Does anyone care?

Does someone listen to me? Does someone care? I may not surprise you if I say that over the years, I haven’t found a lot of people who actually care about what I do as an actuary. People still say things like “You work in IT, right?” after years of telling them I work as an actuary. Would you find it frustrating if people kept believing you’re doing something but you’re not?

Would you find it frustrating if people said you were an accountant after telling them a million times you are an actuary? Life as an actuary can be frustrating. You develop great insurance products, and nobody comes to say thank you for the great annuity they’re going to get in 20 years' time. Life as an actuary can be unrewarding. Let’s be realistic, is there someone out there who cares about my actuarial contribution to the world?

Last week, I went to visit my sister, and I had this immense opportunity to have an actuarial conversation with my nephew. He’s 15 years old and he’s contemplating a career as an actuary. He’s already scoring in Maths at school and neglecting his haircut. Well, he asked me questions and actually listened to me for about 2 hours, as we were hiking together on a mountain. After all these years of indifference from the actuarial Muggles, one of them wanted to know what I do as a job, what the job is like and what you need to do in order to become an actuary. That was one moment of significance, having the opportunity to explain to an eager listener what it is to be an actuary.

Well, I wish you all to have this moment of significance, when someone outside the job actually cares about your work. Maybe you will realise more than ever that it’s not all in vain.

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