Every cloud has a silver lining, even the credit crunch. Truly. I know that the office is a-buzz with rumours of redundancy and cutbacks, but even in the grimmest situation this, courtesy of a investment banker calling herself Ceedy Girl, is sure to make you laugh - although maybe not so much with her. Ceedy Girl, you see, thought there was something missing from the credit crunch, and that thing was poetry. Epic poetry. Here is a short extract:
We came from far and wide,
To the land of milk and honey.
With a suitcase full of hopes and dreams,
Of power, sex and money.We kept our eyes glued on the spreadsheet
And hopes high in the sky,
Little did we realize that
Our dream had been a lie.From our shiny, sexy offices
We couldn't give a damn
If those Oklahoma rednecks
Thought loan "teasers" were a scam.
Honestly, I'm not making this up ….
You say the villain here is Greed
Why isn't he in jail?
He's ruined the lives of all of us
He let capitalism fail
It goes on:
How on earth could this have happened?
This nightmare can't be real
For everything we sacrificed,
We were getting a raw deal.
And on …
It was posted back in October but I've only just stumbled on it, and thank
goodness. While I am moved (to tears, at some points) I'm glad to have got it all cleared up. Because at least we now know: since the credit crunch began, life for workers at investment banks has clearly gone from bad to verse.
Moving swiftly on, I am aghast to read that a bad boss can give you a heart attack (and not just by creeping up behind you when you're busy on Facebook). Scientists at Stockholm University asked 3,000 employees to rate the management style of their senior managers and found that poor leaders increased the risk of serious heart disease among staff. You read it here first: your boss really is making you unwell.
Moving on to pay and rewards, full points to Personnel Today for being the first to run a "Top Tax Terror!" story. Apparently, the chancellor's new 45% tax rate is going to drive the best and brightest from London to … well, who knows. It seems to me that that is the tricky bit. The world isn't exactly crying out for more bankers right now.
Lastly, I was relieved to note that office kitchen politics are a global phenomenon, immediately putting my ongoing dispute over where exactly the coffee pot should be kept into an international - and therefore less laughable - context. I am not sure about Susan Pinker's advice, though. If I were locked out of my own office kitchen for hours at a time I would go bananas. Send them off to a local café, I say, and reap the added bonus of having all senior staff off the premises.
