Work wise, like stags
fighting, clashing with their magnificence and majestic antlers, I’m in a rut.
It doesn’t feel like my
place of employment is a bank anymore and the people here are not bankers, or
not bankers as we know them. Bluffers,
crawlers, project types and buzz word spouting irritants prevail and the ones
that know the least about banking are the most highly regarded. Which in terms of my value in the pecking
order, like my beloved Aston Villa, puts me firmly in the relegation zone.
In the 1979 Francis Ford Coppola film Apocalypse Now
the main character, Captain Benjamin L Willard (wonderfully played by Martin
Sheen), memorably comments, “the bullsh*t piled up so fast in
Vietnam, you needed wings to stay above it.”
The same can be equally applied to my work place. The bluffers and crawlers circle around, and
plot and whisper and avoid anything that constitutes real work and do anything
they can, and swallow pride, abandoning all sense of personal integrity, just
to remain in the inner circle. Meantime,
the foot soldiers like me shoulder the important business of ensuring the cogs
of the bank turn round.
“Get another job” I hear you sensibly saying. But like the elderly convict and the prison
librarian Brooks Hatlen in the famous and ever popular film The Shawshank
Redemption, I feel somewhat institutionalised. At least I am not being subjected to the
dreadful treatment that Tim Robbin’s character, Andy Dufresne, had to endure,
but metaphorically speaking it does feel like my pants are being pulled down on
a regular basis.
The popular misconception is that all bankers are rolling
in wads of money and are paid handsome, fat bonuses for doing relatively
little. As I am sure that previous
editions of this column have highlighted that certainly is not the case in
relation to me or indeed many of my colleagues.
In the dire personal financial month of January, deciding whether to
order a much needed prescription or have an overdue haircut can hardly be
construed as La Dolca Vita. As I am sure you know dear reader, the
translation of La Dolca Vita is “the good life,” which is ironic really as I feel like the character
Tom Good (played by the affable Richard Briers) in the enduring 1970’s BBC
sitcom, The Good Life, scrabbling around for pennies to pay his
electricity bill. I can’t even satisfy
creditors by paying entirely in coppers like Tom Good as prior to payday, I
already played the last desperate trump card of converting the contents of my
pennies jar into hard cash, which to my pleasant surprise yielded a handsome
£23, which I pondered on later that day investing some of that windfall behind
the bar in the Flagon.
In the week my friend Mrs
Still-in-Fjord, the Little German’s wife, posted that she had just cracked open
a bottle of champagne to celebrate a work promotion, good on her and she has my
warmest congratulations and sincere wishes.
At that very time, to my eternal shame as a member of the Campaign for
Real Ale, due to fiscal necessity, I was sipping out of a can of Tesco’s own
cider. All of which begs the question,
how did I end up like this? This
conjures up the image of the late legendary footballer George Best lying on the
bed of his luxurious penthouse suite, sipping champagne with Miss World and a
fortune in casino winnings both lying tastefully arranged on his bed and the on
looking young hotel waiter infamously and poignantly asked Mr Best, “where did
it all go wrong?”
© Dominic Horton, 1st
February, 2013.
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