In the jungle, the mighty jungle...

"It was the nation and the race dwelling all round the globe that had the lion's heart. I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar"
--Winston Churchill

Today I was joking with a friend about how both of 'my countries' have some affinity towards lions and how, despite former glories, the people of both are now, on the whole, lazy f*ckers whose only leonine quality is a tendency to lay around in the heat yawning (probably because former lions have made things too easy for them, but let's not get into that).

I can't talk. I'm still looking for another job. And I have lots of stuff I could be doing with my days: either real work or some finance self-study that will help me to get the roles I'm going for (which recent interviews have shown me that I desperately need), or any number of other things that I would either enjoy or would be useful for me.

But I'm not doing anywhere near enough of it because I'm just so bored. I'm bored of all of it. I'm bored of this project, bored of having the same problems with the same departments here, bored of recruiters and job specs, bored of my own schpeel and my own answers to the same incredibly unoriginal interview questions (if one more person asks me for the pros and cons of each type of VaR calculation.... ), bored of efinancialcareers and linkedin and cityjobs.com. I think I'm even bored of Credit Risk. The only thing that slightly wakes me up these days is the one project I'm involved with that crosses over slightly with Market Risk.

And the boredom is making me slow. I'm slow to respond to emails and voicemails. I'm not reading enough. I'm not writing at all. I do virtually nothing towards my Alchemy now, and I don't feel that same inspiration & motivation towards it as I used to.

So basically I'm not doing anything because I'm bored, and I'm bored because I'm not doing anything.

I knew I would hit points like this on the journey. I think it might be time to eat frogs or watch motivational videos on TED.com or otherwise trick myself into working when I don't want to but I know it will be good for me.

Lions aren't kings of the jungle for the time they spend laying around in the sun yawning (though admittedly they do look pretty good doing that, as shown above).

Would I lie to you?

I'm looking for another contract role, and I'd like it to be a good one for three reasons:

1. A higher rate will enable me to pay off my debts faster.

2. I really want to sharpen up my finance knowledge and mathematical skills - in case I end up getting into financial journalism, and my project skills because they'll inevitably be useful for any kind of development work I get into. Also I generally find this stuff quite interesting.

3. I perform much better, and in some ways enjoy work much more, when I'm way out of my depth.

So I'm trying to strike the balance between doing the easier-to-get & extremely lucrative but less challenging roles, and the more challenging ones that are a much longer shot, might take more time to find, and for which I might have to offer a lower rate. You'd think that more challenging roles would pay more, but the market is kinda screwed up right now. Credit Risk Change divisions have very inflated budgets.

More draining than this though, is being constantly lied to by recruitment agencies. This week I've had:

"They won't pay more than x"

when the guy's already agreed > x with the company and put this in writing to me

"I've also put your friend forward for this role but don't worry they're recruiting a couple of people for this position so this won't in any way jeapordise your chances. I wouldn't do that!"

when the interviewer specifically told me that he is recruiting just one person

"You told me you wanted me to put you forward for this role so I've already sent your CV over"

Well the part about him sending my CV was true, but the role was in my old department. I definitely hadn't seen it and would never have agreed to it.

Ahh the joys of job hunting.