Love Affairs in Melbourne-Chapter 197 - 194 Some Changes (1)

Qi Yi’s job was about to undergo some changes.

These changes were originally supposed to take place two months earlier,

that is, right after Qi Yi had attended Yan Yan’s graduation ceremony in Melbourne.

However, Qi Yi’s trip to Melbourne almost prevented these changes from happening.

.........

Four months ago, Ian, who helped Yan Yan secure an internship at Ferragamo, left the investment banking sector of Barclays.

Before resigning, Ian needed to complete the handover of two major projects.

Perhaps because they knew Ian was leaving, his Analysts and Associates, except for two who wanted to continue working with Ian, began to feel unsettled and started looking for other opportunities.

Work efficiency and enthusiasm greatly declined.

The two associates, who had been working with Ian for two years, were primarily involved in data collection at the bottom level. Being new to the company, they feared that changes in leadership would affect their jobs, so they focused their daily efforts on finding new positions.

Without completing the handover, Ian couldn’t leave his job with peace of mind. He had standards for the projects he was involved with.

Of the two projects, one was in the final stage, and the remaining work mainly involved documentation, which was manageable for Ian’s two assistants with some overtime, or Ian himself might have had to review the completeness of the data.

But the other project was only halfway done after several months of data analysis by the team; due to contradictory conclusions, they couldn’t finalize the results.

The sheer volume of raw data meant that even if Ian himself took over, it would take a long time, potentially affecting his smooth departure.

It was during this period that Ian ran into Qi Yi again.

Qi Yi had won a newcomer award at the company’s 2011 annual meeting and was now recognized as one of Barclays’ best "miners."

After meeting Ian at the annual meeting, Qi Yi naturally had more to talk with Ian.

During orientation, if it weren’t for Ian taking him on a helicopter, he wouldn’t have made it to the airport to pick up Yan Yan.

When Qi Yi first arrived, not only did Ian instruct him on the best route to the airport, but he also recommended many unique restaurants in New York.

Besides the miners he worked with, Ian was the first Vice President Qi Yi met at Barclays.

Ian was always very friendly towards Qi Yi.

During their chat, they asked about each other’s recent situations.

In such exchanges, Qi Yi would naturally speak highly of everything, which, rendered by his highly romantic nature, was close to the truth.

Ian was more grounded, mentioning how the resignation process was driving him crazy, especially the data handling part of a project which involved several people. The results could not be integrated, and it had been tormenting him for a week.

After hearing this, Qi Yi offered to take a look at it if he had time later.

Qi Yi had said this offhand, and for Ian, it was just another trivial politeness.

The principle of "out of sight, out of mind" is similar in any country.

If Qi Yi was genuinely going to help, he would have at least asked Ian to forward him the data analysis that had been done.

Yet, Qi Yi asked for nothing and just left the award ceremony scene.

Ian was not Qi Yi’s direct supervisor, and seriously speaking, their interactions were limited to when Qi Yi first arrived in New York, so they didn’t have a deep relationship.

Due to this, Ian didn’t really understand the way Qi Yi operated.

Qi Yi was the kind of person who, if he said he’d look into something, would definitely do it. He adhered to this principle with everyone, especially someone like Ian who had shown him kindness.

As a "miner" at Barclays, Qi Yi had much higher access to raw data than front-line analysts, which is why he didn’t need to ask Ian for the existing data.

Qi Yi only needed to know which projects Ian was handling at the time of their conversation, which he had learned during their chat.

Qi Yi didn’t like taking over others’ data analyses halfway; for him, data analyzed by others often became muddier the more it was analyzed, and usually more confusing.

Thus, after leaving the annual meeting, Qi Yi went straight back to the office to help Ian look over the data, and by that night he had emailed the fully analyzed data to Ian’s inbox.

For some, data analysis is a daunting challenge that might take several people several months to resolve.

But for Qi Yi, it was really just a matter of looking over the data and letting the computer process it—a piece of cake.

It’s just like solving math problems; for those who don’t know how, no amount of thinking helps, but for those who do, it’s quickly resolved.

Such data, in Qi Yi’s view, was really just a case of "A piece of cake." (note 1)

Since Qi Yi started mining at Barclays, he had seen many preliminary analysis reports with foundational categorization issues.

Qi Yi reanalyzed the data entering with a new categorization method and even used his own software to generate visual analysis results automatically.

.........

The next day was the weekend, and Ian, overwhelmed, went to the company to work overtime; when he saw the data analysis Qi Yi had emailed in the middle of the night, he was almost moved to tears.

Qi Yi wasn’t at the company at the time; otherwise, Ian would undoubtedly have run over and given Qi Yi a bear hug.

It was probably for the best that he wasn’t there; otherwise, given Ian’s sturdy American build, Qi Yi would have had quite a time enduring such a hug.

A "quants" like Qi Yi does not belong to the front-office tier in investment banking.

Qi Yi’s job involves working with data, not people.

If it hadn’t been for their meeting during orientation, Ian and Qi Yi wouldn’t usually interact much in their day-to-day work.

This small "favor" from Qi Yi allowed Ian to complete all his handover tasks a week ahead of schedule.

Thanks to this, Ian specifically invited Qi Yi for a meal before his departure.

It was during this meal that Ian and Qi Yi talked openly like friends about many things.

Since they were chatting as friends, Ian inevitably asked about the girlfriend Qi Yi had rushed to the airport to meet.

.........

note 1:

Cake.

"A piece of cake." Literally means a slice of cake.

This is an expression commonly used in English to indicate something is very easy to do.

There are similar expressions in Chinese, such as "piece of cake" or "small issue."