Banking - no longer a land of milk of honey

The end of month. My employer, affected by several adverse external factors (the pandemic, low interest rates, excess liquidity on the market) in a pursuit of cost savings and switching into more automated solutions, is conducting lay-offs. The last day of a month are chosen to hand in notices, to shorten misery of those made redundant and minimise their payroll and severance packages. The laid-off will have it uphill in terms of finding a job in financial sector in which headcount is on decline. Those who are kept in have few reasons to be cheerful, since efficiency per employee must rise and automation of processes does not apply to those whose work is not repeatable.

The style of work in banking no longer resembles residing in a land of milk and honey. Before the financial crisis bankers would do overtime more or less often and received sky-high financial rewards. Today toiling away has become less spectacular, more mundane. To blame is the growing extent of regulation the industry is subject to. On one hand I praise measures put in place to prevent a financial collapse witnessed in 2008, on the other I grit my teeth when I focus on ticking off fulfilling requirements from regulators instead of concentrating on sheer analytical work. The burden of regulations generates additional costs to the industry, which additionally faces competitive pressure on revenue side.

If I were to change a job, a transfer within the banking industry makes no sense. All banks are under the same pressure, room for salary increase is limited given my earnings. I do not slog like a dog and have established myself a reputation with my workmates. Benefits of changing a job would not make up for starting building my value from scratch. The only option is hence to move outside the banking industry.

What could persuade me to change a job? At the present I do long yearn for more money, albeit with a prospect of raising a family and wanting to buy or build a house, dough would come in handy. The new occupation would have to let me develop my competencies and not be repetitive. It ought to be challenging, yet not stressful. I would love to feel what I do matters, which seems a rarity, if one works as a clog in a corporate machine. Besides, balance between time spent at work and private life is of profound importance to me.

A few years ago I thought I would find it hard to come up with the idea of what to do in life, if I had a plenty of assets and could live off the income they produce. Today, as I have grown mature, I realise I would spend my time and energy on charity or / and on semi-political or expert organisations, to strive for a better tomorrow. This would sadly likely bring letdowns similar to what I have experienced with Szlachetna Paczka.

Pandemic diary – weeks 48 & 49

Monday, 8 February 2021
I wholeheartedly recommend the film, whose title can literally translated as “The sharp (or acute) shadow of a fog” to anyone interested in malfunctioning of medical rescue services in the pandemic.

Tuesday, 9 February 2021
The Polish Ministry of Health publishes a report on excess deaths in 2020, examines numbers and… draws little conclusions. Upon making allowance for demographic trends, Poland witnessed around 62,000 excess deaths in 2020. As the report says, the coronavirus is the predominant cause of majority of premature deceases. But it fails to mention lack of access to medical aid as the second major cause of increased mortality.

Wednesday, 10 February 2021
I pick up a parcel containing 25 FFP2 masks. If things countrywide get worse, I will pass some of them to my parents for use before they get vaccinated twice, some will be left for myself, in case the Polish government proscribes use of such masks in selected public spaces, as their German or Austrian counterparts did.

Thursday, 11 February 2021
New cases rise week-on-week by 8%, the 7-day moving average has reversed into the uptrend. Steepness of the imminent incline remains in the realm of the unknown. I bet as long as schools are not further reopened, the pandemic is not going to explode.

Friday, 12 February 2021
Czech Republic is the first large (above 10,000,000 citizens) country in which 10% of the entire population have been officially tested positive. Given several times more have surely not been detected, the country ought to be moving towards herd immunity. In theory; in practice the pandemic does not slow down.

Saturday, 13 February 2021
More and more medical pundits assert the vaccine will not bring us back to normalcy, as those vaccinated will be reasonably protected against death, critical hazard to health of complications from the virus, but may still transmit to others. Preliminary results from Israel indicate the vaccine also reduces transmission, yet those conclusions need to be approached with caution.

Sunday, 14 February 2021
The percentage of the UK variant in countries such as Germany, Denmark and France is rising. In Poland, sequencing based on a small sample indicates in Poland it accounts for less than 10% of infections.

Monday, 15 February 2021
The state of emergency is eventually extended in Czech Republic. This will save hundreds of lives, but the humanity will not wintess results of an experiment, which might, but was not poised to be tragic.

