Wall St. Blues: Retrospective

Many times at Voice123, I have talked about how I worked on Wall St before starting my job here. Today, I spoke with some former co-workers at AIG, to find out that most of my old dept was let go. In fact, I would be without a job today, if I had not taken this job at Voice123 a little over a year ago.

The very story of how I ended up here started with me getting into an argument with a manager at AIG, which prompted me to leave work early one day in May 2007, very angry and upset. I decided I had enough of AIG. Working on Wall St for an insurance company during Hurricane Katrina, or the tsunami in Indonesia, left me wondering who really is 'insured'...the customer or the company, or even if it may just be organized extortion based on 'unknowns' and 'fear for profit'. Those were very emotional times for me, and quite frankly, insurance claims and emotions are like oil and water. However, to live my life like all of this was fine, was not the best way to go. I learned a lot of cold, hard lessons working there, much colder than anything I had ever seen in the entertainment industry.

The very day I left work early, I went home, and still wearing my suit and sweating from being so upset, I turned on my computer to check my Voice123 emails...for voice over work...the very thing I had put on hold in a brief stint of false belief that 'settling down' was the right thing for me. Yeah right!

Movies can only create what happened to me next, only this time it was for real!

I was looking at my AOL, and I heard the 'click'. In comes this Voice123 email: Subject: Job Openings at Voice123 (I still save it...as a lesson to teach me that my gut instinct needs no education, and to trust the inner voice that screams 'Get out!' like an Amityville Horror)

I think this is still the only job from Voice123, in which I replied first. It was great timing. I was fired up and at that point, yet cool as a cucumber as my anger removed all doubt in myself, I wrote to Alex what would make me perfect for this job. To me, this was a 'sign' I had left work early for a very good reason. He wrote me back somewhat quickly.

Of course, I had not quit AIG yet. I calmed down and went back to work the next day, and waited...and waited...You think waiting for a voice seeker to email you a script is rough? hahaha

Anyway, each day I wondered when the heck Alex would contact me again, he would do it, and put me at ease, as if he read my mind that I was really hoping to leave AIG. I was feeling like something was going right.

Now if anyone has ever interviewed with Voice123 before, you will find out that they interview you at least 7 or 8 times. I have to admit up until the day I got the job, I was nervous I blew it a couple times. Yet, here I am...

I was thinking of this tonight because I was taking the train home and saw many people from Wall St, very drunk and very sad, and they clung to each other with emotion I never saw while working on Wall St. It made me think of my friends that may have lost their jobs over the weekend. It reminds me of something I always tried to push home to managers while working at AIG...

'People make up a company, but a company cannot survive without people who care.'

It's funny. When you have a steady job, it is very easy for others to assume you do not care because you know where your next paycheck is coming from. It is not so simple anymore.

In retrospect, AIG was an emotional Fort Dix training camp for me, and looking back, it taught me not to take things for granted, be strong, and that I should assume responsibility for all my success and most importantly...my failures.

I am very glad I came back to the career I loved, and wanted from the beginning, and did not settle for a 'steady job'. For right now, it appears nothing is very steady for my friends who meant well, but are just not as obnoxious and driven as I am to learn new things.

I do wish them well. No human deserves such sadness like knowing they wont know how to put food on the table.

Say what you will about 'Wall St types', but at AIG I worked with very good people trying to support families, from the mailroom all the way up to the managers. I dont know what happened beyond that, but I know who this will hit the hardest. I also have family that work(ed) for Lehman Brothers. I just hope the world realizes that there are people behind these companies, not just bucks. I am very sad for them, but feel blessed to work here.

On Wall St, I was called an idealist, and told, 'I do not understand how things work.' Maybe this is true after all...Thank God I do not understand.