Diary of an Investment Banker

Dear Diary,

I am depressed; yesterday, travesty of all travesties, I slept. In the sixty years that I have spent in investment banking – the calendar, which I do not trust in these matters, says it has been just four months – I do not remember having been fully horizontal, ever. But the strange day that was yesterday ended with me drifting into unconsciousness; I feel terrible about it, but that wasn’t the only bizarre thing that happened yesterday.

To begin with, despite being a Sunday, which as we know is the busiest day of the week, yesterday had only 5 or 6 hours of work. When I came home, I spent a full ten minutes staring at my blackberry, waiting for the little red light to blink, and horror of horrors, no work arrived. I panicked for the next hour and was about to kill self, when a strange but familiar looking woman stepped into my room. Strangely enough, her face had a calming effect on me. I racked my brain trying to remember where I know her from when she said, ‘Son, good to see you. Do you want to eat something?’ After that, I remember having a meal that was equally strange – it was not pizza or the oil-with-stuff-floating-in-it that I usually have in office, but some stuff that tasted good and didn’t burn my insides and make me puke.

Later, I sat in the living room with my mom – that’s who she was – and another stranger, a familiar looking man, and watched TV. This TV too was strange; there was no ticker, there were no ugly men on it talking meaningless drivel and doing fake analysis of random financial phenomena, but it had various other programmes that did not create a sense of stress or urgency.

I also noticed how the people I was with talked to each other: they spoke softly (why?), did not punctuate their sentences with abuses, and did not use the word ‘strategic’ even once in every sentence. They were not aggressive at all, the sissies, and did not ask each other to do things for them. And when they did ask each other favours, like ask for a glass of water – water, mind you, not diet coke – they did not give unreasonable deadlines (such as “hey, can you read this 1,000 page report and summarize it in one slide? Do not miss any details; take your time with this, but give it to me in the next half an hour and make sure you are standing on your head while you do it”).

Like I said, yesterday was quite bizarre. Before I dash of to work today and forget yesterday’s traumatic memories, I really wanted to share this bizarre experience with my close friends, but I realized I don’t have any. I am therefore confiding in you, dear diary; a real strategic move on my part, don’t you think?