Last night I was at my local Bank of America (I am currently located in the United States at the moment) and I used for the first time the “image recognition” technology for checks. Basically, you don’t have to put an envelope with your checks into the ATM anymore. You just deposit the checks one at a time and the ATM recognizes the amount of the check and prints you a confirmation of your deposit. You don’t have to add anything up anymore.

I must say I was pretty impressed with the accuracy of the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for each check. Did it save me time? I am not sure, but that may have been because I was standing in front of the ATM looking for the stupid envelopes before I finally read the “No Envelopes Required” sign on the ATM. I bet the video footage of me wandering around the machine, looking everywhere for an envelope and then finally trying to figure it all out must be a funny video. I wonder if I will end up on YouTube.

I have been talking to a lot of friends over the past month, and slowly one by one they have started to become redundant. I am not sure how far this trend is going, but it appears that London (which I had always thought was financially stable) has even been hit at record levels. The good news is most people are getting generous severance packages, so that is the one good thing about this.

Another interesting point is that as someone said, “This is a great opportunity to leave Investment Banking (IB) and do some traveling” or try something new. My thoughts go out to all my friends, and I am sure things will work themselves out. In the interim, I am just going to duck down further, work harder, and try to keep off the redundancy radar.

Work has, as all things, taken over my life. I am finding myself having less and less time to do personal things. For example, when I get home from work I am looking for a new Apartment (Flat for you UK types) for April. I have been renting a colleagues condo in San Diego while she was on a project, but her project now ends and she returns at the end of the month. This means I have to start to look for new housing soon.

And then there are taxes, which I need to start preparing as well. Let’s just say March is going to be a busy month.

My plans to return to London at the end of the month have been put on hold until April. *sigh*