The zest for New Year self-improvement seems to make everyone a lot more aggressive in January.

I'll tell you what I hate about January. Well, apart from the filthy weather. And detox. And putting the wrong date on things. And the prevailing air of gloom. OK, so I hate lots of things about January. But the worst one, as far as I'm concerned, is self-improvement.

I've no idea if this is actually true, but I'd be willing to bet a substantial chunk of equity in the business (since I have no other real assets) that 87.5% of New Year's resolutions are to do with people deciding they don't get paid enough. Sometimes this will result in them looking for a new job, in which case it's only a pain if they get one (otherwise it can be a useful reality check). But far worse is when they come back after Christmas determined to get a pay rise. It happens every single year without fail, and it's always really annoying.

At the start of this week, for instance, I got an email from a guy who works for me on the delivery side. He's been with me for a couple of years now, and I think he's great – just quietly and efficiently gets on with his job, the type of employee managers love. It read: "Dear ___, I’ve become concerned that my current position and salary is not properly consonant with my contribution to the company. Can we please discuss this at the earliest opportunity as I am no longer confident that you see me as having a successful future in this business as opposed to elsewhere". Happy Monday morning to you too.

Now you have to understand that this guy genuinely would not say boo to a goose. He also sits about five yards away from me, and had previously given no indication of this burning ball of rage that was building up inside of him. So to say I was taken aback is putting it mildly. However, I also happen to know (from painful office socials) that this guy has the world’s pushiest girlfriend. She works as some kind of ball-breaking corporate lawyer in the City, and clearly keeps her immaculate Louboutin heels pressed to his throat at all times. This email had her clawmarks all over it; I could well imagine the poor guy getting a constant earful from her throughout the Christmas holiday.

Anyway, so I got this guy into a meeting room for a chat. I’ve had some excruciating chats in my time, but this was definitely up there – the poor guy was obviously horrifically embarrassed about the whole thing, and terrified about the consequences of not getting his message across. Since I’m not easily embarrassed, particularly about this sort of thing, this put me at an immediate advantage in the negotiation (which of course is what this was).

Now it has to be said that people like him do sometimes get a rough deal on pay. The pushy ones who never stop banging about their salary often do end up progressing faster up the scale, however hard you try to avoid it happening. On the other hand, I love people like him who don’t make my life difficult or spend half their time complaining. Which means that when I come to assess his pay, I’m much more inclined to give him what he’s actually worth, as opposed to what I can get away with.

I guess the ideal is somewhere in between.– you have a good idea what you’re worth, and you can argue for it cogently, but you don’t do it constantly and you don’t waste loads of my time on it. In other words, there’s a certain way of going about this. And as far as I’m concerned, that doesn’t mean abrupt emails with aggressive language and thinly-veiled ultimatums (plus I had to Google what ‘consonant’ meant). So I told him that, in no uncertain terms. ‘If you have aspirations of being a senior figure within the business,’ I told him primly, ‘I’d expect more of a mature and consultative approach to this process’. He looked suitably cowed. And since he also got a (very slight) pay rise, hopefully it’ll get the girlfriend off his back for a while too.

Still, it wasn’t much fun. And my overriding feeling afterwards was that getting someone in to take care of (at least some of) this stuff for me would make life a lot more pleasant.