corporate whore

I have recently started working for a major project management company (they are going to be managing redevelopment of the Carlton United Brewery on Broadway, a big fucking deal, and yes, they are going to be keeping both the Clare and the Abercrombie hotels) and I'm currently supporting the team responsible for rolling out many orange-and-white Banks across Australia. I work in a Clarence St skyscraper (going to the 27th floor ultra-corporate reception is like visiting another planet) smack bang in the middle of the financial district, but main office is north of the bridge (of which it has an excellent view).

Last night involved drinks at a lovely pub, tab and nibbles (and my taxi home) courtesy of The Bank. It was my first time actually having to mingle with the sort of people who'd been blissfully snapped up by those corporate graduate programs post finance-and-accounting degrees and I felt like an alien, fleeing to the comfort zone of the designers. They accepted me as I was, a confused psych graduate with mean filing and touch typing skills, and we munched happily on our hummus and sipped the (bloody great) Merlot. They encouraged me to take up design. I don't know if I'm ready for another degree and an extra 12K HECS debt.

What the fuck is finance anyway? It's not economics, it's not accounting, you don't actually work in a bank, you work in a tower and you look at spreadsheets. WHAT. DO. THEY. DO. I sit near one of the MANY finance departments of The Bank and last week overheard the following:

"Hello, Finance. Lucy speaking."
[insert bank-speak blather]
Lucy: "Well, 11 million minus four million is about seven million, so..."
me: "What the fuuuuuuuuuck"
[insert inane bank-speak dialogue]
Lucy: "Yeah. So just send it through and..."
[more blather]

I also sit near a bunch of people who appear to do NOTHING but talk about investing all day, including one very short man who talks so loudly on his mobile phone ("HI BARRY YEAH I GOT THAT EMAIL YOU CCD ME IN ON AND I THINK WE SHOULD MOVE FORWARD") my boss threatens to kill him. Then there's the internal auditors who are very quiet and seem scared of us, but one guy makes really subtle hilarious jokes and you almost miss them because they're delivered in this perfect monotone. And then there's the Other staff, and I can't figure out what they do, besides wear extremely ugly Bank uniforms, eat catering and bugger up the lifts because they can't all fit in one at the same time.

Only there two days a week and they've already offered me a raise (where I come from, NGO and NFP organisations, this is fucking unheard of) so I'm honestly considering going full time. In this weird way the whole insane Bank world is keeping me sane because it's just so hilarious.