Office jobs can be cool

Even the wildest of us will probably end up working at a desk

GOD MUST LOVE STUPID PEOPLE.

He made LOADS of us.

I’m reminded of the truth of this every time I’m asked to give career advice to people.

The other day, a student thinking about going into the financial sector asked me for advice.

“Bankers and accountants sound SO boring,” she said. “How can I make sure I am one of the exciting ones?”

I thought about pointing out that her blue hair, nose ring and micro-miniskirt would add much-needed drama to the financial scene.

But I decided not to risk any sort of personal comment, since she was accompanied by her boyfriend, who looked exactly like the Incredible Hulk, except Hulk has smaller muscles and a healthier skin tone.
*
But before I could respond to her question, my phone beeped with a text message from a banker friend. It said:

“Never put your credit card into a condom. Check out my email.”

Telling the students to sit down while I attended to an urgent message, I checked out his email.

He reported that his colleagues had detected a new fraud technique. Bad guys stick carbon paper onto a piece of card and put it into a condom. They stuff the whole thing into the slot of a bank cash machine. You come along and you think you are putting your card into an ATM, but you are really putting it into their carbon-paper-lined condom, which “clones” your card. The only clue is the fact that your card smells funny, since the most popular scent for condoms, apparently, is strawberry.

I turned my screen so the students could see it. “Here’s an example of financial professionals doing something exciting,” I said. “Exposing methods used by criminal gangs.”
*
While she and her friend were looking at my desktop computer, I did a quick internet search on my laptop for stories of heroic acts by financial people.

The best was a news report about a villain who managed to get a company’s payroll computer to give him a monthly salary, although he did not work there. A sharp-eyed auditor at Avaya Inc of New Jersey, a telecoms company, spotted the problem and managed to get US$470,000 back.
*
While I was showing the report to the young people, an email arrived telling me that a former correspondent of mine, Sam Antar, was on a speaking tour in the US. Ex-jailbird Sam is telling audiences that he learned accounting purely to find ways of getting around the law. He “infiltrated” accounting firms auditing the books of his cousin’s firm Crazy Eddie’s. “We were out and out crooks,” Sam said. They defrauded stockholders of almost US$80 million before being caught. Now he’s gone straight and gives lectures on financial security.
*
Little Miss Blue Hair was intrigued. “That DOES sound pretty exciting,” she said.

I asked: “Which? The auditor who caught the payroll thief? Or Sam, who used accountancy skills to become a fraudster?”

She shook her head.

“No, I was thinking about credit cards which smell of strawberries. That would be SUCH a cool thing to have.”

The Incredible Hulk nodded.
*
Yes, these are the decision-makers who will be looking after our retirement funds in a year or two.
*
ON ANOTHER SUBJECT, I’d like to think reader Sej for his advice in the comments of “Scared to Death (part 5)”, three posts behind this one, that there are certain poisons which are undetectable – this is useful information for a crime-writer. Or anyone, come to that.

I guess we ought to ask Sej what he does in real life, if he looks like Uncle Fester and is an expert in poisons. Mass murderer? Serial killer?

Technorati Tags: careers,desk jobs,professionals,accountants,bankers

(Illustration posed by model)

Comments

[TS]

As long as there is bubble wrap around, office life will never be boring.

[Juvy]

Facebook makes officework fun. Why be bored?

[Denis]

Juvy, I hope your boss is not reading your comment. otherwise facebook will be banned in your office, just like it is in many other offices....

But seriously, i think we all make the journey from wild teenagers to boring office people.

proof is the picture of mr jam in the "party pics" posting last week. he was a wild young man but now is married man with a mortgage kids etc

I used to be a wild man myself. i am amazed that i survived to this age. now i work in an office. sad but true, it happens to all of us

[fardel]

"Office jobs can be cool"

It all depends of:
- the temperature of the air conditioning
- if the worker in the next cubicle is our international famous truck driver.

i know a guy who is still wild after all this years .
He still cannot work in an office

Talking about FB

News from Asia about the west:

http://brasschecktv.com/page/603.html

Sweet dreams

[farah]

i used to have facebook as well in office but one fine afternoon in the middle of playing cafe world i found that it works no more.

that day marked the sad demise of both facebook and youtube.

[sej]

Nury,

Let's just say, I'm a "Professional".

[Christy]

ah! so that's why Sej needs to keep his identity secret and only uploads pictures of a tied up monkey :)

[Angela]

Professional dynamite fisherman

Professional electricity conductor

Professional monkey kidnapper

Professional poison expert

and loving uncle to wednesday, pugsley, and pubert

I like the lightbulb trick.

[Minkha]

I was working in an investment bank few years ago. On a Xmas Eve, since we were all miserable and needed a bit of excitement to get us through the day (we didn't have the day off, even though it was in the catholic Poland, where everyone celebrates Xmas Eve!!!), one of my colleagues asked everyone who knew a language 'more foreign' than English to call a guy, who was sitting next to him and pretend we were one of the clients.
I was representing Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, someone called 'from' Deutsche Bank and someone else 'from' Banca Comerciale Italiana (all of them were our clients).
I'll never forget the victim's face when he found out and came to my desk 'Et tu, Brute?!'. He was dealing with a pretty big stuff, a mistake could cost a few mln $$$; so he got really stressed, while dealing with our 'requests' and asking us if we spoke English to which we were saying (I was anyway): 'English? No, no English!'.
So far it's been my nicest memory of 'office fun'. I know it was a bit mean, but even our boss had a laugh.
All the other memorable stuff involved things I'd rather erase from my memory...

[Mike]

I had a friend who worked as a telephone operator at a near by campus. The boss figured it didn't matter what you looked like since the customer only hears your voice. In her office there were guys covered with tatoos, guys missing limbs, mohawks so tall they had to get special headsets, and emos who had to take out their tounge piercings so they could be understood. I never saw people so happy to work for lousy pay but to keep their lifestyle choices.

[Nury]

nice anecdotes, thanks guys. The one about the telephone business operated by weird looking people rings a bell -- I work a lot in radio and the same thing happens there. Everyone sounds normal, but you should see us...

[Mahjuja]

I don't know if office jobs and office internships are the same ball game. But my office internship was totally cool. The office director and deputy director would always keep candy in their offices for everyone to help themselves to and whenever they went on vacation, they would bring some more candy like Ferro Rochers or special cookies AND I was in charge of sort of distributing these goodies because I was the intern and I was stationed between their offices. I was SO popular both in our section office and the section across the hall and the sections we would work with on a day to day basis. I also discovered that a little chocolate offered with a lot of enthusiasim and hospitality can do wonder in developing office relations. They all gave me a heartfelt farewell in the end, two parties (at the office director's home and at the office) and all personally financed by the office director since, office policy allows no funds for parties.

[Chamin]

Try attaching legs and ears made of post-it notes, to the mouse of your office neighbor's computer. Simple, but generates big smiles :o)

[Lurker]

In my first job the company was so small only 3 workers but the manager wanted to make it look bigger so we changed our voices and accents so that callers think there are many of us. Sometimes I had an Indian accent sometimes I had a British accent sometimes I had a 'Romanian' accent. We did not know what Romanians sound like so we just make it up. It was drove me crazy and fun but now I prefer watching lifts.