In the end, we’re pawns in the palms of the Gods

It had been an unpleasant meeting, as Nancy had taken off her high heels and thrown them at the director of administration

Friday 8 August 2008

AN ORDINARY sort of hot summer’s day turned into a very unsettling one here at the Global Indemnity. Over a wine bar lunch I learned from my friend Vinny, who works for the well-known broking house of Marsh, that the great Keeling, COO of the Titans, was leaving the magnificent XL, for not much more than 4 mill or so, give or take a truckload of shares.

No way forward at XL it seems. Trouble in the loft of the Gods. Life is so unfair.

My early afternoon complacency and mild schadenfreude at the anxious sweaty groups of XL men gathered in groups about the inns and taverns of this great financial quarter was somewhat jolted at the sight of 18 black cabs parked outside our HQ.

At first I thought it might be a Variety Club outing for disadvantaged East End kids, sponsored by the Global. But there were no balloons or streamers, only an unfamiliar cast of fellows in reception dressed in black bomber jackets with ‘Security’ stencilled in what looked like yellow spray paint on their backs.

Talk about a falling barometer! The receptionists had red rimmed eyes and there seemed very little oxygen in the building. My necktie felt very tight. I ascended to the marketing department in high anxiety.

My boss, JJ Portmonie, explained. Following a change of corporate philosophy there had been a bit of rationalisation between the departments. The head of Banking D&O, a thin wiry woman called Nancy Renay (who’d always scared me) had been informed that her services and those of her department were no longer required as the department was being merged with Agricultural and Run Off, following some rather unfortunate mortgage indemnity business.

After the announcement, they were escorted from the meeting room back to their desks with only enough time to load their personal possessions into black bin liners. It had been an unpleasant meeting, as Nancy had taken off her high heels and thrown them at the director of administration, the unlucky man charged with announcing the Big Man’s change of tack.

She left the building accompanied by the sound of her slapping flip flops and her parting shrieks of protest. JJ, ever the Gallic philosopher, described the whole event as regrettable but consistent with the principles of freedom of contract. No problems in marketing, he said.

Spent the rest of the afternoon working on some fairly routine tasks as I found it difficult to concentrate. Got an email from Wang in Hong Kong spouting Eastern wisdom. The Big Man, he opined, was “killing some chickens to scare the monkeys”.

I wrote a small note to the head of political risks, confirming that the trading with Burmese tyrants story in Sunday’s Observer had left out the Global and instead had gone for other big names in the insurance market.

“And what about the brokers?” I added, “Why did the fourth estate leave them out of it?” The truth of the matter is that the Big Man is pretty palsy with the SLORC and we have quite a bit of business arising out of the mining side.

Made a start on the latest task handed down from on high. ­I have been asked to draft the new Global Indemnity policy on out-of-hours use of the Blackberry. It is trickier than it looks. After all the guff about work-life balance, I have to sort of hint to the boys and girls with ambition and drive that our masters take a dim view of the “off” button.

We should be like sticks of rock with the words Global Indemnity inscribed therein. 24/7, preferably.

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