One evening more than 20 years ago, I got up from my desk in a City of London office building, balanced a batch of documents under my arm and trudged over to the photocopier.

Lifting its lid, I found an interesting piece of paper, which someone in a position of trust had carelessly left on the glass. It was a list of the names of all my colleagues with their proposed bonus figure next to them. This was dynamite.

The following week, all the research analysts would be told their annual bonus. Most would then affect the confident air adopted by bankers everywhere when events pan out precisely as they expect. If you broadcast the news of a disappointing bonus, you risk looking weak; equally, if you appear taken aback by more welcome news then your bosses might conclude they have paid more than you are worth.