The big disadvantage to working in a dealing-room, any dealing-room, is that you don't get much opportunity to visit the rest of the building. It's a bit like being in the slave-galley of a ship - keep rowing and don't worry about whatever else is going on! Actually, we're not allowed in certain areas of the office courtesy of the various regulatory bodies which try to ensure that the dealers don't have access to the settlement instructions of the trades they've done. A reasonable enough requirement, but it does tend to isolate you from everyone else.
Anyway, I made a quick sortie up to the fourth floor last week - nothing exciting, just my annual trip to the private clients department, and I took the opportunity - not to commune with my fellow-workers - but to gaze out of the window across the city.
When we first moved down here you could see about 16 cranes on Dublin's skyline. On Friday, I counted 11. Not bad for November and it says a lot about the amount of construction work still going on in the city. And that's just on the southside of the river. In fact, cranes aside, the view is spectacular. Mountains in the background, turgid Liffey nearby and the dry dock of the IFSC in front.
The reason that the dock is dry (or nearly dry at any rate) is, I think, to do with the expansion of the Harbourmaster Pub. Given that it is the sole purveyor of alcohol in the IFSC, it's in need of some expansion. The building next to us is almost complete and another hundred or so thirsty mouths are due to descend on us by next week.
So it's hardly surprising that the Harbourmaster needs extra space. I gather, though I'm not entirely certain how these things work, that they had to drain the dock so that they could do something about foundations for the extension. The net result has been an endearing whiff of eau de decay from the dock and the sight of the apartments, normally surrounded by the water of the inner dock, left circled by a not very appealing mess of sludge. I haven't been inside any of the apartments, but they look great.
Most of them face either south or west and, when the dock is filled and the fountain is gushing away, it looks very chic. However, property boom notwithstanding, it would be hard work for even an estate agent to come up with a captivating description of their current situation.
Last weekend the news that Yamaichi would collapse led to widespread fears of a messy Monday. But trading was very subdued on the day, partly because it was a Japanese bank holiday. All the same, the sight of Yamaichi's boss sobbing on television and begging people to give jobs to his 7,500 employees - now made redundant - brings things into sharp focus.
Although the Asian markets keep trying to recover, the strains of businesses collapsing obviously have continued knock-on effects and nobody is immune. There seem to be two schools of thought.
The first is that the Asian problems are endemic to that region and can be ring-fenced, so that the affect on Europe and the US can be limited.
The other is that there is no way you can isolate any region in an increasingly globalised world, and that we will be lucky if we get away with just a few banks collapsing in Japan, and the Koreans arguing about the level of support they'll get from the International Monetary Fund.
I'm sorry to say that gold has had a bit of a bounce back which pushes the gold and diamond necklace off the Christmas list. Instead of being shamed into buying it for me, the man in my life laughed hysterically when I mentioned that jewellery is always a nice gift.
Given that the European markets weren't providing a lot of excitement (or perhaps proving that once you've seen one day of violent price swings it all becomes a bit of a bore), I was able to turn to the domestic front where things have become somewhat hectic.
Water, water everywhere is the watchword! We came down on Sunday morning to discover that the rain had decided to make its presence felt indoors as well as out.
This has necessitated the strategic placing of buckets in the hallway and a new-look decor for the walls.
So far, damage doesn't seem to be serious, but I now need to find a builder to do a bit of repair and restore work. I guess the simplest thing to do is walk to the centre of the IFSC and shout, but they're probably all far too busy shoring up the Celtic Tiger to care about my little three-bed semi.
And if water cascading down the inside walls downstairs wasn't enough, I had a run in with the power shower this morning. I admit that I'm not at my best in the early hours and so I didn't notice that the shower head was a little loose. I turned on the water and the shower turned into a thing possessed - spraying the ceiling, the walls and the floor before I managed to get things under control.
I think I'll nip down to the Harbourmaster for a bit of advice on drainage schemes.
Sheila O'Flanagan is a fixed-income specialist at NCB stockbrokers.
