Facing Up To It

Just a little note about our pandemic planning.

When the system was set up, we canvassed the business very carefully. Who could work at home, and who would have to come in?

The message was clear. Investors and traders could not work at home. They needed their colleagues around them, they needed their morning meetings and their bosses and compliance reps needed to see them. Delivering the order management and dealing apps on the pandemic remote access system was unnecessary and actually dangerous. Fortunate really, as some of them do not respond well to Citrix.

Well, now here we are, and I sense a slight quavering of the upper lip. When you really think about it, the idea of wealthy, numerate, well-informed and self-confident men and women with family responsibilities actually risking a lethal infection to nurse their portfolio  is a bit daft. They'll stay home whatever the boss says. The first two or three, you can sack, but if it's the whole team, it becomes our problem not theirs.

Meeting tomorrow to start the the process -- "well, if that's not what you really meant, what do you mean?" We'll see how it goes.

Meanwhile, Mrs U is discussing what food to stock-pile.