Goodbye Cruel Work

So this is it. My last day of work where I've been for the past few years. My last day of the ghey suit and tie. My last day of the stiff-ass atmo and the stodgy demeanor of everyone in any position of power at the company. My last day working for the "back office" in a company which thinks "back office" somehow means "insignificant, unworthy pond scum". My last day working for the weak-willed shell of a man known as my boss. My last day dealing with the low-base big-bonus compensation structure of an investment bank.

But it is also my last day managing a team of lawyers and analysts whom I have really grown to know and love. My last day as the biggest fish in the small group which I have basically led for the past couple of years. My last day of being The Man with the answers for everyone around me. My last day of being everyone's favorite lawyer on a team where my other colleague and even my boss don't get even a tenth of the respect that I do, from anyone. My last day of basically mentoring and guiding the professional and personal lives of so many of the people around me.

After all my griping, I am definitely feeling sad today to be leaving, I really am. And don't get me wrong -- I'm glad overall I'm getting out of this place, I know it's the right time and I know this is a move I have to make. But the bottom line is, over the past year or so in this job I have earned my first opportunity as a lawyer to really be a leader, to build a team of lawyers providing top notch support to a large subset of clients in a major company. And that aspect of things has been awesome, and frankly it is something I am giving up when I go to my new employer in a few weeks. And I'm going to miss it, quite a bit actually. So I leave today with a sense of happiness and adventure, moving on to the next thing in my career, but I don't do it with all smiles. It's a sad day for me in many ways, as I say goodbye to so many of the great people I have had the chance to meet and the opportunity to work with and to lead over the past few years of my life. I can only hope that my next job brings me some of these same challenges and some of the same opportunities I have been able to land here in my time in the bank, although overall getting out of this environment -- especially at this particular time -- is something I am looking tremendously forward to.

Now it's time to move on to the next item on my agenda -- moving from the big city to the big suburbs of New York.

Next

Needless to say, a lot has happened in the past couple days here in Hammer Land.

Of course, I gave my notice at work. Once I am gone maybe I'll spend some more time writing about it, but suffice it to say that the past year or so in this job has been some of the most tumultuous and really just the craziest times I have had in my professional life of more than ten years as a corporate lawyer. My company has basically gone from the best-performing company (stock market wise) over the past fifteen years in a very high-flying sector of the marketplace, to the biggest decliner in the group with suddenly significant doubts about its ability to survive very much longer at all. How exactly this happened remains a mystery to us all as employees as much as it is to investors and anyone but I imagine the extremely in-the-know within this company. But living it has been, in a word, horrible.

Yes, I have had well-documented issues with my boss with regards to my own individual situation at work. But in the end, all that stuff became trivial basically as soon as 2008 began, when our stock really began declining, and the rumors started swirling that the company might actually be in some trouble. Ever since then it's been like a downward spiral. Truly, I am one of the lucky ones getting out now as it seems more and more likely every day that we will become insolvent, get bought, or undergo some other major corporate transaction. The thought of the great, great people I've worked with all having the ongoing existence of their jobs threatened literally makes me sick to my stomach. I have to try not to think about it several times every day. But it just makes it all the more clear why I have to leave.

And no, I'm not planning to be a professional gambler.

It's funny to me, really. Would any of you out there doubt that I am among the most pompous assiest people who ever lived? Certainly I'm not arguing it. But the funny thing is, even I don't think I could make it as a professional gambler. And you know I think I'm better than you at poker, make no mistake about it. But even I don't actually entertain actual thoughts of actually playing poker for a living. Never. I mean, I used to. When I first started playing regularly online a few years back, that was like my ultimate dream. F the Man, quit my job and just play online poker and be rich, of course that's what I wanted.

But then I got realistic. I got a whole lot of poker experience, probably a million hands in my first year or so (edit: ok fine, that number is far too high, what's the diff though?), hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of tournaments under my belt, and I realized how utterly foolish those plans were, for me. I literally would not be able to make nearly enough money to live the way I want my family to live if all I did was play poker. There is no limit in any game in cash, and no buyin level of poker tournament, where I could make anything approaching the money from my day job, nor anywhere near enough to live on. Not even a very poor existence, I couldn't even support that. My ROI in tournaments just on full tilt this year is what, about 10%? That means I would have to play $300,000 worth of tournaments a year just to make 30 large? I could not come close to playing 300k of tournaments, nor could I come close to living on 30k a year at this point in my life.

