GUEST COMMENT: You know you're sick of banking when...

21 June 2011

2 minute read

GUEST COMMENT: You know you're sick of banking when...

1) The more important you are at your bank, the higher probability your urgent emails or calls always "just happen" to arrive on your iPhone or BlackBerry during someone else's meeting.

2) Your boss insists on using his iPhone/BlackBerry, even when his landline phone is right there at his desk

3) People show off their work-sponsored iPads in meetings and then demand to know why there are no hardcopy meeting packs available.

4) Everyone who is someone wears French cuffs and incessantly fiddles with them just in case you didn't notice them.

5) Senior managers use silly exotic terms like "perfect storm", "black swan", "fat tail", and "green shoots" to make their work sound exciting.

6) Senior managers talk about cost control and "jaws" but most of their audience think that's a movie.

7) Senior managers issue global circulars emphasising the need to cut costs by minimising travel - and then they convene a mandatory in-person conference at a central location for all senior executives to discuss it further.

8) Your bonus is inversely proportional to the firm's good performance.

9) Senior management bonuses' are inversely proportional to the firm's bad performance.

10) Your firm's slogan is either humanly impossible ("never sleep"); a statement of the obvious (unless you're E.T. it's pretty hard not to "live in your world"); or a tautology ("living, breathing Asia" - I haven't yet met anyone who can live without breathing).

The author of this article is an anonymous employee of an investment bank in Asia.

AUTHORAnonymous

Insider Comment

Gu
Gun
23 June 2011
Sarah, I am persistently critical because I believe this could be a helpful and interesting website. Instead, it constantly churns out sensationalist and superficial perspectives on the financial world. I am campaigning for your deposition because, as Editor, the buck stops with you - do you suggest I complain about the output from the website and blame someone else?
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Sa
Sarah, Editor, eFinancialCaree
22 June 2011
@RobinStaff - Thanks. I'll add you to my list of people to be overlooked from now on.
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Ro
Robin Staff
22 June 2011
@Gun - face it Sarah has a rubbish job and probably wants to get fired but until then is just looking for the opportunity to get up the duff, go on maternity leave and never come back
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Jo
Jobless
22 June 2011
I'm not sick of banking ...... please give me a job hey
And Sarah, keep up the good work... I like this website, and the articles, whether good or not so good...
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Al
AliDesai
22 June 2011
@themaster - Charlie is a difficult person to get in the Duck and Feathers especially as it is his shout. He, like the rest of his Goldman fraternity, is happy to imbine when someone else is buying but can find it hard to put his hand in his pocket. He insists that his Ferragamo loafers cost the earth and he needs to keep his powder dry in case he gets a call from someone to run their risk arb book.
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