I was having a conversation a couple days ago with some other people in the profession, and we were talking about the challenges of working from home. Several had been working from home since long before COVID19 hit, but they were talking about how working with others was changing with more everyone else moving to working from home. People who had never worked virtually before are now working that way. Including both senior financial advisors they might be working with, and spouses who type loudly across the kitchen table from them 🙂

The reason we were discussing it was because we were trying to deal with that later scenario, looking for great noise cancelling headphones. All of the people in the discussion agreed that the only worthwhile noise cancelling headphones were all the large over-ear type (think what you’d see on gamers at gaming conventions). Similarly, they were also viewed as the most comfortable for wearing multiple hours a day for work.

But a brief cautionary tale was shared.

A junior advisor had the audacity to wear good noise canceling, over the ear, headphones for meetings with the senior advisor and with clients. The senior advisor hated the image, and fired the junior advisor.

So now all of these advisors were warning the junior members of the group to wear earbuds, at the sacrifice of good noise cancellation and comfort, whenever dealing with senior advisors and/or clients.

Which brings me to a cautionary tale of my own. If you are trying to select a financial planner, please remember that image isn’t everything. If I’m wanting a bridge built, I’m quite happy working with the most stereotypically geeky looking and behaving civil engineer out there (Go Huskies!) – but then again considering I did my undergrad at an engineering university, and my best friends have always been computer science and engineering people, I hope that doesn’t come as a surprise to any of you.

Stay well.