my project. It's a long process, so I took my time in trying to make sense of the various documents and programs involved. I finished the day at about 5:30pm and went home to do a whole lot of washing and cleaning.
RaNdOm ThOuGhTs:
- my white towels and the dark maroon bathroom mat are annoying me. They keep fleecing in the wash and are spreading their cotton bits all over the washing items (good thing I wash my clothes separately!)
[Day 21]
I was back to my normal daily routine today. It went smoothly as usual, and I managed to et most of my work done by lunch. This week's training session was on Equities, and more specifically on derivatives. To be quite honest, I didn't pay a great deal of attention due to me being tired as from the late nights when my friends were over, and also cos I was enjoying a free cooked lunch! No dreaded sandwiches this week. I had bolognese, carbonara and salad. Yum yum! Anyway, I'm hoping I can get a handout of the presentation cos I wouldn't mind reading over it later.
After lunch I completed the remainder of my tasks. Derek picked up on a problem with the manual funding spreadsheet (which I complete) which he wasn't able to clear up, and he seemed a bit frustrated with it. I'm not sure how it came about, but I may have screwed it up somehow. Hopefully it can be fixed.
RaNdOm ThOuGhTs:
- some people left the office quite late last night, due to month end work. I heard obscene times like 10:30pm, 11:00pm, 12:00pm, and even 1:00am and 1:30am!
[Day 22]
I was again one of the first ones into the office, but I guess I didn't have to stay as late as most in the office last night. From all reports though, it was earlier than the previous night. The morning went smoothly until I came across the manual funding spreadsheet again. Derek said to leave it til later as he was busy with something else. I completed the rest of my tasks without any big issues, and again was able to easily tackle the smaller issues on my own.
After I had completed all my daily tasks, I had quite a bit of time to spend on my project. Earlier, Chris had sent me objectives for my internship (which he admitted he should've sent earlier), and one objective was for me to start on this project, and to have a plan that someone could continue on from at the conclusion of my internship. Because of that, I decided to make a worklog/logbook of what I had done and what I planned to do. I was pretty proud of that, and hopefully it's a document that the next person can make good use of when they pick it up.
RaNdOm ThOuGhTs:
- it was another trader's birthday today, so they bought McMuffins and hash browns. I missed out on the hash browns, but I managed to score 2 free McMuffins. Gotta love birthdays!
- there were heaps of emails sent today, especially between myself and 2 other interns. Probably about 40+ emails combined! Crazy!
[Day 23]
It was a fairly easy-going day in the office today, as most Fridays seem to be. I had my mentor chat with Shane, and it went fairly well again. It began similarly to our last chat: it began with a brief chat about our holidays - how they were, what we did. Shane had gone home to NZ, so we spoke a bit about that. Then we went through the usual thing about how I was finding the internship, if I was enjoying it, if I had any concerns, etc. He also mentioned that the internship was a chance to see if Citigroup was a company I'd like to work for (which was quite obvious to me). As soon as he said that, I kinda took the hint and I talked Citigroup up as being a company that I'd love to work for, due to the international opportunities it provides, and it's great working culture (both of which I really do believe in).
I think the meeting was about to wrap up after about 15 minutes, before I asked him about his progression through Citigroup in his 5 years there. It gave me a good perspective of where he came from and where I could go to from the position I am currently working in, as he was originally working in the same area. We also spoke about how since his promotion in around August, how his work has gone from being very functional/technical to being very managerial. I guess it was quite an obvious point, but I could totally understand it through my experience in AIESEC, moving from being a team member/director to being a president. In the end, the meeting went for about half an hour, and I really enjoyed the chat. He again mentioned that Chris was happy with the little time it has taken me to familiarise myself with the tasks given to me. Always good to hear!
The remainder of the day was pretty smooth sailing. I cracked open a Crown Lager at about 4:30pm and drank it at my desk whilst working on my project. A nice way to end the week!
RaNdOm ThOuGhTs:
- went to the Asian food court under Woolworths (did I mention that Woolies is my second home?) and had Ipoh Kuey Teow (or better known as Ipoh Hor Fun). Tasted great!
- I met Matt and Ella (both fellow finance directors in the vintage year of 2003) for dinner at Ichiban Boshi. It was good to see Ella again. My udon tasted a bit like upper class instand noodles, so it wasn't exactly top shelf stuff. I'll try something else next time
- I met Dan (a special friend of one of my Melbourne friends...hehe) and some of his workmates (mainly from Queensland). One of his female colleagues complimented me on my shirt. Woohoo, compliments from both Sydneysiders and Queenslanders thus far!
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Alrighty, thanks to everyone (ie. Vivi and Heidi! :P) for bearing with me and sharing my working experiences for weeks 4 and 5. It was an extremely long update...even my fingers and eyes are hurting now :S One thing that I haven't really done is update my life outside of work (though I have done a bit in my random thoughts).
When I get the time, I really want to update the few days that my friends were up from Melbourne. Had lots of fun over those 4-5 days, with many memorable moments! Just a couple of words sum up their time up here: "Garrr" and "Naaay". The GarrrNaaay game is a classic, and from it many new nouns and verbs were formed. Words such as a "garrr", "garrrable" and "garrrworthy" will be etched in our vocab forever more (just like "doogling" for some people...haha)!
Anyway, here's me signing off again for another week. I had a late one at "The Cross" (Kings Cross) last night, but I'm up for another late one tonight. See y'all!
William |
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