Was it something I said? Do I have body odour? If so, why didn't human resources have the bottle to tell me about it? (They don't seem to serve any other purpose...) The problem was the desk next to mine – well, I say desk, but it had all the characteristics of a revolving door. None of the buggers they put there lasted more than a few weeks. I'm not that unappealing, am I?

It all started after the latest HR review (WeRthefuture! according to the first PowerPoint slide) during which it was decided there had to be "a vertical realignment in the resourcing of the budgeting and planning strategy applications". Yep, they finally realised we were shorthanded. We needed another spreadsheet jockey to hack out the interminable reports which the department (i.e. me) has to produce. So, I lobbied vigorously for this new "head" to report to me – it was my workload that needed easing, and extra reports always help one's case at pay review time. But FD went into hurried consultation with HR and decided there was another way. Even so, I wrote a job description. First draft: "Must he able to knock seven bells out of any spreadsheet known to man. Nothing else matters." This was "taken on board" by 17, HR and the recruitment agency and I later saw it as an ad which read:

" Are you ready to take the business challenge? Can you joint venture with colleagues in this fast-moving, leading-edge business to make a difference where it really counts? (Salary £TBC.)"

Nope, I didn't know what it meant either. The upshot was the arrival of an impressively qualified accountant, dying to add value to the organisation and seeking to prove he was worth his £TBC/52-a-week salary by lobbying FD with lots of great ideas. Of course, FD soon tired of his eagerness and dumped him on me, knowing I'd have that value-adding zeal knocked out of him. I gave him all the most tedious reports to hack out – and then he left! Not a word of warning. All I heard was a splutter which sounded like, "Stuff this for a game of soldiers," and by the end of lunch the only sign he'd ever been here was a half drunk mug of instant cappuccino and a slightly foxed copy of UK GAAP for business and practice (2002 edition). Still, the upside to his rapid exit was that we still had a bunch of warm CVs on file; the desk was soon filled again. But, spookily, this guy left within the week. Then a rather thin, angular woman with altogether too much focus came and went in a similar time frame. Her CV said she was "four years' PQE" – that's "pretty quick exits", judging by the impact she made here. The next one stuck it out for a month, but the one after that lasted just four days. FD was in a foul mood. Part of his bonus is based on staff retention and, like his wife buying his suits, it had gone for a Burton by the end of Q2. Naturally, he accused me of sabotage. But these new bods were supposed to be taking drudgework off me. I wanted them to stick around. In a fit of pique, FD froze the recruitment agency's payments. When their account handler rang to ask us where the money was, I seized the chance to find out why we were losing hirelings faster than Naomi Campbell in a Phones4U. He said there were four kinds of finance people: the M&A type who just loved the deal; the analysis type who loved to be involved in the business – they would use spreadsheets to tell a story, but wouldn't be seen dead building one; the financial accountant, who may well be competent at spreadsheet jockeying but is really turned on by the minutiae of accounting treatments; and, finally, the process type, who really loves getting the spreadsheet just so, and whose idea of a Christmas bonus is a tidily written macro for calculating the drinks bill at the company party. The simplest way to work out what sort of finance guy you are, is to analyse how you spend your time. I looked at my most recent time sheet. The bulk of my days were spent helping with the month-end and producing the well-worn, but necessary, reports. There was also a chunk of time that could only be described as "analytical work" where the thrill came from working with a business unit to ensure the successful launch of an exciting new consumer product ("Aspirin Beer – the hangover that cures itself!").

Look at it another way: the month-end work is a marathon, while the project stuff is more like a sprint, with everyone racing to the finishing line and falling over exhausted until they gear up for the next project. Ah... Obviously, thanks to their over-hyped ad, we'd been attracting people who were only interested in the sprint. We definitely needed to rewrite the copy to ensure we got some marathon runners. Mind you, I was pretty pleased with myself. I'm clearly able to mix my distances. "Which must make me the Daley Thompson of the finance function," I told him, beaming. At which the recruitment guy said I must be much older than I looked and asked why wasn't I an FD yet? Patience, dear boy, patience...