After checking it wasn’t a problem with my bifocals, I remembered with a faint smile playing on my lips that, yes, bonus season was nearly upon us.
This is the time of year when the Masters of the Universe allocate extra moments in the morning to get their shirts ironed and shoes polished. They get in even earlier than usual and leave even later.
Your fate, of course, was probably decided a long time ago when you failed to win that mandate from some frontier market corporate with more ambition than sense. But something in a banker’s psychology means we cling to the idea that being slightly better turned out in January — and less obviously hungover — will make a difference to our prospects.
It has been made all the more difficult this year. In the absence of the normal January deal exuberance, you need to try to make yourself look busy, rather than just killing time catching up on the latest Premiership results on your Bloomberg.
Well, soon you’ll know either way. Bonuses will be out over the next few weeks and Taipan would like to wish you all the best of luck. Hopefully whatever you get will make up for the hair loss. And who knows? Regulators might let you keep the money for just long enough to spend it before asking for it back.