value?
I enter my office via the basement. No, that’s not done in order to avoid the waiting Paparazzi, to shield the world from the hideousness that is me at 07:20 most mornings, or to escape the ire of the Merchant Banker-hating throng of generic, Torch-wielding, Bloodlust-Crazed Village Yokels that would doubtless be thronging Canary Wharf looking for a financier - any financier - to string up, if the Wharf weren’t a Fascist state - I mean private Estate, with it’s own stormtroopers, I mean private security guards.
The reason I come in that way is because there’s a direct link from Canary Wharf Underground Station into the sub-level reception (complete with Airport-style X-Ray machine in case any of those blasted Jihadist suicide Bombers every try to get a bag of oh, I don’t know, Plastique, say, Or C4 - are they the same thing? - into the building. Honestly, what with Torch-wielding, Bloodlust-Crazed Village Yokels, Insane self-immolating Jihadists and the risk from Suicidal Bankers Landing on you as they fling themselves bodily from the upper floors of increasingly empty office blocks, the life of a low - to mid-level functionary in Investment Banking is an exciting and dangerous one, right now).
But that - the fact that a pointless Financial Cog like myself is fast approaching Bruce-Willis-in-the-Die-Hard-Quadrilogy Levels of stress - is not the point of this post.
At the top of the escalator that takes you to the main - Grandiose, and with it’s own Bombe* detector / X-Ray machine as well as, on average, ten grands worth of cut flowers - is a vast, glossy black wall. And on this wall are three questions:
What’s Important to You?
What Inspries You?
What Do You Value?
Well? Let me know….
*I know: It should be Bomb; but I so love the idea of something on the posh level that’s less concerned with identifying Dynamite and more with finding Donuts.