The Choice
The intellect of man is forced to choose
perfection of the life, or of the work,
And if it take the second must refuse
A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.
When all that story's finished, what's the news?
In luck or out the toil has left its mark:
That old perplexity an empty purse,
Or the day's vanity, the night's remorse.
~ William Butler Yeats
Yours truly is in a quandary. Should I take a safe and stable job at MHA or should I take a risk and accept a job offer that is of sales component with HSBC? Both jobs are obviously good additions to my resume, but each has pros & cons. For MHA, being a civil service career, yours truly can expect bureaucratic red tape and slow promotion, especially because I am of the wrong gender. But it does offer a reasonable pay with bonus and a good start in a new job function that I have not tried. Of course, another benefit is that there is no bond, so if I dislike the job, I have the option of jumping ship.
For HSBC, it is obviously a great organisation to add to my CV. It is an extremely difficult organisation to get into (yours truly had to do both a verbal and maths test, and than a 3 hrs long test centre), it offers the opportunity to learn about investment (which is of personal benefit and helps my MBA application) and it is a sales job, so it is conceivably the only job that I might be able to earn enough to go do my MBA in the US in 3 yrs time. The cons are the facts that it is a sales job with sales targets to meet and yours truly is bonded for a year.
What's a girl gotta do?
Different people are offering me different advice.
*Sheer's supportive parents argue very convincingly against HSBC and for MHA. Being parents, they would prefer yours truly to take a civil service "iron rice bowl" job and of course, not bond myself down again. *Sheer's dad also mentioned that yours truly is not up to the pressure of sales. He said that yours truly won't be a cut above the rest in a sales job and MHA is a very good addition to my CV. Again, yours truly have to concede that he might have a point.
*Eccentric says that both are not perfect jobs for me, but she concedes that I have a point when I say that HSBC is a good break into the financial market and helps when I apply for MBA. But again, it's back to - DO I WANNA DO SALES? The answer is, ambivalent.
Maybe in light of the ambivalence, yours truly should turn down the job. Because its a full 12 months. So I shldn't start the slate on ambivalence?
*Wallflower says just to wait for a more ideal job to come along. But yours truly is keen to start working. Other than being broke, I'm also getting bored. So I am actually quite ready to start work.
*Peaceful and *Candid both says it is really up to me but *Peaceful says she would personally take MHA for the stability and *Candid says she would personally not take a sales job. Again, they are not exactly helpful, but comments appreciated nonetheless.
*007 who is in banking gave the most direct and perhaps useful advice (bascially cos yours truly assumed that since he is in banking, he would know best) - he said that HSBC is an okay organisation but if the position is personal wealth banker, I won't like it, and it can be pretty stressful. And that, seems to say it all.
So here I am. With barely one day left to make my decision (for HSBC anyway). As of this moment, yours truly is more inclined to take everyone's argument against HSBC. Afterall, dad is a great sales person and he comes into contact with bankers. So if he says I won't be outstanding in the job, I have to give him the benefit of the doubt. Yes?
In a perfect world, one can work at the perfect job.
Oh well.
C'est la vie.
Sheer
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Me
I am a student of life, growing older by the minutes. I would like to say that I graduated from the school of hard knocks but unfortunately, it is not true. I come from a happy family with supportive parents, so if you are looking for a manically depressed pessimistic cynic, get out of this space.
I may at times be more sardonic and sarcastic than I should, but I am an essentially happy person (it's hard to be always melodramatically depressed really). If that's a contradiction in terms, who cares. It's my prerogative to be contradictory if I want to. I confess that I enjoy reading, writing, intelligence, sharp wits and sarcasm. Very blue-stocking habits that would be terrible in Victorian times, but lucky me, this is modern days, or so it is called. My goals in life include being a cold-hearted bitch, a successful career woman aka swindler, a professional liar, and maybe someone you could bring home to meet mom, but only on my *rare days of sentimentality.
I may at times be more sardonic and sarcastic than I should, but I am an essentially happy person (it's hard to be always melodramatically depressed really). If that's a contradiction in terms, who cares. It's my prerogative to be contradictory if I want to. I confess that I enjoy reading, writing, intelligence, sharp wits and sarcasm. Very blue-stocking habits that would be terrible in Victorian times, but lucky me, this is modern days, or so it is called. My goals in life include being a cold-hearted bitch, a successful career woman aka swindler, a professional liar, and maybe someone you could bring home to meet mom, but only on my *rare days of sentimentality.
You
If you are reading this right now, then you are either a weird stalker whom I need to report immediately or just extremely bored. In any case, you are not likely to find this site (a) extremely enlightening, (b) extremely useful or (c) extremely exciting. I suggest that you take up a useful hobby like listening to music from an obscure place or studying UFOs. It will look good on your CV to be able to say I like music from so and so place, so obscure that no one has heard of it or I firmly believe in the existence of UFOs. Better entertainment and probably less offensive to society. Trust me on this.
4 comments:
why didn't ask me!!?!
=)
Me gut feel says ministry. I don't like banks. really.
Yours truly didn't wanna bother too many people over what essentially should be me and my decision. plus, you seemed busy lately. :)
And yours truly didn't even realise you still check my blog regularly. *grin*
You will be glad to know yours truly did indeed turn down the bank.
so you're going with MHA?
when are you starting work?
MHA has offered and requires 2 weeks to process the paperwork. I haven't officially accepted, but probably mid-sept if I accept, and baring unforeseen circumstances, I would probably wanna try MHA out.
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