Beware the Tides of March – a quote from Shakespeare??

My professional career is in the financial industry at the back-end, which means I work with numbers. While I have a functional understanding of some numbers (especially those relating to tax) my love is actually for words. For this reason every now and then (apart from the the career related articles I write) I will find an excuse to send a tongue in cheek email to the team which numbers about 530 people. Bloggers however  will appreciate the email more as it is just an excuse to write and not necessarily about the topic it purports to be about. Today was the announcement of our bonus percentage which in our company can be quite a percentage of our annual income.

I am thankful  and grateful for the bonus which was announced as it was higher than the generally expected figure and the generally expected figure wasn’t half-bad.

Last week an email was sent informing the company of fund mergers taking place today. Fund mergers are quite technical for various reasons as 2 different funds with 2 different prices are combined into 1 fund with a different price and the clients value in the fund must be exactly the same afterwords and the capital gains tax history of both funds for the individuals must be combined into the new fund. It gave me the idea to send an email about  the bonus using the mergers as a basis. underneath is the body of the email

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Beware the Mergers of March – a quote from Shakespeare

A merger on bonus day!!  I do trust those processing it is less prone to their concentration going wanderlust than I am… I remember clearly the words of the soothsayer in Macbeth’s Julius Caesar: Beware the mergers of March.

No actually that doesn’t sound right. It think it was:

• Closer but no cigar- now I remember:  Beware the ayes of March!

• This one was totally ignored by Steinhoff and look what that brought them…

But something is still bothering me as I think it has to do with the 15^th of the month… Ah I’ve got it 🙂  As the bonus is announced today (assuming a bonus is announced) and the tide of currency is flowing into our accounts on the 14^th (see previous assumption) it would be financially irresponsible to let the tide flow out by the 15^th   …

• “Beware the Tides of March”

And for the literary informed (as if you get something like that in a financial services company) okay now I am in trouble (ouch that knife hurts). It is actually:

Beware the Ides of March

Ides is a reference to a day falling on the middle of the month i.e. the 15^th in March. And in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar the Soothsayer (clairvoyant) warns Caesar that something is about to happen on the 15^th but Caesar dismisses him as a dreamer (no I do not know if that inspired John Lennon’s song).

In real historic life Julius Caesar was killed in the senate on 15 March 44 BC by a group of senators which included Brutus as they feared he would become a tyrant and dismiss the senate. Shortly before this event the same senate voted Julius Caesar to be life-long ruler of the Roman Empire. Well he was life-long ruler…

And in Shakespeare’s world the warning was given in the following way:

• Soothsayer. Beware the ides of March.
• Caesar. What man is that?
• Brutus. A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.
• Caesar. Set him before me; let me see his face.
• Cassius. Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Caesar.
• Caesar. What say’st thou to me now? speak once again.
• Soothsayer. Beware the ides of March.
• Caesar. He is a dreamer; let us leave him: pass.

Regards

Abrie