July 17, 2007
‘Do I have to support my employer’s charity drive?’
I am a relatively senior woman in an investment bank. I enjoy my job despite the environment - there are some nasty people but some smart ones too. My job is creative, makes me think, involves lots of travel, time goes fast and I’m good at what I do. My goal is to do my job well and get enough money to pay back my mortgage and eventually move to the countryside to grow trees and watch them growing.
Recently, however, my managers have started to suggest that it’s not enough to excel in my job. I have been told that to do well I need to be involved in promoting the values of our bank. And the only way to do that is getting involved in extracurricular activities: charities committees, diversity groups, enviromental associations, and so on. I feel it is unfair to ask me to dedicate more hours of my time to all this. I should be allowed to choose which charities I give my time to. In fact it should be up to me if I want to collapse in my sofa at the end of the day and do nothing. I deeply resent the fact that my masters have signed up to "corporate generosity" and I am required to join if I like it or not.
For now I need to pay my mortgage, and I don’t want to be sidelined. Is there any way I can seem to be contributing to the values of the institution without having to dedicate a single minute to it?
Investment banker, female, 37
Why not try e-mentoring schemes (http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=e-mentor)?
They allow you to be a mentor to somebody (e.g. A’Level student or new graduate) without having to visit them.
You can give advice and support via e-mail.
The e-mails can be sent during your working day, as opposed to in your own personal time.
Posted by: Corporate Whore | July 17th, 2007 at 8:47 pm | Report this commentYou need to find a charity, or office of environmental trustees of this or that, which you can join as the company rep, whose office is located near your favorite spa. That way, you can incentivize yourself to attend the monthly meetings, awards dinners for the local pol, and generally justify your face time by rewarding yourself with a massage and exfoliation at said spa (charged to the corporate expense account, of course, under “indirect marketing”).
Posted by: Make the boss pay for revitilization | July 17th, 2007 at 11:33 pm | Report this commentSadly, this sounds like my 18 years as an officer in HM Forces. It is considered not sufficient just to excel in your primary duty (ie the one thing you are employed to do!). That would be far too sensible. Rather, in order to gain favour and promotion, you need to take on several random ’secondary duties’, all of which strangely take time and effort away from your primary duty.
My solution was twofold. First, make your primary duty performance even more dazzling. And second, invent a good secondary duty and make it your own. Bosses are impressed with your initiative, and it also, satisfyingly, helps you to fend off unsubtle attempts to give you the standard, corporate, extra-curricular duties that bosses would otherwise love to give you.
Posted by: Primary duty good, secondary duty better | July 17th, 2007 at 11:58 pm | Report this commentI’m curious, and a bit concerned, about your emphasis on the need for you to maintain this income in order to meet your mortgage payments. I would think a senior investment banker such as yourself would have made sufficient salary and bonus to have paid off the mortgage already, unless your address includes the word Kensington in it. Or rather, you may have other issues, or unsavory habits, that have diverted much of said salary that should have gone to paying down your mortgage. Or, rather again, you may suffer from a worse plight- that of being the under-compensated senior woman at an investment bank run by senior men. Eureka!! your problem is solved- you are already performing charitable work by working for a pittance at your investment bank. Now you need only inform your managers that your extracurricular obligation has been fulfilled.
Posted by: Non-investment banker, male | July 18th, 2007 at 4:55 am | Report this commentThis is creative though a little dishonest - pretend your way through the situation. As a senior investment banker, being “involved” without actually being so must be something you see all around you all too much. Do that and to make up for this dishonesty towards a charitable or other good cause, do your bit when you get off this rat race. And dont worry too much about the current dishonesty, it is probably what all your bosses are up to anyway while exhorting you to get involved.
Posted by: Out of the box | July 18th, 2007 at 5:47 am | Report this commentInstead of resenting this intrusion in your personal time you can take the opportunity to begin to build the bridges to a new life. My read of your situation is that you have your head down, furiously squirreling away as much money as possible so that you can semi-retire to the good life…in your case a rural one. This is a pretty common dream in the City. Take this opportunity to dip your toes in the water of your future life - we all have extra-curricular things we care about. The trick is to engage in activities you’d want to do anyway and that will enrich your life - not your company’s brand or bottom line. In your case, why not get involved in the Campaign to Protect Rural England, the Woodland Trust…who knows it may open doors to a more rewarding second career than just watching your trees grow.
Posted by: Ex-investment banker | July 18th, 2007 at 9:41 am | Report this commentI have a solution for you that transcends the current (US influenced) need for excessive philanthropy, plus you get fit.
Posted by: Corporate Financier | July 18th, 2007 at 10:42 am | Report this commentSubscribe to running events (10K is long enough to train for without requiring a change in lifestyle) and then register for these events through charities (usually adertised on the same site). You may have to part with £50 of your hard earned cash but you will, a. get fit, b. do a little bit of good and c. tell your bosses that you regulalry put yourself out for charity and keep them off of your back.
Surely you can delegate this?
Why don’t you tell a junior to prepare an 80-page presentation about trees and why they are a good thing, then print it out and chuck it in the recycling bin. Job done.
Posted by: Bored banker | July 18th, 2007 at 11:14 am | Report this commentAs a “relatively senior woman in an investment bank”, you presumably enjoy a comfortable six-figure salary. The reality is that for that kind of money the firm pretty much “owns you” and expects you to play the game 24/7. If you don’t like the idea and are looking for “work-life” balance, you’re in the wrong place.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 18th, 2007 at 12:11 pm | Report this commentYes, the answer to your question is to lie. But when you get found out the consequences may be unpleasant.
Why don’t you change with the times or get out and do something else? Those feel like better options than losing your integrity.
