My Best Office Romance

Here’s a relationship I was allowed to dish on. In the last few years employers, positions and even bank entities have changed so much it’s near impossible to figure out which entities so just enjoy the love story 🙂

K and I haven’t worked together in more than half a decade. She’s responsible for a large chunk of my Cantonese, coming from a very local Hong Kong stock market scene, she reported to me for about a year, which was how long I stayed in the place before taking a better opportunity and leaving her behind during a merger. (Her job was safe, whereas it was communicated to me I could end up completely stripped of my portfolio, depending which boss took over (which btw would be to Kings’ benefit since one of his then favorite clients would absorb my responsibility, whereas while I held the portfolio I wouldn’t deal directly with him, we were just a little too Emily Post about it…)

K and I talked, even about the job offers I was considering, but it made no difference – it felt like I was abandoning her.)

And so I left while she stayed put, and then something turned up at my new place. I hesitated. To my mind I’d left her behind once. She now made close to double what she made back then with me. But the name I was at was a better one, they could pay. And we desperately needed good people, the market was crazy and the overload was like blood would start pouring out our ears and nose at anytime. So I asked. Would she be my teammate, share a boss?

K was thru to her final interview round when I quit. It was all very sudden, one moment I was completely dedicated to this employer, the next I learned one of my favorite bosses was leaving Hong Kong and then (unrelated, but bizarrely happening at the same time) some old-timers there tipped me off to pursue a technicality in my own employment terms.

The desk was already horrendously short-handed, it was to old-timers’ benefit if I stayed. They knew I might walk if they alerted me to check. I would’ve found out in a few more months anyway, but without ever knowing they were aware of my predicament if they hadn’t taken me out to lunch that day. In other words, they could easily have gotten away with not telling me, and serving their own purposes. They told me anyway. People say bankers are all flakey, unreliable, selfish… I say bullshit. I’ve met housewives who behave way dodgier. But to be fair I’ve been guilty of prejudice before too – I once thought showbiz must be quite dodgy because of what I’d heard (Sound familiar? You can replace “showbiz” with “banking”) until I befriended someone in showbiz who certainly set me straight…

To me banking (the one job industry I know) really drove home how nothing in your job is ever really permanent. You give your job your all, and with the way bank entities go belly up and the market turns one day you lose everything and then you realize you never cultivated family, friends, your belief system. All in favor of something that doesn’t exist anymore over an accounting issue like how derivatives losses are recognized and then you realize how little you were in control in the first place…

One of our pastors used to be an ER (emergency room) doctor. I’ll always remember when he described how people who were terminally injured (in car accidents for eg) and knew it in their last few minutes never regretted working harder/ not closing a deal. They always regretted not spending more time with family, not being nicer to people…

I called K to tell her we wouldn’t be teammates, but it shouldn’t change the attractiveness of her job offer. (The technicality I walked on had to do with the definition of my rank on the desk, since we didn’t share the same rank it didn’t affect her.) Her offer was good.

“Don’t turn it down because I quit, —‘s a good guy, he’ll take care of you there. And it’s a good opportunity…” “Yeah, ok.” So guess what happened next?

About an hour later K texts me saying she’s pulled out (ie nothing more I can do cos she’s already tanked it.) It’s like I can’t even scream at her because she adds something along the lines of I Only Went For It Because I Thought We’d Be Together On The Desk Again. Otherwise I’m Happy Where I Am.

5 days later I find out I’m unexpectedly pregnant with Rockstar.

2 months later I get hired, pregnant, somewhere else.

For the next 3 years I would resist all urge to drag K over to where I was . Especially knowing how my priorities/ outlook had changed (I had a young child). Especially after the last time I tried it, knowing she was actually fine where she was. (Then she considered bringing me over to her old place haha but by then I was toying with leaving the market.)

So we’re a little Ross and Rachel without the sex. And if they often had English-Canton problems understanding each other (that’s what Bloomberg’s for).

A year and a bit after that, now we’re all at her wedding.  Rockstar scarfed a whole lotta wedding banquet food (but balked at the idea of sharksfin soup). See the smug face next to the flower arrangement in the grainy cellphone pic below? Traffic was so insane coming down to this part of Tsim Tsa Tsui we’d never really been in before that we dumped the car in some alleyway in Jordan then walked a few blocks to the nearest MTR station with Rockstar on Kings’ shoulders all the way…!

OK my cellphone pics are lousy so here are a couple of K’s wedding shots I got off her wedding photog, Legend House.

I love you, K. Even if I have no idea how to say it non-creepy in Cantonese. Can’t tell you how happy I am to see you start this new chapter of your life, and with someone who clearly cherishes you so much. I got misty-eyed watching the videos and when T that live number on the piano for you.

Oh, and you make wayyy more than I do now, maybe if I ever come back someday you’ll be my senior 🙂