The Way I See It

Dear Diary,

Yesterday, June 1st, marked my one-year anniversary at [...BEEP...].  I almost would have forgotten, except that I accidentally clicked a link to my LinkedIn profile and noticed my start date.

I'm excited that it has been one year because that means I have been able to spend precious time with you, Diary.  I am not excited, though, because that means I have been away from Bankrupt [...BEEP...] for over a year.  Which, by far, continues to stand out as a great place to work.

People can insert all the "subprime," "bankrupt," and "new shade of blue chip" jokes as they want, but what is unique about my experience is the group of people that I worked with.  For the most part we all got along very well and there was not much animosity amongst the ranks.  Except towards the end when things got screwy and our situation turned dire.

No matter what, though, I've been in the mortgage industry for 10 years now and my five years at Bankrupt [...BEEP...] were priceless.  Working in Secondary Marketing on the 11th floor gave me a chance to experience a lot more than others have.

Yes, we did not know what we were doing.  Yes, we hired some crappy people.  Yes, the company is now bankrupt.  But I see those as invaluable learning experiences.

Look at it this way, I witnessed first-hand what it is like for a large, national public company to go under.  My company was on CNBC.  I was contacted by news reporters asking for interviews.  I watched M&A attempts trying to save us.  I worked on weekends to help try to save the company.  I got to steal two plasma screen TVs on my last day...oh, err, never mind.  Somebody else did that.  ;)

I was a part of a great company that eventually allowed it self to be mismanaged.   I can either cry, complain and let the subprime jokes get to me.  Or I can take my experiences, whether they were successful or complete failures; and apply them to my job today and my future career.

The bottom line is this: fail early and fail often.  The sooner I learn what not to do, the sooner I'll be able to be able succeed.
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