Botox to beat redundancy?

1 April 2008

1 minute read

Bankers in New York are said to be resorting to personal grooming as a means of warding off unemployment. Will it work?

The Times reports (see the end of the very long article in the link) that male bankers are branching out into new areas such as "blending" to tone down their grey hairs and "take 10 years off the face".

One Suki Duggan, owner of DonSuki's hair salon on Manhattan's Upper East Side, told the Times: "Men are frightened. People are getting laid off, and few places are hiring senior workers because of the high pay they demand. These older men have to appear fresh and valuable because there is no room for tired and stale employees in this economy."

Some are even verging on the Michael Jackson solution. A surgeon told the paper:

One guy I hadn't seen for four years said he lost his stock, his job, everything. The best investment he could make is Botox, laser and skin fillers."

Are serious grooming and skin fillers a real barrier to redundancy? Or is Oil of Olay perfectly adequate? Let us know.

AUTHORSarah Butcher

Global Editor

Ja
Jane
3 April 2008
Ken, congrats on articulating so bluntly the uneasy, squeamish and un-pc aspects of this particular debate. I salute you!
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ke
ken
3 April 2008
to be honest..i think that men who dye their hair and preen themselves come across as a bit vain and poofy.
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Ba
Banker's girlfriend
2 April 2008
So What? I totally agree - that's if these men are dying their hair because they fancy being Macho Mahogany or Amazon Ash Blond because they believe it suits their personalities. We girls have been doing it for years, after all. But not if they're dyeing because they're desperate to fit some 30-something youth template demanded by ageist employers who haven't twigged that your hair colour has no impact on the thought processes happening fairly close by. Or that wrinkles do not equal loss of drive. By all means be groomed. Just don't look like David Gest, OK?
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FI
FI @ DB
2 April 2008
Trying to look the part and being as well groomed as you can is part and parcel of the IB world. Imo, there is nothing wrong with it. I know some very senior people who have dyed their hair and quite frankly, SO WHAT..?!?
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Ag
Aged City hand
1 April 2008
I know some fifty-something blokes who have
become rather noticeably impassive facially, and their hair has definitely darkened (anyone old enough to remember Robert Maxwell? aka The Bouncing Czech, and erstwhile proprietor of The Mirror and the NY Daily News, before he fell off the back of a yacht... his office reckoned he used to shampoo his locks with boot polish. And dye his eyebrows. Regrowth was blue-black in remarkably short order). Please note, I am not suggesting that any of today's City characters take a dip in the briny to solve their problems, even if they do have a non-compete with the sharks.
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