Head of the documentation unit

See also the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in the nineteen seventies.

One of the accursed people in an investment bank, the poor sod who is responsible for the performance of the documentation unit — those sainted men and women who make contractual flesh the aspirations of the credit department — is only in the role to atone for a sin (possibly one committed in a former life), or as act of spite, vengeance or perverse cruelty from someone else further up the organisation.

Running the negotiators is a quite thankless role, which - because of the cost, heft, and inevitable negative impact on the franchise of the documentation unit, is irresistible fodder for change managers, management consultants, the chief operating officer’s department to fiddle with.

This means any well-meaning attempts the person in charge makes to fix things are bound to fail, in a way that is inextribably tied to that person. A dead man walking.

Seen through the different prisms of the self-perpetuating autocracy, this is what the doc unit means:

To sales: WHERE'S MY GODDAMN ISDA?
To the chief operating officer: Why does this department cost so much? Who the hell are these people?
To the general counsel: A royal pain in the arse.
To a change manager: an opportunity to right-shore to India, and credit for delayering the organisation

In an investment bank, being a place of universal grasping fixation on advancement, it isn't hard to find a stooge to take the role: all you have to do is present it as a stretch assignment; an opportunity for advancement: managing three hundred people, in six centres across seven time zones, with a chance to overhaul and rock the house on a franchise-critical operational function. Who would not leap at that?

A person with a cautious or reflective nature. That's who.

Head of the documentation unit

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