Getting in gear for a job with the boys at the top
Saturday November 21 2009
I'm calling the guards. What are you doing behind the wheel of an '09 Mercedes? I thought you gave up robbing cars after the incident with the combine harvester.
No, I swear I've just borrowed it from a friend for a couple of hours. I'll have it back to him before he wakes up and notices. I need it for the job interview -- you know, throw a few shapes, play up the old school tie thing.
If I rightly recall, the only time you ever wore a school tie was during court appearances. I'm agog to know what sort of job you've applied for.
A pal tipped me off that Allied Irish Bank has a job or two going a-begging. The wage is decent enough -- about fifty thousand smackeroos a year, and all sorts of perks like being able to tell the politicians to take a running jump if they try to interfere.
I see you have a pal who's as irredeemably imbecilic as you are. I gather you're referring to the current kerfuffle over filling the two top jobs of group managing director and executive chairman of AIB?
For a start, you have no chance, and also the salary for the first position isn't €50,000, but €500,000.
You're having a laugh, aren't you? We're in the middle of a desperate situation here with jobs as scarce as an honest French footballer, and you'd have me believe that someone's been offered a job with a pay-packet of half a million!
Not only that, but Colm Doherty, the chap who has accepted the job, is actually taking a pay-cut.
The Government has placed a €500,000 cap on such salaries, but the bank board wanted to pay him €633,000.
God almighty. Where did they find this guy? Was he the head honcho in some hugely successful Swiss bank or something?
Nope. He was right underneath the board's noses. His appointment was an inside job, as Colm Doherty is head of AIB's capital markets division.
Hang on a minute. I thought the politicians, especially the grumpy fella and the chap with the very black hair, were up in arms about bringing fresh faces in to run the banjaxed banks?
Yep. That was the original plan of the Taoiseach and the Finance Minister. But the bank bigwigs had other ideas on the matter and preferred to appoint one of their own, although Colm Doherty is regarded as an extremely able operator.
But surely the two Brians could've got thick with the bigwigs? After all, didn't they give AIB a dig-out recently?
Too right. The Government handed over €3.5bn of taxpayers' money to the banking bunch of ingrates, and expected that AIB would toe the line over such crucial appointments.
But this hasn't proved to be the case. And what's more, the Central Bank chief declared this week that he was against capping executive salaries "because you can end up losing the people you want to keep".
So if we refuse to pay these heads any more than a lousy half-mill a year, they'll cut and run?
That, bizarre as it may sound, is it in a nut-shell. Good luck with that interview.
Irish Independent
