Today's Observer reports on an increase in crime as reported by City Police.

"Bars opening late to service highly stressed financiers....have sparked a rise in drunkenness and cocaine use that is now being closely monitored by City of London police. The trend has been confirmed by sex advice workers who have noted with alarm the growing number of serious attacks on prostitites operating on the edge of the city............"

Let's face facts. Men who choose a career in the City have usually one or more of the following conditions:

- Extreme and medically abnormal excess of testosterone
- Social chip on shoulder driving them to make money at all costs to make up for their lack of class: aka Barow Boys, and Northern version of same.
- Very small male appendages (or unacceptably large, take your pick)
- Highly successful father or grandfather which drives their inadeqaute sons and grandsons to try to emulate via get rich quick and dirty career
- Chinless upper class wonders (esp see previous bullet)
- Otherwise intelligent but psycopathic and/ or narcissistic men - aka American Psycho etc.....................

ROLL ON THE MASS CLEAROUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for that... it comes at a time when I'm considering work being offered in the City.

If we clear out the current crowd, will the next become as bad?

No, A. Steve. I think you will be part of the better new world, for sure. Go for the job and reform the place from within.

Probably watching it on CCTV cameras as an alternative to boring Monday night TV.

This reminds me of a scene in the film Downfall. The last vestiges of the Nazi elite spend their final hours partying in Hitler's bunker whilst Russian shells fall all around them. They're only too aware that the game's up and decide that necking Moet is the only sensible way too spend their final hours.

So working in the City is in your eyes a "dirty" career choice. Can you please explain which jobs you would view as "clean"...?

Blimey, how long have you got?

Doctors
Nurses
Teachers
Firemen
Policemen (maybe that's stretching it)
Vets
Farmers
Manufacturers
Academcs
Scientists
Carpenters
Plumbers
Electricians
Plasterers

The list could go on but I have to go and watch Willy's Wonky Chocolate Factory.

Violence at City...understandable frustration from the fans, they had started so well under Sven.

Doctors
Nurses
Teachers (as long as they aren`t paedophiles)
Firemen
Policemen (maybe that's stretching it) Major no-no I`m afraid, but I know what you mean.
Vets (meow, meow)
Farmers
Manufacturers (depends on what they`re making)
Academcs (depends on what they`re teaching)
Scientists (hmm...tricky)
Carpenters *
Plumbers *
Electricians *
Plasterers *

(*As long as they don`t try to skank you!)

There`s loads of others too. Maybe we should compile a list of `unclean` jobs. Given the amount of masturbation that takes place in food outlets, I`d tend to say that catering is a pretty `sticky` job

don't know, but if the OP is right, you will have to have the crown jewels surgically cut back (or increased?).

> - Very small male appendages (or unacceptably large, take your pick)

How about "Do they make anything other than money?" as a starting point for "clean" jobs.

Farmers!?

I dated the daughter of a farmer in mid-Wales several years back just after the foot and mouth outbreak. Got invited to her Mum's 65th birthday which was like the meet of the local gentry and I got fed up listening to numerous farmers boast how they had managed to get vast sums of compensation for infected cattle and sheep. They talked openly about moving infected animals around to infect others and I was told that a few of them got compensation in the MILLIONS.

Then there is the old land new build con.

You buy a bit of land in the countryside and try to get planning permission to build on it. The locals will oppose you and you will probably get nowhere. But if you are a farmer you simply build a house, get the persmission no problems and then sell the new build to some city type for a big profit.

Don't forget all those EU grants over the past 30 - 40 years.

Come to think of it plumbing can be rather unclean, but still positively sparkling compared to the fetid cr@p the City boys deal in on a daily basis.

Sounds like the settlements clerks have got their bonuses after all...

Having worked in various firms in the city for about 10y I can make the following factual comments about your prejudical "facts". I'd like to know where you have found any factual basis or experience for any of them.
Absent such basis, I'd suggested that you are simply envious of them, and so want to insult them.

(1) This may be the case with a few traders, and at some less sophisticated institutions, but most banks know that pathologically aggressive men don't make good employees and don't make good decision. They also may be prone take actions opening their employer up to litigation. Hence they aren't popular hires. This explains why I've enocuntered very of few of them during my career. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?

(2) Only a minority of city employees these days are British. Lots are continental Europeans. Lots are Americans. Amongst the lawyers, there are lots of South Africans, Australians and Kiwis. Almost all the British employees were educated at top universities. I know of almost no city workers today meeting the "Barrow Boy" sterotype you mention. In my experience, most of these who had existing were let go in the culling as the dot-com boom ended about 5-6y ago. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?

(3) It seems unlikely that you have any evidence for this, other than a general desire to insult men working the city.

(4) I know to NO people who work in the city today based on their parent's influence. City firms want to make money. There is no capacity for carrying useless baggage. I know of one case where the child of a VIP was give a trainee position, and subsequently fired when she violated the firms email policy. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?

(5) I know to NO people who work in the city today who have 'aristocratic' backgrounds. I suspect that, typcially, few of them have the required educational background and work ethic needed for the job. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?

(6) In my experience, city firms take very seriously the psychometric assessment of employees to ensure that that are well balanced. It is simply the case that, as for point (1), everyone knows that psychopathological people make bad employees and are bad decision makers. This means they are a risk for a banks reputation and profitability. Hence they are not employed. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?

Perhaps this forum would be better served if people like you didn't make ill-founded generalisations based on their own prejudices and presented them as 'facts'.

Why do your 'facts' conflict with just about every book or article ever written about the city and those that work there? My own experience of city types matches almost exactly with the OP. City boys are generally arch egotists with a breathtaking sense of entitlement, will happily sell their friends out to advance their position, and all relationships in their lives (friend or family) last only as long as they serve the purpose of furthering their aims. All this before they hit the cocaine, that generally takes their misanthropy to new heights.

I've worked in the City before and I have to say... you're both right. I have met people who were typified by all those five points (except the size of certain attributes, which I had no way to judge), and people who were the exact opposite.

Different organisations have different cultures and I almost wonder if some do actively select for the nasty characteristics on that list. There were places where I felt I couldn't ever work because of that, I'd never have survived.

So maybe the point is you can't generalise. However, if I wanted to write and sell books / newspapers, I know which stereotype I'd attempt to perpetuate, just because it's more interesting. Who ever wants to hear about boring nice people??

Look, the financial services industry has effectively brought us to the brink of economic catastrophe, and understandably most people are feeling a touch miffed about that. Rather than getting all defensive, now might be the right time to keep quiet about how well qualified and generally bloody nice all your City mates are.

It may take time to sink in, but City workers have shot straight to number 1 on most people's hate list. EAs and lawyers don't get a look-in by comparison.

True this, even in the face of massive failure there is barely a line or even a pinch of humility to be found. Wonder why.

Oh pulease.

Show me something in writing that isn't libellous that backs up your nonesense.

I've heard about plenty of fireman who are dodgy.
Plenty of police who are crooks.
Plenty of school caretakers who are paedophiles.
Plenty of priests who are alcoholics.
etc.

Take any slice of the population and you'll find a bell curve.
What's your point?

1m people work in the City - what do you expect?
Sounds like jealousy and small frontal attachment to me.

Institutional arrogance

I worked for a firm who shared a building with a bunch of traders, right by St Paul's Cathedral.

Our firm had to have a special key hidden for the toilets cause the landlords had barred the city boys from the bogs. Everytime they'd had a bad day they got on the beak and smashed the urinals up.

That was late 90's don't know if it's better now.

Not from what I have seen. It's the worship of money that I find really distasteful. Anyone worth tuppence less than these people might as well not exist.