28-04-08: Expenses

‘Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me’. Call me a paranoid egotist, which of course I am, but sometimes it feels like the ‘men in grey suits’ are doing everything in their sick power to force me to quit my disgustingly overpaid job. First of all those nasty critters spread rumours that we Cityboys face moody bonuses and massive job cuts. Now they’ve pulled the big guns out and there’s talk of my annual entertainment allowance being restricted. Removing one of the best perks of my job may well prove a bridge too far!

It was predictably those automatons at Goldman Sachs who started the rot a few weeks ago by encouraging employees to eat in the staff canteen and not use taxis. Then last week, those usually reliable degenerates from Deutsche Bank were asked to not take clients to lap-dancing clubs or brothels and to limit spending to £52 a head at restaurants. There’s now talk of my bank following suit. There are a lot of things a Cityboy may be willing to put up with, actually I’m not sure that’s strictly true but anyway … I will not have some soulless cost-cutting robot deciding that I’m not allowed to spend vast amounts of my bank’s shareholders’ cash drinking champers, watching Eastern European ladies remove their undergarments and feasting on meals that cost the weekly wage of the average Londoner just because of some flaming ‘credit crunch’. What the hell is the point of me working my arse off all hours God sends if I can’t entertain clients day in day out with a profligate decadence not witnessed since the height of the Roman empire? … well apart from the annual half million pound bonus, I suppose.

I didn’t get where I am today without bribing clients with two grand nights at hideous nightclubs like Chinawhites and Mahiki and taking them on all-expenses paid visits to sleazy strip joints like Secrets or Stringfellows. Frankly, these bribes are the only reason I did get where I am today! I gave up years ago trying to out-work or out-smart the opposition, who are generally a bunch of diligent buffoons who are under the preposterous misapprehension that their pointless jobs serve some purpose. The only reason I have succeeded is because the vast majority of my competition have all the charm of Dick Cheney after a hard-core Crystal Meth session.

Truth be told, it has only ever been my ability to spin a yarn, party like its 1999 and drink like Ollie Reed that has ever appealed to my clients. If the mofos at my bank remove the only string to my bow I might as well throw in the towel right now. What they may not realise is that they’re pushing an open door - this latest development could well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back!