It's just money, honey.

The tree hopping, tail swinging, pitchbook throwing, tequila drinking and dealbreaking life of an investment banking monkey:

With the month of July slowly approaching, comes the anticipation of the first bonus. Man o man will you not be the envy of all your friends when you wake up on that glorious day in July, get ready for work and check your bank balance at the first ATM and: wow. The numbers will go on and on and on and so will the smile on your face, thinking “it’s all worth it!” – that is, until your blackberry starts going off like mad, from the flurry of emails a client starts unleashing.

But that’s looking too far into the future. For the moment, you can just look forward to the cash. As you spend most of your downtime pondering on the cash, you run countless combinations and permutations of what this money really means.

Sounding your buddies at fellow bulge bracket banks, you know you can expect something like £45,000, before Gordon Brown slashes an automatic 40% off.

Ok, so £27,000 is not bad at all!

You can go to Selfridges and buy five Bang & Olufsen TVs (bedroom, dining room, bathroom, kitchen and study) and still have some cash to spare for a night out on the town. You can get yourself half a dozen good tailored suits and have some change for a pair of hand made shoes or two. You can take a long holiday around the world in first class (hehe, if you had the time) and have money to spare when you got back. Ok, you could do loads, but really, what does £27k mean?

Would you pay £27k for a full month of blissful, uninterrupted, mobile-less, blackberry-less holiday time? Sure. Wouldn’t anyone in i-banking. Gladly. You sit down to do the maths and realize the gravity of what you have just said.
Basically, as an i-banker, you are marginally better off than if you were receiving minimum wage, and not only from an hours point of view, but from a personal willingness to give good money to be left alone point of view.

Ok. Enough of these silly thoughts. You head to the bathrooms to splash cold water on your face and start thinking like an i-banker again.