Opportunity comes - we recognise it?

I had a lot of fun the last few days facilitating a moot question here recently.

One spin-off which deserves a post by itself is this thing - If opportunity knocks, can we recognise it?


When I was working on the selling floor as retail sales assistant, the dream for most of us was similar to police constables aspiring to be plainclothes CID.

In retail, most of us want to be Buyers! It's the "glamour" part of retailing. No need to wear uniforms, no shift-work, normal office hours, and weekend offs!

To be precise, we all want to be Fashion Buyers. Who doesn't want to have buying trips to Milan, Paris, and Tokyo?

But what if one gets an offer to be a Stationery Buyer instead? 

As a Stationery Buyer, there's hardly any overseas buying trips as we are mostly dealing with local distributors and suppliers.... Bummer.

I watch in disbelief as some of my younger colleagues turn these "opportunities" down!? Didn't they say they want to be buyers? 

They rather wait for that "cookie-cutter perfect and ribbon tied and nicely gift-wrapped" opportunity to appear. Meanwhile they moan and groan that company never give them opportunities to grow... How retailing no future...


How about your dream to trade full-time to achieve? We all know its notoriously difficult to break-into trading for others.

Guess what? A commodities trading house is willing to take a chance on you and offers you a position as Coffee Trader.

Instead of grabbing it immediately, you still want to counter-offer and negotiate terms? Hello!

I know. The reality is you wanted to be a Bond or Forex trader at a big investment bank or hedge fund - these 2 markets by themselves are much much bigger than the equities market. Is it glamour you after or the love of trading?

While you were dithering, that Coffee Trading position was given to another leaner, meaner, and hungrier applicant.


Imagine you are a medical student. Study so long and hard, finally graduates. And to reward your "success", as part of your housemanship, you got assigned to the A&E department where you have to do the graveyard shift occasionally.

Hello? Isn't those kind of graveyard shift jobs "belong" to those who never study enough? Like those working at convenience stores, supermarkets, fast food outlets that open 24 hours?

So do you still want to be Doctor or not?
 

Unless we can claim "who we know" or "who my daddy knows" privileges, for the rest of us, we all have to pay our dues.

Be it as a cook or as a lawyer.

The trick is to do it first and quickly use this experience as a stepping-stone for something closer to what you really desire.

And ask yourself - is it better to be inside first then plot a transfer, or is it better to be outside hoping and waiting for someone to let you in?