An homage to the humble business card

“New card. Whatd’ya think?”

Investment banker Patrick Bateman snaps open his silver holder and slides his credentials over the table. Complimented on the colouring, he informs his peers that its called Bone, and the lettering is something called Scilian Rail.

Bateman’s colleague counters with his own credentials. Eggshell. Wood Vermalian. Nice. But we ain’t seen nothing yet.

The next banker steps up to the plate. Raised lettering. Pale nimbus. White. Impressive, is the word that leaves Bateman’s mouth. But his internal monologue says something completely different.

When he sees a final card, with subtle off-white colouring, tastefully thick, watermarked, he starts to sweat, fearing he has plummeted straight to the bottom of the social ladder.

Thus begins an iconic scene from the 2000 film American Psycho. Bateman is a fictional character, even if Christian Bale’s portrayal does make him feel like an incredibly real - albeit slightly exaggerated - depiction of a typical M&A bro.

His obsession with his place in the corporate hierarchy, however, and what his business card says about that place, must feel pretty relatable to most of us in and around the City.

I still remember my first business card. Beige, like a care home wall. Limp and listless, it reeked of budgets cuts. Imagine a zero on the glossy scale, then shave a few points off. I had no reason to smell it, but I image that, had I done so, it would have given off a distinctly musty odour.

I remember looking at my friends’ cards who had gone into banking or law. They weren’t so much business cards as monuments to their superiority complex, paper extensions of their fragile egos. If an inanimate object could look down on another, they would have looked at mine like common street trash, somehow already my card’s line manager despite both’s lack of sentience.

The best thing about having loads of money is telling people it’s not important. Or pretending you aren’t a big shot by relegating your fancy title to tiny letters at the foot of your business card.

Vice president, managing director, partner, these all certainly sound impressive, even when you have to explain to non-finance nerds that vice presidents at banks are significantly more populous than actual vice presidents, and only outnumbered in Manhattan office blocks by rodents.

There has been some weighty commentary during the pandemic that the new world of work renders the humble business card bearing such monikers obsolete. That business cards were already being made redundant by the rise of online networking. Respectfully, I disagree. And, if I’m wrong, I will miss what the humble business card says about one’s personality, and attempting to read deeply into those I pick up like they’re tarot cards.

My first card read ‘reporter’, and that mattered a lot to me at the time. It still does, now it reads editor. That’s not a humble brag; my card does that for me already.

My girlfriend gave me a lovely cardholder for my birthday a few years ago. But I’m scared to use it, lest I appear ostentatious, or turn into some financial journalist version of Bateman’s caricatured banking bore.

I think I run that risk, because I believe how your card looks says a lot about your personality, since what ends up on it is a series of active choices.

Sure, each company will have a template. But when you get emailed by reception asking what phone number you want to give, do you give your personal one - so you’re always reachable - or your newly-issued work mobile - which you will almost certainly forget?

What exact phrasing of your job title do you go for? Do you stick a social media account or two on there?

The City loves letters after its name: CFA, CFP, IMC. What better place, within the space of three characters, to illustrate the depth of your qualifications than on a business card? Or are you the kind of person who thinks such designations are meaningless, and your work does all the talking?

How you present your card also matters. Do you whip it out of a shiny case, Bateman-esque? Is that case engraved, sentimental, a talking point? Do you brandish it only when you’re asked? Or do you walk in all cards blazing, palming it off on unsuspecting contacts before the handshakes are even up?

Do you sneak a unique, quirky, flourish on there, or follow the herd? Plenty seem to try and mark theirs out somehow - I recently received one in a deck of cards - but surely every permutation of frivolity has now been cycled through?

The homogeneity reminds me of the scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, where Brian, mistaken for the messiah, tells his legions of followers: “You don’t need to follow me, you don’t need to follow anybody! You’ve got to think for yourselves! You’re all individuals! You’re all different!

And, as one, the crowd chants back: “Yes! We’re all individuals! Yes! We are all different.”

I could quote you lots of statistics about how surprisingly effective physical cards are. Instead, I’ll just say that, as a humble journalist, I spend significantly more time flicking through my stack than you might imagine.

I hope it stays that way. And that I get a nicer card in future. But not too nice, you understand.