Apparently everyone’s doing a ‘dry January’ this year – should I get on board?
I don’t know which sick bastard invented the City custom of forgoing alcohol for January but he, and buffoons like me who continue to undergo this hideous torture, are clearly gluttons for punishment.
January has to be the gloomiest month on our little island, what with its gruesome weather and woeful lack of parties. To exacerbate this soul-destroying scenario further by removing the crutch of alcohol seems akin to listening to Belgian techno without having ingested vast quantities of mind-numbing substances.
The question, then, is why do otherwise sensible City workers put themselves through this appalling nonsense every year? It is, of course, to try and give their poor livers a break from the almost incessant battering they take during the December boozing period. However, it’s also to prove to ourselves that we’re not raging alcoholics. Unfortunately, any two-bit psychologist worth his salt will tell you that, if anything, our pathetic sense of achievement at having successfully avoided booze for one whole month merely reveals what hopeless pissheads we clearly are. But still, for the sake of your putrid liver and the psychological benefits arising from the cheap con trick you’re playing on yourself – go for it!
After a church-based Xmas with the in-laws I can’t help wonder whether one can be religious and work in the City?
My attitude to hardcore God-botherers is similar to the one I have to male members of the dogging community – I’ve got no problem hanging out with them as long as they don’t try to ram it down my throat. However, one thing I can’t abide is people who claim you can genuinely retain a devoutly religious world view and be an effective banker.
When I worked in the City I wanted my co-workers to be mean, clean, broking machines and that meant chasing commission by any means necessary. I knew that weird things such as ethics and religious convictions would get in the way of that ceaseless task.
For example, would a devout teammate possess the necessary ruthlessness to squeeze out commission from a reluctant client? Would he feel obliged to tell compliance that those receipts you expensed related to a trip to Spearmint Rhino and not some new Soho-based eatery? Would he shop the client who openly asked for the ‘real story’ about the takeover your M&A boys were working on?
Unfortunately, as my vicar brother often tells me, the payment for doing genuine ‘God’s work’ enriches the soul but not the bank balance.
Is corporate social responsibility a load of nonsense?
The simple answer is… yes. Companies that make a big song and dance about CSR are just like Neanderthal men who’ve become metrosexuals in order to get laid. They think that talking about the environment and the community (or moisturiser and hair products) will make potential shareholders and employees (modern ladies) think they’re soft and lovely.
But the whole caboodle is just a scam to make out that the company is moving with the times and so head off potential damaging legislation at the pass. CSR credentials can be used like a shield to protect a corporation from public disapproval, which is important because such hostility may eventually manifest itself as financially harmful political policy.
Frankly, I look back fondly to the days of Gordon Gekko, Michael Milken and Jimmy Goldsmith when cigar-chomping moguls were more honest about their never-ending mission to make themselves and their companies’ shareholders ever richer.
The fact that management teams, advised by trendy consultants, believe we’re so stupid that we’ll buy their horse crap about how they actually care about the environment makes me want to massively short the shares of every single company in the FTSE4Good index… for eternity.
Do you have any questions for Professor Cityboy? Email them to letters@squaremile.com. Follow him on Twitter @cityboylondon
