I'll Take The Round Peg Please

"You can’t fit a square peg into a round hole"

I’ve heard that saying a million times, and I’ve often applied it to my own life. Every time I did so, I was the square peg and life as I knew it, work, church, and certain friends, were the hole. Yet, life isn’t perfect. Sometimes we have grandiose ideas of what we’d like to achieve and who we’d like to become. In mine, I was a partnered father of two with a house in Connecticut and a successful interior design firm in the city. In my grandiose ideas life is fun, and comfortable, full of creativity and passion. Now, take a look at reality, in which I’m a single guy in New York City with a pretty good career in investment banking. No present partner and no where near getting one. No kids and no where near having any. And no interior design firm and, you guessed it, no where near having one. Life is sometimes boring. I’m sometimes much more lonely than I’d like to be. Community, good and persistent community, is very hard to come by, and sometimes I don’t know why the hell I’m still here. That is my life, and although at times I wish it were different, it is what it is and it’s really not too shabby.

It can be difficult to realize that the world you created in your head when you were young isn’t the world you were meant to have, and that that life isn’t the one you were meant to live. However, focusing on that can cause one to miss out on the life and the world which exists right before ones eyes. When I was a kid I was creative and passionate about all sorts of things that seemed to have disappeared when I became an adult. Truth is that creativity and passion are still there. As a kid such things were pretty much all of me. As an adult, they’re just a part of me. I’m ok with that. That’s how it’s supposed to be.

The round hole has really been me, while the square peg has been my expectations, and i'm tired of trying to make my life conform to my expectations. I guess I’m reaching the end of my quarter-life crisis, and to it I bid adeu.

- Bryan

Where's my Swear Jar

So, it's back to work for me today. After a weekend in the Catskills and two lovely days outside of the office, it's time to return. There's something about returning to work in the bitter cold that just makes returning to work that much more difficult. It also makes it really difficult for me to get my butt out of bed and go for a run. I hate running in the cold.

Anyhow, I chatted on the phone with my friend David last night for a few hours. Somehow we got onto the topic of weather, at which point he said "I can understand why someone would live where it's always hot, or why someone would live where it's always cold, but I don't understand you New York people who live where it's so hot in the summer and so cold in the winter." I woke up this AM with that thoughts on my mind, and I think I finally have an answer!

We forget!

Yup. Somehow. Someway. We forget. When the spring hits and those flowers start to bloom, when those birds start to sing, and that sun starts to shine for more hours in the day...we forget ALL about the winter, the cold, the snow. The promises we made ourselves during those coldest moments to move to some sunny tropical place? Yeah, we forget them too. Yup. That's it.....

Anyway, the below is a Youtube video that seems appropriate for my return to the office today. *sigh*

Enjoy!

Checkmate...follow up

So, I decided to email my mom after I made my last post, telling her what I thought and how I felt. It was a great idea. We had some back and forth, and in the end I realized that I need to kind of lead the way in this whole process. It's not that my parents don't have questions to ask, nor is it that they don't want to discuss this whole thing. It's just that they don't know what to ask or how to go about it. I suppose that's where I come in, opening up a bit more and sharing the pieces of my life that i've long kept hidden. I guess we were all waiting. I was waiting for them to ask, and they were waiting for me to tell.



ENOUGH DRAMA...

I'm in love folks......with this coat from Burberry!

















Yet, I just cannot bring myself to spend almost $2,000 on a coat!!!

I'm lying. What I really mean is that I can't bring myself to spend that much on a coat right now, at this point in my life. Yet, the tempation is great. It is so great that I had to get a second opinion. So, I asked my friend and co-worker Viv what his thoughts were. Below is our brief yet pointed IM conversation yesterday.

04:11PM bry: random question. would you spend $2000 on a coat?
04:12PM vpat: not unless that coat had wheels, a couple of doors, and 150 hp
04:12PM bry: LOL
04:13PM vpat: why?
04:13PM bry: uhh....no reason.

- Bryan

TGIF

Bryan: We’re budgeting for this twice next year. We should only be budgeting for it once.

SVP: What do you mean?

Bryan: In 2007 we only budgeted for it once, which is accurate. In the 2008 budget we have it listed twice, one for project xxa and one for project xxb.