Tuesday, 16 February 2021
Pictures of Poles partying at the streets of Zakopane over the last weekend prove my compatriots behave like cattle freed out of a cage.

Wednesday, 17 February 2021
Covid-19 death meter hits 500,000 in the United States, but is bound to slow down. Pace of vaccination programme is impressive and the number of new infection has been on substantial decline for 5 weeks now.

Thursday, 18 February 2021
The February / March 2021 wave will likely be smaller than the October / November 2020 wave. The number of people with antibodies is probably between 5 and 10 million, most of them are the most active. Plus we have nearly a million of fully vaccinated citizens. On the other hand we have a starting point 10 times higher than in September 2020. Thanks to ongoing vaccinations it will hopefully be less deadly.

Friday, 19 February 2021
The Polish government intends to crack down on use of face visors, scarves and other clothing as face covering. Face masks will be the only legitimate way of covering nose and mouth. The actual problem is that the current regulations are not enforced and an increasing number of people do not give a damn about proper face covering.

Saturday, 20 February 2021
Week-on-week growth in the number of new infections in recent days:
- Tuesday: +27.7%,
- Wednesday: +25.4%,
- Thursday: +29.4%,
- Friday: +37.6%,
- Saturday (today): +29.2%.

Twitter

My New Year’s resolution for 2021 was to set up an account on Twitter. I report I did so on 6 January 2021.

I confess to have had ambitions to become an influencer for years. In recent months they have given way to an unhealthy inclination to root out all the evil in the world and a predilection to engage in discussions with people and institutions followed by thousands of Twitter users. I also wanted to vent my anger with current goings-on, so that my voice became audible.

Just like with blogging, I am constrained by my profession. Several weeks ago a CEO of a large company being a client of my employer made a nasty remark on my profile picture on facebook. The chap is known for his pro-life views, while my profile picture reflected my pro-choice stance. I kindly rebutted his conversation starter by underlining my private views were not the subject of our business call. It worked and the conversation had absolutely no echoes in the organisation, yet reminded me I ought to preserve my anonymity.

After a weeks of presence on Twitter, I have the following observations:
- quickness of reaction does matter – if you want to reply wittily to someone’s tweet, you have less than one minute to invent, type and publish it; otherwise someone else will come up with the same thought,
- the application is a veritable time-suck,
- reputable users with thousands of followers just send tweets and let things drift, i.e. do not engage in discussions in comment threads to their tweets,
- wise people usually do not spend time online sharing their wisdom, but cretins have plenty of time and energy to show off their stupidity.

Tweeter has reminded me of an old Polish adage: Nie dyskutuj z idiotą. Najpierw sprowadzi dyskusję do swojego poziomu, a potem pokona doświadczeniem. Or the meme to the right. It also brought back memories of clashes with fellows of Toyah on his blog a decade ago. Ten years have passed but the rhetoric of trolls has not evolved much.

In my futile mission to save the world I wished to crack down on the most harmful group of trolls quite numerous these days, i.e. anti-vaxxers. Predictably, it just ended up with dead-end polemics with fools. I wonder who has a vested interest in widespread activity in anti-vaccination campaigning. The answer that it could be tracked down to Russia does not hold water, as Russians have produced their own vaccine, therefore painting the picture of death-causing vaccines makes no sense.

The eye-popping activity of anti-vaxxers has also prompted me to rethink my views of freedom of speech and censorship. Does somebody who espouses crossing an intersection on red light, claims drunk-driving is ok or praises benefits of domestic violence in fostering family relationships deserve to be deprived of their right to share their views? Should we count on collective wisdom of people who ought to recognise scribble put out by a downright idiot or should be ban harmful content on the Internet?

Moreover, I grow on an idea of giving up social media entirely. Just to evade loads of rubbsih out there and to save my nerves which I can't help fraying. 

By the way, it has been nearly 12 years since my first post on the blog... 

Pandemic diary – weeks 46 & 47

Monday, 25 January 2021
100,000,000 case of COVID-19 have been reported worldwide. This is just an official number of diagnosed infections, nobody knows how many people have been infected. I presume around half a billion.