And don't get me wrong. It is patently obvious that there are a good number of people out there who can make it in life playing professionally. Some people can live a whole lot cheaper than I am looking to live right now. And that's great, if it helps you to be able to make all your money just from poker, then I think that's the coolest fuckin thing in the world. Other people are a hundred times better than me at the kinds of poker that can make them the most consistent money. High stakes cash players who are good, for example, can make sickass money from just regular good-player win rates at the high levels. I blow at high stakes cash. Similarly, the truly greatest online poker players have big big ROIs and can easily win hundreds of thousands a year in online mtt profits.

But that is just not me. I'm not good enough. I'm not devoted enough. I'm not patient enough. I'm not even-keeled enough. I always play at my best when I'm having fun, and poker as a fun hobby on which I don't rely in the least for personal income has been the only way the game has ever worked out for me. If I had to play to make money to support myself and my family, I just know I couldn't do it. I'm just not cut out to be a professional poker player. For all my pomposity, I know I don't have the mentality or the game for it.

I get a lil' bit of a kick whenever a blogger leaves their current job for whatever reason, and suddenly everyone is all "go pro! go pro!" on their asses. I appreciate greatly the support, but being a poker pro is just not for me. And unlike almost every lawyer I know, I absolutely love my day job. I mean, I really love what I do. And I'm going to move on to another company to keep doing my thing. Like I said, once I am gone from this place perhaps I will write more about my experiences after what I truly believe has been a noteworthy experience that an actual good writer could probably put out an awesome book about, about working in this industry, and in particular at my company, for the past year since the onset of the crippling credit crunch that has gripped our country. But starting now I guess I will have a whole new company -- my new employer -- to protect and to not reveal the identity of here on the blog.

More to come. Looking forward to the Mookie tonight, the only blonkament I am really in to these days to tell the truth. 10pm ET on full tilt, password as always is "vegas1".

Notice

I noticed it from the moment I woke up this morning. As usual my own personal alarm clock for the past nearly five years straight has been my daughter M. Literally my wife and I haven't set an alarm clock even once that I can recall since I think the very day she was born. Anyways, from the second that I first opened my eyes on Monday morning, from the very moment I first reached that tipping point between the fog of sleep and the dawn of recognition, I could tell something was different.

I think I first noticed the visual signs sometime during my morning shower. It's hard to pinpoint the exact difference, but I think it was mostly along the edges of random objects. A little shine on the corner here, a glint on an edge there, that sort of thing. When I saw myself in the mirror for the first time after I stepped out of the shower, I thought I looked a little different too. It's like I was seeing clearer or something, more in focus than I had before. Definitely something like that.

The symptoms only grew as the morning wore on. On the subway, my balance was impeccable, like I was sharing a purpose with the train or something. When people spoke, I was hearing nuances to the sounds that I had never noticed before, hidden intonations I never knew were there underneath. As I walked towards my office building in midtown Manhattan, the normal city smells of coffee, cigarettes and the occasional garbage truck wafted through me at levels of intensity I could not recall. Approaching my building entrance, I remember remarking to myself that I could barely feel my legs moving or even touching the ground at all. I floated from street to street, intersection to intersection, as much a part of the rat race as ever, and yet somehow feeling for the first time in a long time apart from it. Above it even.

As I boarded the elevator up to my office, I thought to myself that this is one of those mornings that is kinda like the Matrix: you really can't describe it, you just have to experience it for yourself. Words cannot describe the feeling on a day like this, all the little ways that things look, smell and just seem different thanks to the richness of a new perspective.

Ten minutes ago, I left my boss's office after giving him my notice that I will be leaving his employ.

My boss is so cute. He sincerely believes management is going to come up with a bunch of cash and promises sufficient to get me to stay. Sadly, my company is more likely to need money from me these days than it is to have any money to give me.

So in the immortal words of George Kostanza, "I'm out, baby!!!"

And it feels sooooo good.