Posted by: Consulting actuary, male, 43 | July 18th, 2007 at 11:02 pm | Report this commentThere’s something about your post that doesn’t quite add up…nevermind. I don’t really see how helping out with a charity would stop you paying your mortgage, as you don’t have to donate vast amounts of money. I suggest you use your valuable work skills and teach maths a couple of hours a week at an inner city comprehensive. By necessity this will have to be done during working hours, leaving you free to collapse in your sofa in the evenings. An added benefit will be that your own life and work environment will seem so much more attractive once you’ve witnessed the difficult and often energy-sapping working life endured by our dedicated yet sorely underpaid and overburdened comp school teachers.
Posted by: Female, 25, Financial PR | July 19th, 2007 at 9:06 am | Report this commentYou obviously have an over-inflated view of the pleasures of watching trees grow. Tree growth is not exactly scintillating Many would say that the outlook for any given tree is heading for the upside with little realistic chance of a medium term correction unless wind speed breaks through historical resistance levels at around 120 m.p.h..
However much you disdain your job, you will be surprised how much you would miss certain aspects of it and you have been given an opportunity to replicate some of those aspects in more durable and useful activities. You can of course prefer the company of your sofa but what is the point of living if your sum contribution to making the world a better place for your passing, is a stunning report on interest rate arbitrage opportunities or recommending loans to Special Purpose Investment Vehicles. There is more to life, let someone pay for you to go find out what that might be.
Posted by: Ironybrew, 57, Retired, Male | July 22nd, 2007 at 1:03 am | Report this commentThink of it as a good way to find out what you would do when you leave the bank and retire to the countryside. If you are smart, you’ll need to find another job then otherwise you’ll go crazy with boredom.
Anyway, one evening a week won’t hurt you - you can collapse on your sofa on the other six.
Posted by: A.Anderson | July 23rd, 2007 at 9:17 am | Report this commentI don’t know how it works in the UK, but in the US this is encouraged and expected of senior managers and it is also expected that you can participate in these activities on company time. It helps build business and networks and your CV (especially if you find a board to sit on). Find something you like (perhaps to do with trees) that requires commitment during work hours and profit from the opportunity.
Female, 53, private banker
Posted by: Maria King | July 24th, 2007 at 5:45 pm | Report this commentThe fact is that your future plans (growing trees) shows that you are indeed unhappy with your current, well-paid life. So ask around, and find a charity that would like the use of your name and are willing to accept it for the charitable sum you are willing to donate. (Give, get, or get out of the way is the American terminolgy.)
Enjoy the opportunity to get out of the office for the board meetings and expand your horizons, and the occasional site visit to the battered womans home, breast cancer reseach center, green environment charity. Use your secretary to handle a lot of the basic logistics, and make sure that the charity fliers using your names find their way into hands of senior management… Who knows, you might find something more interesting than watching grass (I mean trees ) grow. Or even investment banking….
American, who’s opted out
Posted by: Dave Kastner | July 31st, 2007 at 3:55 am | Report this commentYou sound pretty niaive for someone in a senior position. This kind of activity, whether dressed up as Corporate Social Responsibility (or giving back) is just thinly veiled business development. On this basis you should embrace it and chose something that (a) you have an interest in and (b) you can expect to meet good quality business contacts through. If you’re successful you will enhance your career, accelaret your earnings and reach tree watching time all the sooner. If you can’t see that this is just part of your job then I suggest you opt for Bonsai now!
Posted by: Partner, 40 | August 2nd, 2007 at 2:13 pm | Report this commentI think I need to get out more. Since when did what one did outside of office hours have anything to do with one’s bosses? I am horrified that most of the commentators above don’t seem to find this odd. As for ‘anonymous’, who claims that one is ‘owned’ by one’s employer on the basis that one is paid, I thought that was called state totalitarianism, generally confined to communist countries?
Remember this, Ms Investment Banker: you are selling your labour for a particular job; the bank needs it so they are buying it from you. That is all. Perhaps you should consider selling it to someone else who doesn’t indulge in such frightening control freakery. Thank goodness I work for myself. On second thoughts, perhaps I’ll stay in more after all.
Posted by: peta | August 21st, 2007 at 8:10 pm | Report this commentYou all seem to agree that by saying the truth: not wanting to support the employers charity drive, Investment Banker, female is going to get punished. It seems to me that Lucy is one of the few people who can and does say the truth without being punished. Lucy, please tell me how do you do it?
Posted by: martina | August 23rd, 2007 at 3:26 am | Report this commentI was sad to read your question. You have misunderstood the rules of our society, and your responsibilities within it. Generating wealth is not enough. Paying taxes is not enough. Going into work and coming home is not enough. You need to remember that all sorts of other people are out there working for a relative pittance, supporting your whole privileged existence in ways you can’t even begin to comprehend. Being a true adult is about leaving egocentric greed behind, and moving onto higher order things.
Posted by: Cambria | August 29th, 2007 at 1:04 pm | Report this commentMs. Investment Banker, it is always YOUR CHOICE how you want to live your life. You are not obligated to support any charity drive or corporate social responsibility program if that is not what you want to do.
Also, for all the naive respondents, corporate managers are not promoting charity and philanthropy because its good for the world. They are promoting these programs for the good of themselves. I worked for an organization years ago where the top manager of my division demanded 100% employee participation in fundraising for a local charity campaign. But, his goal for having everyone on board was so he could reach a financial reward (a bonus of about $10,000) for himself alone.
Did you ever wonder why there is this push to engage in corporate giving by management? It is because they are receiving bonuses at the end of the year from these charities - that is why. Ms. Investment Banker, you are wise to feel uncomfortable at being “pimped” by your employer. Some people have to ask themselves - Is it worth being a corporate prostitute?
Posted by: AC | December 30th, 2007 at 4:47 am | Report this comment