Tuesday, 26 January 2021
Several European countries witness protests of citizens and entrepreneurs against restrictions. After nearly one year since the onset of the pandemic and four months into the second wave, everybody seems to be fed up with lockdown, whose safety measures are disproportionally higher amid fears of the so-called UK variant. In Poland thousands of businesses have reopened, since their owners have not received adequate aid from the government. I do not blame them. The restrictions are illegal, since they have been imposed with violation of the constitution, besides relief packages are patchy and several businessmen have not been eligible for taxpayers’ money. I blame those who are their clients and contribute to spread of the disease.

Wednesday, 27 January 2021
Note the proportion between the seven-day trailing average number of new infections and the seven-day trailing average number of new deaths two weeks later. In November 2020 it ran at around 2%, these days it reaches 3%. This is put down to age profile of the infected (aftermath of year-end family gatherings) and attempts to cure the disease at home instead of starting a serious treatment early.

Thursday, 28 January 2021
I suppose the downward trend of the waning second wave in Poland has just reached its bottom. Over the last 2 days the week-on-week numbers of new infections have been flat. I believe the trend is inevitable reverse due to: schools reopening for the youngest pupils, the Kent variant and reopening of frozen-up industries.

Friday, 29 January 2021
One needs to bear in mind the pace of vaccinations in 1Q2021 will predominantly hinge upon deliveries of the vaccine by big pharma corporations. Currently announcements of delayed orders become the daily bread, sadly. Hope the process speeds up, once deliveries go up and I hope it happens in less than 3 months.

Saturday, 30 January 2021
In 2020 Poland reported the second highest (after Bulgaria) number of excess deaths per 1 million citizens in the EU. Even countries heavily afflicted by the virus as Spain, Italy, Belgium, Czech Republic could boast of less tragic figures. The dreadful stats, generated merely in 4Q2020 are an aftermath of virtually defunct Polish health service which virtually stopped giving to those ill with something else than COVID-19 or insufficient testing (not detecting the virus before a decease).

Sunday, 31 January 2021
We can boast knowing quite a lot about Pfizer / BioNTech vaccinations. We know the first does is less effective (50% vs. anticipated 60%), but alleviates symptoms in case of an infection. First figures from Israel show the second dose seems more effective than anticipated 95% and those few patients infected more than a week after being administered a second dose showed mild symptoms. Those news are heartening.

Monday, 1 February 2021
Next deliveries of vaccines to the EU are whittled down. The Polish government keeps declaring it will not reschedule vaccinations for elderly people already registered. Time will tell…

Tuesday, 2 February 2021
Mass reopening of locked down businesses and ongoing mess about legitimacy of restrictions have prompted me to prepare a matrix which allows to assess a risk of infection in a specific place, given 5 factors which contribute to transmission of the virus. A food for thought to everyone in a country whose government fails to communicate with citizens.

Wednesday, 3 February 2021
By today 1 in 1,000 Polish citizens has officially died from COVID-19.

Thursday, 4 February 2021
Let’s look back into November 2020:
- 7-day moving average of new infections peaked at 25,611 on 11 November 2020,
- 7-day moving average of new deaths peaked at 506 on 25 November 2020,
which translates into mortality of 1.98%.
Now look at recent figures:
- 7-day moving average of new infections on 21 January 2021 was 6,183,
- 7-day moving average of new deaths on 4 February 2021 was 271,
which translates into mortality of 4.38%.
And note in November hospitals were much more overwhelmed than these days.
Two plausible explanations are:
- higher average age of patients (aftermath of family gatherings around Christmas),
- too long treatment at home, meaning patients call for medical aid when the infection is in advanced stage.

Friday, 5 February 2021
The Polish government loosens more restrictions: hotels, ski slopes, swimming pools, outdoor sport facilities, theatres and cinema will be allowed to open on 12 February 2021. Restaurants, gyms and schools have to wait. This squares with my matrix (see above).

Saturday, 6 February 2021
I do not concede the lockdown lifting decision made yesterday an informed one. The government does not track the spread of the UK variant which becomes dominant in several European countries. Without insight into that variable, the economy reopening is done blindfold.