Bonus envy — Bankers need love not money, writes Lucy Kellaway

Normally, if someone was to give me a large sum of money, say £1m or so, I’d be quite pleased. But if I was an investment banker, I probably wouldn’t be. Just like the thousands of them who at this time of year will be receiving more than £1m, I’d be eaten up with insecurity, envy and greed.

The bad interviews come later in the day and last longer. The recipients will be dismayed. A 28-year-old analyst protested to his boss last week that he really couldn’t live on less than $1m and that a swanky flat had been bought in expectation of something much bigger. “That’s not a bonus! It’s a tip!” another distraught banker exclaimed last year on hearing this his “number” was $250,000.

Over magnums of Bollinger, news of others’ numbers come spewing out. And then, human nature being what it is, any initial pleasure quickly goes flat. A $4m bonus may seem insulting if someone else is rumoured to have got $4.5m.

– Lucy Kellaway, no Financial Times

I read this article last year, in a sunny day. I remember thinking that I had finally discovered how Tiffany’s could make money — there were lots of people full of money. But looking at the same article now makes me wonder about the ironic turns in life.

Young women ‘have more sexual partners’ than men

Young women are more promiscuous than men, according to a survey that claims the average 21-year-old has had nine sexual partners compared with seven for men.

A subject hotly debated in bars and beers over the last weeks is finally put to rest with hard evidence.

I’ll have something on the list about improving personal qualities. What about being more generous, more attentive, less egoistic, more open, more courageous, more decisive, more responsible? I know I’m not bad on those quesites, but I’m far from perfect — and better sounds good.

By the way, one of the best things of my new job is all the stimulus you get. Quick researches, lots of strict deadlines, several challenges. If I manage to be around for another year and a half, I’ll become a super-executive. Which is something good, even in these harsh times.

We had spent a long time together. What an intense friendship! I remember the first time I saw that talkative Italian girl. We were going to the movies, and we came along with Anne-Sophie — and by the end of the day (when we finished the night in the famous Bull McCabes pub in the Casco Viejo of Zaragoza), we were friends forever. And what followed was very nice. We travelled together, we had dinners and discussions. We used to go to the park to study — she studied linguistics, I studied business. And it was wonderful.

And there we were, in Paris, having crêpes after months of friendship. In the next day, I was going to get back to my 2-month backpack trip, and she was going home, to Palermo. In another month, we planned to meet again in Palermo, the last stop of my wonderful voyage. But at that moment, she was worried about our future.

She was crying.

What was going to happen to us, and to all those friends forever that we made in the prior months? What was going to be from all the intensity of those days, when we went to the park to study, when we had fun getting to know other people, and living each day in full intensity? Were we still going to be friends forever?

I looked at her. I smiled. I hugged her.

And I started explaining to her about life. That life is full of encounters and farewells, and that I wouldn’t ever forget her. That from that point on, she was going to be in my heart forever — someone I’ve learnt to love, someone who taught me so much about everything.

But that as sad as it might sound, everything would be different in few months. I was going back to Brazil, she was going back to Italy. We were going to travel completely different paths. Nothing was going to be the same, everything we were afraid to lose we would lose, without remedy. Because such was life, full of encounters and farewells. And even if we met in the future, we would hug and we would be briefly happy — but life would never be the same.

And we parted. I went to my next stop: Zürich. She went back to Palermo.

Some weeks later, in a hot and sunny day, I arrived in Palermo. She came to get me at the station in her small Fiat. She hated mechanical things, and she never used the fifth gear in her car. She was a horrible driver. And we got to her place, where she had prepared a room for me, with flowers and chocolates. I felt at home instantly.

And we had a wonderful week. We went to Agrigento to see Greek ruins, and to Ustica to swim. We spent a day in the beach relaxing, and lots of time talking about everything. We had good laughs and we enjoyed time. And after 7 days, it was time for me to catch a plane and go back to Madrid.

Leda got her Fiat to give me a ride to the airport. It was early morning, and it was still cold. I checked in and there we were. Farewell time.

I smiled. She smiled and gave me a hug. She wept and gave me a yellow envelope with a name in it: “Para Rafael”. Please only open it when you are inside, she asked me. Another hug and I crossed the boarding gate. It was the last time I saw her.

Inside the airport, I opened the letter. Leda used yellow paper to tell me how important our friendship had been to her, how much she had learnt with me. She remembered some little things that we had lived together, the dinners we had together. And she wrote how she believed I was right when we had our conversation in Paris. It was the truth, a sad yet inescapable truth.

I was crying.

Because I knew that never again we would feel the same way. And “never” was too absolute, too insolvable, too eternal for me to handle. And I wished, with all my heart, for me to be wrong.

And still today I wish I was wrong.

I have this thing of always trying to see the whole, the universe, the secret meaning behind all things. That may be the reason why I thought the movies was about myself, in a distorted and surrealistic way of representing my life. You should see the movie, I’m not going to explain it to you. But after you might ask (if you are curious enough) which of those characters are you, Rafael? And that was exactly my question when I left the cinema. At first, I was harsh to myself. I was the dull girl who choses to live her dull life instead of going after what she desired. But then, I thought to myself that was not quite true. I lived, I tried, I went after my secret dreams. I moved on. And therefore I was the girl who knew what she didn’t want, even though she didn’t know what she wanted.

And that wasn’t entirely true neither. I went after my secret dreams, but not after all of them. I can hardly be considered a crazy person that tries anything. If you look to me, you would picture a pretty normal average person, as dull as any mediocre person you’d know. And even though I would probably surprise you with the reality, I cannot fool myself and say I did everything I could.

That may be the reason why I’m feeling uncomfortable in some days. Always going after something. Always getting it, in one way or the other. Never quite finishing it, getting the last drop, the final bite. Never achieving the 100% mark.

And then I get curious, because I never see people worrying about this kind of stuff.

Let me finish this. I liked the way the movie put it: you might try things to discover what you don’t want. Cristina was quick in discovering what she didn’t want, and after that she was sure about what she didn’t want. I’m not that quick in finding what I don’t want. I see the world with blurred borders, never sure of the exact point where things finish (or where I know things for sure).

I had a really complex thought following this phrase, but I got distracted. Now I forgot it forever. Sorry for that.

Update. I remembered. Somewhere before the second wedding, Andie MacDowell starts telling Hugh Grant with how many people she had slept. She starts counting and finally gets to 32 people. Hugh Grant feels miserable because he had slept with only 9 different people.

Let’s go back in time one week. I went to a play about women that are in their thirties. Somewhere in the middle of the play, one of the characters (the most beautiful girl) starts counting with how many people she had slept with. She stops at 31. She was 30 and had slept with 31 men.

Discussing the subject with a friend, she tells me that it is much easier for women to get laid. Whenever a girl fancies the idea, she gets her best lingerie, her best make up, then she goes to any party and starts smiling and looking around. Not long after, she will have a good opportunity to get laid. In her opinion, that’s the main reason.

Stupid museum that was. Nothing special in the special exhibitions. In the permanent collection, some delicate mobiles were kind of beautiful. There was also a interesting movie. One or two other half-interesting stuff and I went to the gift shop to take a look at things.

At the gift shop, lots of stupid little things for we to buy by impulse. I see a postcard. It was green and had just one phrase in it:

Anyone who lives within his means suffers from a severe lack of imagination.

Very true, I thought, and got back to the hotel.