Marcus bound for Hong Kong

Our boys have incredible abilities. Michael does not like to be literally outstanding; he often keeps his brilliance to himself. But Marcus has always been happy to be identified as gifted and to take advantage of the opportunities available. I am more like Michael, so I admire Marcus the way you can only admire someone who does things you cannot.

I tend not to let my mind roam too far forward. I do not plan on my own behalf, and I have not really imagined the boys’ lives very far in advance either. Let’s call this living in the moment rather than a lack of vision. In any case; I had not really pictured a time when Marcus would be 19 and living and working in Hong Kong.

This week he is into his last semester of his BSc. He has started some elements of next year’s Honours already (you can do that now) but he has been applying for summer internships and many scholarships including the Tasmanian Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford.

He had some quite long Zoom “interviews”, which in some cases were more like exams. He had a few call backs, including one with a securities trading firm called Jane Street in Hong Kong. They also have offices in all the other financial capitals.

They offered Marcus a 3 month internship which he is planning to take. He is not a complete babe-in-the-woods, but still was stunned to be offered a salary about triple what he was expecting. If he worked a full year at that rate he could pay off our hefty mortgage (should he so choose). 

This has given me all sorts of feelings. I will miss him like hell, as I would if he was in Launceston or Melbourne; but I will also worry because Things Are Happening in Hong Kong. Of course I am very proud of him as well. He has no intention of becoming a Quantitative Securities Trader, but what if they offer him a job at a E-Class-Mercedes-driving salary? I don't think I could knock it back – could you?

One thought that occurred to me was just what a quantum shift it would be for our family, between a generation with someone earning the average Australian income and the next generation earning more than 3 times that. And going back through the paternal line in our family, something like this happened between my great great grandfather David and great grandfather William.

David Rees was a puddler in a steel mill, who was convicted in 1843 of “manslaughter of John Bolan in a row at Swansea” and transported to Tasmania. His son William Rees became an insurance agent, and when he died his wife Martha carried on the business. His son (my grandfather Didds) started as a clerk at the local coal mine and retired as chief accountant of a large woollen mill. I wrote a bit more about it here in 2011.

In this analogy I am the convict and Marcus is the one making the leap into respectable white collar work. But I want to stress that I haven’t killed anyone and I can both read and write.