To say my job is toxic is the understatement of the century.  Granted every year this time I complain about it but this year dwarfs all the others.  

Despite my going to the gym nearly every day, I still gained 10kg of weight, my diet went to shit, and nearly every other night was a sleepless one from all the anxiety at work.  This led to a compounding spiral of mental and physical unease due to survival mode.  While I could handle it at least temporarily, I had to listen to my body and ask, "Is this sustainable long term?"  The answer was a resounding no.  I may have been able to handle the fight or flight response for temporary periods, but after goodness knows how many years in China putting up with this nonsense the hard yet obvious choice had to be made:  it was time to quit.  And so I gave my notice.  Less than 6 months from now I will be out the door.  And I wasn't the only one.  My mentor friend who I talk to every week was essentially forced out of his job and asked not to return.  And just now another friend was also laid off.  

There are a whole host of reasons to try and explain what the hell is going on but it boils down to a perfect storm of macro and micro circumstances.  Starting with the macro picture, ever since 2016 or so, China has faced increasingly draconian restrictions under Xi Jinping that are taking the country down the wrong direction.  This was all compounded with covid, lockdowns, and the start of a long-term and potentially irreversible bearish economy.  The Shanghai we used to know and the gravy train we enjoyed has come to and end and is not returning.  The writing is on the wall.  In terms of the micro picture, the declining environment led to the higher-ups of our company to hire a new boss as a 'fixer' boss.  They wanted an alpha male and they got one.  He promised to being quick and sweeping changes to the company and it was telegraphed that if this didn't happen, the company would collapse.  Well that is never a good thing.  The narrative he presented to us was 'rising expectations and accountability'.  What that really meant was a culture of micro management and rigid structures that are not compatible wiht 21st century education.  The details could fill pages that are not worth going into here.  The result was plainly obvious:  constant survival mode and exessive anxiety that is at odds with who I am.

The surival mode put a backseat to everything else:  trip planning, trading, budgeting, and minimalism that I had gotten so good at over the last several years post-covid.  It was an absolute heartbreak to see how all this could be bulldozed by a new power monger boss who acts like we should bow down to him.  Never.  I pushed back where I could, realized I had nothing to lose and yet, at the same time, realized that some battles were just not worth fighting.  It would be better to simply quit and move on.

I put together a sort of framework for how the trip would begin, and resolved that I would be winging it for the most part.  So I booked the first two flights out:  Shanghai to Guangzhou for some initial partying, then the next flight Hong Kong to Bangkok.  The bike (one of them) is already in Bangkok so that cut down on a lot of stress already thank goodness.

Meanwhile, I had developed a mindset of short-vol which I'll try to explain here as this will frame a lot of the trip context.  

Back in Dubai last trip, my legendary life coach quoted Einstein and said that “You cannot solve a problem on the same level of consciousness that created it.”  In response to that, short-vol is the kind of different mindset that I developed to solve my ongoing midlife crisis.  The way it works to unpack this market metaphor:  you are betting on volatility to decrease in the future.   The perfect storm of events, whether in the market or in life, can lead to a spike in chaos or volatility.  In my job, it meant the dire economic situation in China combined with the hiring of some hardcore 'fixer' boss to bring in sweeping changes to keep the company from collapsing.  This led to a rapid increase in stress and anxiety, the rapid weight gain, sleepless nights, and a compounding spiral from all this.  Just like a volatility spike.

Short-vol is a mindset that bets on the storm or spike in volatility to reach some sort of peak and subside.  It is inherently optimistic by nature yet that is what always happens so you can literally bank on it.  You then 'enter' the position with the idea that things are going to be super rough but smoothing out over time.  Meanwhile, this is also the peak fear and stress time when everyone else is freaking out.  This is precisely when you capitalize on the fear premium and turn chaos into opportunity for profit.  This is exactly the mindset I am operating with, both in life and the market.

As a point of contrast, people with the long-vol mindset are betting that a crisis is just around the corner.  Funnily enough, they are mostly wrong but if they time it right, they can win big.  People like this are those coworkers who are waiting for the perfect storm to strike so they can thrive in rising chaos but it never lasts long.  Those with the short-vol mindset are saying yes it's madness but it's going to subside.

My mentor friend said it this way:  Better times ahead.