Happy almost-Friday! I've referenced work a lot lately so thought I'd do a work-themed Three Things Thursday.
1. What exactly do you do for a living?
Since I have some new readers, I thought I'd highlight what I do for a living. I work for a large asset manager and my specialty is taxable fixed income (i.e. bonds). I wrote a longish post about what I do back in December 2021. But long story short, I'm a product specialist that works closely with sales to help sell our taxable fixed income mutual funds and separately managed accounts. Our sales people sell a bajillion different things so they can't go deep on every product they sell - so they bring me into client meetings (usually those meetings are with a financial advisor) so I can provide our economic outlook, interest rate forecast, and talking points on the investment product the client is considering. So I'm part of the sales process without being (mostly) commission-based like our sales people are.
2. What is a day-in-the-life like for you?
One thing that I think is kind of unique about my role is that I have very little control over my day and there isn't necessary a "rhythm" to my days. Since I'm part of the sales process, my day is sort of dictated by requests from sales. I have some recurrent work, like updating proposals for our products on a monthly basis, but besides that, I'm kind of at the whim of sales people. That is why things like time blocking don't work for me. I might have a list of things I'm working on, but could get an email or phone call asking me to jump on a zoom or conference call with a client. My day is also impacted by the hours of the financial markets. So ideally I need to have my butt in my seat by 7:30 and my day generally wraps up around 4pm. That's when most of our sales people/clients are working, and it's when the portfolio managers are working. So something like a split schedule (stopping work at say 2 and logging back on at 6) does not work for people in my role. In the last 6 months, I've been busier than ever because yields in the taxable fixed income market are actually attractive for the first time in a very long time, and our sales force is being encouraged to sell taxable fixed income products. It's good to be busy, though!
3. What do you do when you travel?
There are 2 reasons why I travel - 1) to visit a site where we have a lot of internal sales people and 2) to visit clients with a sales rep. My recent trip to Texas was a client visit trip. So I traveled with 2 different sales people and went into various branches of financial advisors to talk about our products. Last week's trip to Chicago was a "site visit" - we have a lot of internal sales people in Chicago so I tend to go there several times a year. Usually my goal for those trips is to give an update to the sales people and then to casually interact with them one-on-one. I booked my Chicago trip back in January when I was asked to do a lunch presentation - but then 1-2 weeks before that trip, sales management decided to have a "day on the desk" while I was there which is a day when sales people are encouraged to book meetings with clients and involve a subject matter expert like myself. It was originally going to be just one day, but then there was so much demand from clients that they made it into a 2-day event. It ended up being a Tuesday afternoon through Thursday morning event for me, though, since I had so many call requests. This is an example of how little control I have over my days. It didn't make sense to cancel my trip or change my flights, so I tried to fit in as much in-person interaction as I could while I was there in between zoom calls. I'm one of the few people that covers a certain area of the taxable market and that product is in high demand so that is why I ended up doing 18 meetings in the span of about 2 days!
Any other questions about what I do for a living? Do you have a lot of control over your work day?
12 comments:
I feel like I have both tremendous flexibility...and limited flexibility.
For my paid work, I am fortunate to mostly be able to make my own hours. Even in terms of scheduling meetings (heavily concentrated in September/October and April/May), I tend to get the final say.
I work part-time from home (this can range from 15-40 hours; I get paid for a set number of hours, but it is 100% task-based so if there are a lot of things that need to be done...I have to get them all done regardless of how much time it takes) and fit work in and around daily life; sometimes I work in the evenings, sometimes I work on weekends. Sometimes I just...take a whole day off and don't have to ask permission. The level of autonomy I have is a real blessing.
On the flip side, I am also a full-time mom. Outside of school, we have no childcare and my husband travels a lot for work. So when there is a snow day or a child is sick or over school breaks (March Break comes in a few weeks and my husband is away; I do have some activities lined up for the kids, but they never fill the full 9-5 working day): I feel like I'm completely tied to being available.
There are big pros and some cons to my working arrangement, but I also know that things will change dramatically in the next few years. It's shocking how quickly the kids are growing and...they'll be able to be home alone in the not-so-distant-future!!
Your job sounds SO FUN. Like, you are a traveling expert-- very cool. I also think the early hours sound pretty great, especially as your kids move into elementary school because SO MUCH HAPPENS between 5pm and bedtime.
