the wolf of wall street and why I didn’t become a banker

"On Wall Street, when you're not creating anything, when you're not building anything, when you're making money buying and selling the ingenuity of other people, it's almost like there's something missing from the money," he says.
So you start searching for something else, spending recklessly, because you're desperate to attach something to the intangible money."

"And you spend obscene amounts to buy things that are tangible."

"Not just jets and mansions and fancy cars, I had five Ferraris, but objects, or people, that can turn your volume of money into something unique."

My brother is well on his way to becoming a banker. I haven’t told you about him. He’s called James and he’s 26. He lives in That Awful City (sorry Joburgers) and dislikes it almost as much as I did. Once a coastal baby, always a coastal baby. He is fundamentally different from me in every conceivable way. He likes gaming, he likes eating animals, he has never set foot in a church. He’s had one or two longer-term girlfriends, but is definitely not a serial monogamist. Oh and he’s single my pretty ladies, and I’m looking for a sweet sister-in-law. James likes all the techie, boychie jargon that comes with banking: go long, go short, derivative, hedge fund, butterfly spread, bull, bear, risk, return, CRN. Ok that last one I made up, but I know there is something called a Credit Denominated Upside Down Note. Or something like that. Bankers use them to confuse us. And I don’t like to be confused. There was a brief 6 month period at the beginning of my working life where I was heading for bankerdom. I had the suit, the sunglasses, the degree. Then I worked for this Romanian chick. Oh my word. She had a mustache and she smoked the South African equivalent of Gauloises. She was terrifying. And I decided I was too soft and sweet to be a banker. I like solid things. So now I help people make fast-moving consumer goods for a living. Google it: F M C G. When you go into a shop, a tiny part of what I do is in that carton you see on the shelf. I love that. It’s real.

Back to banking. The Hub and I went on a date on Saturday night. It was wonderful. We ate Thai food and went to watch The Wolf of Wall Street at the movies. It is a loooooong movie. It’s a debaucherous movie. Don’t you dare watch it with your mom. We got home at midnight. But it got me thinking about the banking world and why I’m happy I didn't get sucked into it. The movie is based on the life of Jordan Belfort, a banker who made a killing in the early 90’s selling cheap (mostly worthless) shares to unsuspecting folk. He could talk his way out of a paper bag. He also went to jail for 22 months for said dealings. As he said in the quote above, the world he inhabited (a world that still exists, I have seen high flying bankers chasing the white dragon in our very own Joburg) was an empty one. No real money, no real businesses backing those shares, no real relationships or real love. And finally I understood why, despite much opposition from colleagues and friends, I couldn't be a banker. It meant less money, less STARDOM, but I needed something tangible to keep me from chasing the tangible in my personal life like he did. I’m not an essentially bad person, but I am an extreme person, a TOO MUCH person. I need to make choices that prevent me from hurting myself. Choosing not to be a banker was one of those. I do like to think I wouldn't have landed up in jail, but you never know.