Clearly it’s very unusual that I have spent so much of my life travelling. People tend to be very bemused about how this is even possible, so I thought I’d put an explanation here. To me it actually all seems very natural.
It really stems from the fact that, in my opinion, the results of an education don’t really align very well with what is required of an individual to fit into and function in society. At school, I was typically top of the class, and I believe that I was the only pupil in my year to get straight A’s and distinctions at ‘A’ and ‘S’ level. I was particularly good at maths. The problem is, while teachers and parents are very happy for you to study maths (teachers of course are hardly impartial, because they need you to study their subject, or they will be out of a job), it is far from clear how a person will ever use it. I was advised that my ability at maths meant that I should become an actuary.
At school one day, we had a careers seminar. There were recent school leavers who had gone on to work in a variety of sectors, each giving a short presentation, and we were able to choose which to attend. Naturally, with my interest in becoming an actuary, I chose the insurance sector. At the seminar, the presenter was from Lloyds of London. He talked to us a lot about the brokerage work which he did. It sounded OK, going round all day, talking to lots of people. We then asked how he priced the insurance which he sold. He told us that there was a panel of these incredibly boring people known as actuaries, whom he could ask for pricing from. This was a painful moment. Was I to believe that the result of all this study of maths was going to be to make me incredibly boring (and to oblige me to work with similarly boring people)? It was extremely offensive. I could easily start getting the maths answers wrong, if that would make me a more interesting person. Comments from other people reinforced my feeling that the careers advice that I was getting wasn’t all that it seemed (“An actuary? That’s the job for people who find accountancy too exciting.”).
Anyway, I went up to Cambridge, still intending to study maths (and physics) with a view to becoming an actuary. But within a year I had changed my mind. I knew from my research on the actuarial profession that it wasn’t necessary to study maths at university; as long as you had shown an aptitude for maths, you could still become an actuary. I felt that I had done enough maths, and there was an opportunity there to study geology for the next two years instead. I thought, why not, it looks a lot more interesting. So we had field trips to some interesting places, and I got together with two friends to organise an expedition to the highlands of Bolivia to do our dissertations. It was quite exciting, actually, at the age of 19 to be the leader of this expedition. And this is where I got my love of travelling from.
As you can imagine, though, doing all these interesting things was pushing me further and further away from any ability to settle down to be this incredibly boring person which I was told I should be (with apologies to actuaries; I’m sure it’s not altogether true, but this is the impression I was given). But I still saw myself entering a profession, and as graduation approached I decided to become a solicitor, and I applied to City law firms.
But I ran into problems. In spite of my very good academic record, I used to get an enormous number of job rejections. Both in applying for a training contract, and subsequently. Feedback was often limited, but I was told variously that my thinking was too far advanced, that I was too pleasant, that I was “not quite right in terms of fit,” and that there was too much “grunt work” in the job for someone like me. At a job application for the legal department in a major bank I was required to take a written test. I was told that I had scored the highest that anyone had ever scored in this. I was then rejected on the grounds that “we wouldn’t get on.” Sometimes employers would just not reply to me for months after an interview. Clearly there was something very wrong.
I was also told sometimes that I didn’t seem very self-confident. This is a difficult one. I think that in an organisation, it is possible for people to become too confident in what they are doing, because they are so wrapped up in their work that they can’t get an objective view of what it is that they are doing. Look at this man https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12318821/Millionaire-magic-circle-lawyer-sailed-17m-superyacht-faces-bankruptcy-failing-hand-19m-fund-Saudi-princess.html. He looks extremely self-confident doesn’t he? He used to run the asset finance department at Linklaters (who incidentally told me that I didn’t seem very self-confident after they turned me down for a training contract). But it seems fairly clear that his self-confidence led to his downfall. Here’s another one, this time from Freshfields - https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/ex-freshfields-partner-gets-35-year-sentence-german-tax-fraud-2024-01-30/. A lot of people like to think that self-confidence is everything, and the more self-confident you are the better. They may criticise you for not seeming as self-confident as they are. But these are exactly the people who end up meeting their downfall.
So you should choose to be more circumspect? Yes, but this is a problem too. Because I think quite simply that the world is very corrupt. There are always scandals in the papers. They must surely be the tip of the iceberg, because most people probably get away with their impropriety. They go to great lengths to cover it up, and wouldn’t do it unless they felt that there was a good chance of getting away with it. And if there is so much impropriety, where does this leave the honest man? Is he going to be fobbed off and marginalised?
This is much of the reason why I don’t work, but instead pursue the passion that I developed at university. (Just to be clear, I am not suggesting any impropriety on the part of any of my previous employers, or indeed any particular organisation, other than that which is publicly available information). I have found that there are a great many, small, but legal opportunities that you can make use of if you have more time on your hands than you would in a job, and that it is quite feasible to live, and do what I love, i.e. travelling, without full time employment. From time to time I do still apply for jobs, but it is years since I have even had an interview. And that is how I have come to live this life. It’s a very unusual life, but I have a lot of fun at any rate.
Finally, what would I say to a young person starting out in their career? You have got to understand that the world is corrupt. We see it every day in the news, and a lot of the job rejections that I used to get seem to make a lot more sense if I start to see the world in this light. Your education hasn’t prepared you for this, but it is a fact. And, unless you wish to do something like entering a religious order, or just working for a short time and then traveling, like me, you will have to try to fit into that aspect of the world. No-one starts out in their career thinking that they are going to be corrupt. But the pressures of making money within an organisation can be enormous, and it is very easy to drift towards a state of thinking that doing the unethical, or the illegal, is simply the way that it is. You are surrounded by other people who may be doing these things as well, after all. You have to balance the fact that you need your job, while your employer may not be entirely ethical, with what the law allows you to do. If you don’t hold back when the time comes, you may find yourself in this man’s situation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Hayes_(trader). Or like one of Donald Trump’s lawyers who has ended up in jail. And it’s extremely hard to hold back. But at the same time, you can’t try to be a saint - it won’t work – you will be marginalised, told that you are too pleasant, perhaps, like I was. It’s extremely difficult to manage. I can give just one suggestion – ask an AI chat service “What grounds might an employer who is carrying out unethical work give for rejecting an applicant of high integrity?” It may help you understand things better. Then ask “How can I demonstrate to a potential employer that I would be willing to carry out unethical work for them?” The suggestions it gives may get you a foot in the door. But always keep your head once you’re through it.