Outside of teaching which happens at the same time through the semester (and then changes each semester on a way that used to freak me out when I was younger and had less control over my time slots) and a couple standing meetings I have, my time is entirely my own. BUT. When I need to be somewhere, I NEED TO BE THERE , and it doesn't really matter who is sick or what is happening with school hours.
Hurray for TFI finally being back in vogue! I am glad you are busy although I know that it is sometimes harder when things are busy. I would rather be busy than bored (although I do forget that some days). I am not sure how well I would handle the ad hoc portion of your job. I definitely have that too; I mean, you never know what the markets are going to do or what client is going to need this or that, and I do like a little bit of excitement, but I also like to be able to have my normal list of things each day to check off. I guess I want a mixture of both while still having a minimal amount of fire drills if that makes sense.
My job is also dictated by the markets, in many ways. One of them is that I do need to have my butt in a seat from 6:30 to 1:00 PT so that while the market is open I am ready to handle whatever comes my way. Just like you, I cannot take a break in the middle of the day and then come back, but I do have the luxury of getting off work at NYC 5:00 pm most days (but you know what time I start)!
I love learning more about what you do! Do you like not having a lot of control over your day? I feel like that would stress me out, but it also seems like it could be super fun for a person with the right personality.
On the other end of the spectrum, I have sole control over my days. (Work, not childrearing, LOL. There is no control when it comes to children.) I choose which projects to work on, when to work on them, how my work is structured and flows. Really the only lack of control I have is whether my clients have projects for me to work on (and sometimes, it's an all-or-nothing feel where I get slammed with a bunch of things after weeks of nothing) or whether I need to interview someone whose schedule I have no control over.
You know what? I'm really enjoying the absolute flexibility of being unemployed. Ha! I know that sooner or later I'll be exhausted with not having paid work, but I'm liking it right now and I'm trying not to freak out about getting a new job.
I would like a job in which I'm busy at work, but then I don't have to take it home. Unfortunately, I don't think those jobs exist!
I'm with Suzanne that I think not having control over my days and not knowing ahead of time what my schedule will be like would be super stressful to me, so good on your for having a flexible brain that can handle that!
I love learning details of other professionals. So interesting. So I guess you studied finance? What makes you choose this job as career? What are the challenges? And since you are in investment, what’s your own investment strategy?
This is interesting to learn more about your role. I know how much you love and value your career!! I didn’t realize how little control your day has and am a little suprised. That has to be tricky with your type A brain? Are the clients your meeting with businesses or personal clients?
(Abby - sorry, my google account isn’t letting my log in to comment for some reason!)
It's so tricky to not have control over your days. I remember that very clearly from my time on the trade floor.
Yoga classes - while physically flexible - are not at all schedule flexible. These days I only have two, but when I had 10 per week, it was a bit of a juggle.
I enjoyed this, Lisa, even though I had a pretty good idea of what you do, it is clearer here. That's interesting about the flexibility or lack of routine -- you really have to be emotionally equipped to just jump in as you do. I can see why you have a set routine at home with the kids and Phil -- it gives a sense of control over your circumstances when you can't really do that at work.
I'm glad you posted this, because so often people tell me what they do but then I still actually have no idea what that means! Your work life is so different than mine, it's fascinating to read about.
I don't have much say over my day to day work schedule. I COULD insist that I have a break every day at X time, but that would limit how many clients I could be booked with. So I just take what I get- somedays I like my schedule and some days, not so much! At least it's different every day.
Oh, I would really struggle with not having control over my days like that! It does help with boredom I guess because you never know what your day will look like. (I'm struggling with some boredom at work lately, so I feel this intensely, haha.) I have a very flexible schedule and I love knowing I don't have to be tied to my desk during work hours. It's nice to be able to start work later if I want or hop off early if I have a doctor's appointment. We have to be available for meetings if they come up and respond to Slack messages in a timely manner, but I can respond to Slack through my phone and it's very rare to get a last-minute meeting request. We usually have at least a few days' notice.
Your days sound very fast-paced with lots of personal interactions. I think this type of work environment would be exhausting for me (as an introvert). Do you ever feel that way?
I personally have a lot of control over my work day. I mostly work a fixed schedule and I do have certain set meetings with colleagues during the week, but other than that I am very flexible. Since I do project work, I do not have a lot of recurring tasks every day, but just keep "chipping" away at my projects...
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