The Great Bank Job

Monty Python were the masters of surreal comedy. Yet, in the crazy world we now live, they could easily be judged as acute social commentators. The dead parrot sketch comes to mind as it represents the best metaphor we have for the current financial crisis. We got to where we are now because banks were able to sell dead parrots and unlike the Monty Python customer, we were too stupid to see this.

Its fun working for a large American bank at the moment, as you can imagine. Two weeks ago the Christmas Party was cancelled, causing anxiety among those who had spent the last twelve months cultivating a relationship with the cute girl from accounts. Unfortunately back office bankers are merely meek people in suits. If we had any bravado at all, we’d be using our mathematical knowledge in the front office, designing obscure credit default swaps. But instead, we spend twelve months staring at our shoes, kept alive only by the hope that alcohol at the Christmas Party will oil the cogs of our rusty ardour.

Now that all seems faintly irrelevant as having a job by Christmas is more pressing.

The bosses are doing their best to rally the troops. “Too big to fail” is the latest mantra, which unfortunately reminds me of White Star Line’s advertising campaign before the launch of the Titanic. Being a Manager in the Australian branch of a US bank this week feels a little like being the conductor of the Titanic’s Dance Band. Except they had a slim chance of making it to the lifeboats. We’ll be lucky if we can grab some flotsam as we jump over the side.

But in these challenging times, it always helps to find somebody in a worse situation than you. Luckily, a pigeon came along last week and offered to be our fall guy. We work on the fifth floor with a large ledge outside our window. No doubt our banking forefathers used such ledges in the last great banking crisis to relieve themselves of their worries. The windows are now hermetically sealed to stop us from doing likewise.

On Monday we came to work and found that a pigeon had reversed the banking suicide routine. He had flown up from the ground and killed himself on the ledge, having no doubt become depressed after losing his portfolio in the great bird stock market crash, when he went long on grain futures. His body lay there on the other side of the glass and it dawned on us that we would have to sit here and watch him rot each day as we also watched our company decay.

At first we wondered if the pigeon was dead at all or merely critically ill. Strangely enough, that’s also how we felt about the company last Monday. By Tuesday it was clear that both were beyond repair and as the week went on the poor old bird disintegrated into a pathetic skeleton and some ragbag feathers. And the pigeon didn’t do too well either.

I guess we’re too high up for the rats to feast on his corpse, so it was left to decompose in the sun. Unfortunately, Melbourne is experiencing a cold snap at the moment with temperatures dropping to the levels of an Irish summer’s day. So the bird’s decay has been slow and torturous, with bone and feathers stubbornly defying the call of nature. We come in each morning hoping for final resolution but find the process lingering. A bit like our jobs you might say if you weren’t getting as tired of the similes as I am.

The ironic thing is that a job in the bank used to be the safest position available. In the Siberian winter that was 1980’s Ireland, the banks and the Civil Service were the only people recruiting school leavers. I applied for both and got as far as sitting the exam for the Civil Service. I still have the letter at home telling me that I came 52nd in the country (out of 4,500 who sat the exam) and that I would be called for interview in due course. I was tremendously excited and placed the letter in my special folder, alongside my bronze under 10 sprint medal and the first Valentine’s card I received (which I subsequently found out came from my Mother and I’m paying a fortune in therapy fees as a result. Thanks Mam!).

I can only assume that the interviews of the people who finished 1st to 51st are dragging on, because 25 years later, I’m still waiting to be called.

The banks didn’t even reply to my applications when I left school, but through various maneuvers and takeovers, I have found myself working for them for the last twelve years. And the past few weeks have proved beyond doubt that this is no longer a safe job. Banks are at the mercy of the market to a greater extent than other companies (for reasons I won’t begin to bore you with it) and work recentlyhas been an exercise of watching the share price collapse with one eye while watching emails arrive from senior management with the other eye. These messages are designed to reassure us as to the company’s strength, as though none of us were capable of reading newspapers or watching TV.

These are “unprecedented” times apparently, although it looks pretty similar to 1929 to me (not that I was around then I hasten to add). I think if you look down through history you’ll see lots of examples of the greed of the few being paid for by the many. As the good book says “there is nothing new under the sun”. Although I’m not sure Ecclesiastes foresaw a meltdown in the Credit Default Options market.

Yesterday, the dead pigeon was finally cleaned up and taken away. The bank is still here but the confidence of having a safe job has been swept away too.