Wednesday 24 October 2007

Wise Young Advice

Thank you to everyone who has written to me at the hushmail account. I'm glad people are still reading with enjoyment.

I particularly liked this email, quoted here with the permission of the sender:

I just wanted to say "thank you" for writing your blog. I only discovered it recently but have been reading voraciously ever since. I like the way you write: it's a charming mix of wittiness, honesty, pith, and is at times very insightful.

Reading your blog has been quite an edifying experience for me, in a way. I'm at that age when you're supposed to go do an internship at a bank (quite a weight of expectation from friends and family) and I always assumed that I wouldn't actually mind this sort of career. I'd done those Easter mini internships at several of the big banks and consultancies and everything seemed rosy enough - I rather fancied giving PWM a go.

Reading your blog, however, it would seem to me that a career in PWM basically consists of babysitting rich, pampered individuals and attending to their every need. Furthermore, and I hope you don't mind me saying this, it seems that to be successful in this area, you not only need to be a rampant sychophant (at least outwardly) but that you are effectively a parasite, feeding off someone else's wealth, which is something that doesn't appeal to me.

I'm only 21 and have no real life experience on which to draw so I apologise for the naivity inherent in what I'm about to say, however, I can at least claim to be looking at the situation completely objectively - not having met you and not standing to benefit/lose from whatever you choose to do. I think you should quit your job.

My father was until recently Finance Director at ***- a well-paid, prestigious job. He hated it. He ended up having a nervous breakdown and - although he didn't feel he could afford to - he retired early. It was easily the best decision he's ever made. He's a lot happier now and in fact he's back working, doing something related, but you wouldn't believe the difference it's made to him, his health, and the enthusiasm with which he now goes through life.

Reading your posts, what immediately jumps out is how much you enjoy being with your family and kids. You seem like a very reasonable chap, who has got his priorities right. Money certainly isn't everything and I'm sure you could find something else to keep bread on the table. I hate using such a cliched expression but life is short - why waste time doing something you clearly don't enjoy when you have other options available to you?

Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks again - please do continue writing - and best of luck in the future.

I will feel a little guilty if my young correspondent strikes private banking off his list of possible careers because of this blog - but only a little. Besides, two other young men have written to me to say I have inspired them to take up private banking, so I suppose there is some kind of grand cosmic balance at work.

Needless to say, I will think about quitting, as I do most days, but I expect I shall come to the usual gutless conclusion. Spots are jolly hard to change at my age.

Nevertheless, I appreciate the concern.

Friday 19 October 2007

James the Hunter -- part two

My short time with James is over. I have given him the rest of the afternoon off.

To celebrate.

Somehow (and I'm not at all sure what strange Harrovian voodoo he employed), James has overnight acquired three clients of the first order. Two are investment bankers, young but already collecting exorbitant bonuses. The third is some kind of Lebanese social aristocrat with a passion for speedboat racing and polo, both of which it seems he can afford with enviable ease.

James has been coy about exactly what transpired in exactly which club last night. He has already acquired the private banker's taste for pantomime exaggerations of secrecy where his clients are concerned. "His clients"! I still can't get used to the idea. But it is true. He has contacted all three this morning, and after a certain amount of embarrassed but conspiratorial laughter about various (unrevealed) shared recollections he has ended up with faxed letters of agreement from all three.

I've actually found myself playing the role of his secretary for part of the morning. It has taken all my willpower not to ask exactly what form of words he used to ensnare his gold-plated prey. Undoubtedly they were clumsy and ingenuous: not words an older, established banker could make use of in his own hunting. But still - I am dying to know.

Perhaps it is just beginner's luck. Most probably it is. But who can say James isn't a demonically gifted hunter? Who can say he won't sustain it through a magnificent private banking career? I wish him all the luck in living up to his tremendous start.

And the best thing is he's extraordinarily grateful to me for suggesting last night's plan of action. He hasn't an inkling I meant it as a rather cruel joke.

A useful ally for my dotage, let's hope!

Thursday 18 October 2007

James the Hunter

James has turned out to be more ambitious than I realised.

He has found a hundred different ways of asking me how to find new clients. How to be a hunter. I have, in my own small way, something of a hunter's reputation within the bank and James is keen to learn. He has already confessed, charmingly and blushingly, a certain scorn for the farmers amongst my colleagues. Ironic, given his choice of tertiary education, but when I alluded to this James rather determinedly missed the point. He does not want to be known as a farmer. He wants to go out and hunt. End of story.

I think I have already been a disappointment to him. He probably imagined I would be spending our days together leafing through Debrett's, or the Rich List, or perhaps the Monaco phone directory, and then pouncing with debonair telephonic eloquence on unsuspecting heiresses. Instead he has had to assist with an impossibly tedious client satisfaction survey (tedious to the clients that is; mortifying to me) and listen to endless phone calls I've needed to make to track down a payment that had gone astray.

This afternoon, he said, "I suppose, in your day one could just, like, go and have lunch with people, but there are so many private bankers now. No one with any serious wealth will even take my call once they find out I've only just started. I wouldn't take my call. I honestly can see myself actually with no clients, even in, like, a year's time."

Mildly irritated by the "in your day", I told him to stop moaning and go out and hunt if that's what he really wanted to do. "Go to Pangaea or Boujis, or wherever it is Prince Harry hangs out these days, and start signing up clients. Now. Tonight. Go right away."

It was a bit of a cruel thing to do. He went all bright-eyed and inspired on me. I nearly told him to forget it, but then I decided he probably needed a good night out, even if it does end in humiliation and banishment from a couple of fashionable nightspots. So off went little James to play with the Princes, his pinstripe suit laden with business cards. I can't help thinking of one of those fairy story children who goes off to fight giants armed only with a wooden spoon.

I shall start to feel guilty only if he doesn't turn up to work in the morning.

Tuesday 16 October 2007

Shadow

I am to be shadowed all week by a new boy. He is perfectly pleasant, if rather too chubby to be any credible shadow of mine. He doesn't quite roll over the arms of his chair, but he definitely gives the lift mechanism pause for thought whenever he chooses to activate it -- which he does, perhaps out of nerves, rather too regularly.

James (that is his real name, but then there are plenty of Jameses in private banking) is undoubtedly going to be successful in his chosen career. He has everything going for him. His mother is in some vague way aristocratic. His father has money. He himself was educated at Harrow -- something which he may be called upon to conceal, but only infrequently -- and then at Cirencester, where he didn't quite complete some kind of farming diploma. He is difficult to draw on the subject, and I suspect he may have harmlessly misled our recruitment team at some stage in the last few months. No matter. As I said, he is perfect for this job. He has the look of a man intelligent enough to add up but not so smart he might skim off your portfolio. His eyes are bright blue, his lips girlishly full, his voice a hesitant and friendly drawl.

He's going to be a nuisance to me, but less so than most of his City-bound peer group would be. There is no piercing intellect or naked ambition to trouble me in gentle James.

Friday 12 October 2007

Friday Chatter

Overheard in the office kitchenette -

Back Office Girl 1: "Have you ever been to a strip club?"

Back Office Girl 2: "God, no. Have you?"

BOG 1: "Promise you won't tell anyone? Can you believe it, I had a private dance!"

BOG 2: "When? When??"

BOG 1: "Last night. Danny had a bunch of mates in town and I..." (breaks off abruptly as presence of your unworldly reporter noted)

AC: "Hello."

BOGs: "Hello..."

(AC leaves with cup of tea)

BOG 1: "Oh my God, how embarrassing....!"