Sick In The City

Our trading floor is like the lung unit of some major teaching hospital.

Every so often a choked sound of hacking and coughing pierces the early morning calm, immediately followed by hoots and yells of derision.. 'Maaaate! What the f@@@ have you been smoking ? Was that a bit of your lung I saw ? Give it a rest!'

Poor Robert, one of our government bond traders, clearly isn't one hundred per cent. Every 10 or 15 minutes the poor guy goes off into a paroxysm of graveyard coughing which sounds like someone strangling a pet donkey! I'm always fascinated at how we prowling jackals of the trading floor deal with sickness. Probably in much the same way we deal with financial crisis; never take it too seriously - until it's life threatening, that is.

In the lead up to someone going off sick the received wisdom here is that there's likely to be a one or two-day period of preparation for the big day when you call in. We seem to mimic the symptoms of a full blown illness for a day or two in order to get everyone, especially the boss, used to the idea that we might not rock up for a few days. When the inevitable call comes through and the news permeates the floor, there's often a somewhat unsympathetic reaction: 'Should have got a bleedin' Oscar for that one...', etc.

When you're off sick, of course, you sit around the house listlessly all day felling like crap, swallowing ever larger amounts of medication, shivering in bed and waiting for the phone to ring or your partner to show up with goodies. In fact, it's just like being out of work. But when one of your colleagues throws a sickie, all we think of is: 'day off.' Our suspicious minds conjure up all sorts of scenarios: 'Lazy sod is probably playing golf (yeah right, in the snow,) out at the pub with mates (none of whom are at work, right ?) ..'

Anyway, three places down the row from me, Don has just vented both nostrils in what can only be described as a turbo-charged cough / sneeze combination rocket. Jeez, is the guy about to croak ? All of a sudden, I'm concerned - will I get his clients ?