SVP: I’m not understanding....

Bryan: Ok. We should only be budgeting for it once. Like…one time. When I look at the budget, I see that xxa is budgeting for it, and xxb is budgeting for it. Two projects are budgeting for exactly the same thing, which isn’t necessary. It looks like we’re intending to spend twice as much on it as we’re actually going to. We should remove it from xxb and just keep it on xxa.

(VP comes into SVP’s office)

SVP to VP: Do you understand this?

VP: What?

Bryan: SVP is budgeting for the same item twice. I see it as a 2008 budget request for two different projects. It should only be on one project.

VP: ....uh huh...

Bryan:…….

Bryan: We’re budgeting for 200% of the actual cost.

VP: What d'ya mean?

Bryan:….

Bryan to VP and SVP: Ok. Say I owe you $100. And to make sure I remember I’m going to include it in my budget for next month. However, instead of just creating one item that says “Pay VP $100”, I create two items which say “Pay VP $100”. Instead of it looking like I owe you $100, it now looks like I owe you $200. But I don’t owe you $200. I only owe you $100. So, to make sure that I’m portraying my expenses as accurately as possible so that I can budget as accurately as possible, I need to remove one of those items which say “Pay VP $100”, so that instead of it looking like I owe you $200 on my books, it looks like I only owe you $100….which is accurate. That’s what’s happening here. It looks like we’re going to be paying more to this vendor next year because we have this item listed twice in error. You get me?

SVP: ……. …….. (blank stare)

VP:……………… (blank stare)

Bryan:……………..

Bryan: .....have a good weekend….

(Bryan leaves office, grabs his crap, and heads to the elevator)

Work After A Holiday

....is very challenging when you're an IT Business Analyst for an Investment Bank. Among the things that i've seen while parusing the office today are:

- People showing off their Christmas gifts
- People watching TV (Judge Judy that is)
- People playing foosball (that's right...fooseball! I don't know how it made its way into the office but it's here on the table and people are playing it like it's going out of style.)
- People playing chess
- People playing checkers
- People playing cards
- People playing with toy guns

A hard working bunch they are!

As for me, I’ve been very diligent in my tasks. So far I’ve managed to look for hotels for my parents who are coming into town next week. I've also managed to pick up some packaging tape and some juicy fruit from the pharmacy. I even went to go to the post office. AND NOW I’m composing a new blog entry. When I leave at 2:30pm I’ll feel really good about myself and all of my accomplishments!!!!

I know! It's been a tough day, but someone's gotta keep that corporate wheel spinning! And DAMN IT it if it's me an my colleagues, we're certainly up for the challenge!

Let's keep up the good work!!

New Career Options

I wonder how much I’d make as a bathroom attendant…

What am I doing?!

Today was one of those days filled with what to do's. What to do about moving, what to do about an apartment, what to do about work, what to do about friends, what to do about pretty much everything. Most frustrating though is the fact that with all these questions i'm still left with little to no answers. And if you think about those questions you thought you had already answered long enough, you start to doubt the true nature of the answer....leaving you more frustrated and confused than you were before you woke up at 9am asking all those stupid questions!

Should I live and work in Manhattan?
If I did that would mean giving up a job with lots of opportunities (atleast it seems that way now...we're merging with another company so that could be a moot point), good money, great benefits, and lots of flexibility. Oh, and that I only started 3 months ago. However, i'm not all that passionate about the work, it's in an industry i'm not crazy about, and i'm not sure but I think I pretty much hate their corporate culture...although I do love my coworkers...SHOUT OUT TO THE BOKEN!!! I don't know what to do..... I was almost certain I was going to leave but then I got hit with a case of the "..but what if's."

-But what if you change your work schedule?
- But what if you approach things differently?
-But what if you give it one more try????

Screw it! The truth of the matter is...i've given it one more try atleast 10 times now. It's like that episode of Sex in The City where Miranda stops psychoanalyzing the men she dates and learns to accept when he's "Just not that into you." Well, i'm "just not that into" this job... WHO KNEW?!?!?! I think it's mostly because i've been frustrated one to many times in the past 3 months and my brain and my emotions have officially tendered their letters of resignation. I guess I should follow suit....