The economy is basically stuffed

I was handed a shit load of graphs yesterday.

"You're the economy expert. Sort though this lot and give a presentation on what it means."

I looked at the first one - a mass of yellow, red and black spaghetti writhing on white paper.

"Tomorrow morning would be good."

With that Larry walked off. I could see the smug grin through the back of his head. The lines on the graph in front of me moved in time with the beating of my heart and they seemed to swell as my head became lighter and lighter.

I threw up on the page.

The graphs were attached to a report, all of which were something to do with an artificial economic growth, measured by some arbitrary figures. Whatever made the situation look better. Apparently we were nearly out of recession. I decided to make my own graph.

"Looking at the graph you will see that we are pretty much f*ck%d, so hold on to your hats because it's going to be a very rough ride. The UK is the worst country in the Western world and is being out performed by all of it's European neighbours. Our English speaking peers in the USA, Canada, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand are all laughing at us." At this point the anger that had been swelling up inside me got the better of me and I snapped the pencil I was holding. Larry stared at me like I was a bag of turds left on his front porch.

"The only weapon we have on our side is ignorance and xenophobia."

Now I was in my element, this is what they hired me for. I am the ninja banker. I ripped the cover sheet off my flip chart to reveal the words NO MERCY written in thick black pen.

"It's either them or us people."

I looked around at a sea of blank faces, all searching for answers in me, then Larry, then me, then Larry.

"We need to use our customers' own ignorance as a weapon against them, and our competitors. We need to reinforce every stupid, misplaced preconception and stereotype they have: Americans are cowboys, the Irish are stupid, Australians are criminals, New Zealanders are farmers, and Canadians are.....Canadian. We need to impress upon them that these are the reasons they should not deal with any banks outside the UK. At least with a UK bank they can walk into a branch. We are on the doorstep, we send our kids to the same schools, eat the same food, laugh at the same jokes. In short we are like them. The others are all..." I looked around at them again, allowing my words to hang heavy in the air around them, "...different."

There was a pause for a moment; then a hand rose from the back. I peered through the audience at the owner of the hand - Sean O'Grady, our business development manager.

"Sean?"

Sean spoke out in the broadest Dublin lilt he could muster. I am sure he puts this on. Nobody really talks like that do they?

"And just how am I supposed to persuade them of all that then?"

Laughter rippled across the room, fluttering the pages of my flip chart like a tattered fairground banner, long forgotten in the decay of winter.

Larry shook his head.

"Okay, that's about it everyone."

I hadn't even got to the best bit.

"But there's more."

Larry nodded and stepped forward. "I'm sure there is, but we have to open up."

So my presentation did not go too well. Larry now thinks I am an even bigger idiot than he did before, which is quite hard, and Sean O'Grady keeps glaring at me across the office. He is quite a big guy as well. I think I'll skip the Friday drink after work this week.

On the way out I noticed that someone had drawn a cock on my flipchart.