Ground Floor:In literary circles, one of the greatest insults that the elite like to throw is that you are "writing for money", writes  Sheila O'Flanagan.

It's as though by taking payment for what you're doing you are in some way demeaning yourself. When you write, you should write for the pleasure it brings, not for the rewards. Leaving aside that the pleasure is usually someone else's (at least you hope they enjoy the fruits of your labour - writing is usually quite a painful process for the writer!), most writers like to earn money from their efforts.

In fact Samuel Johnson, no slouch himself in the literary department, once said that "no man except for a blockhead ever wrote except for money". Johnson himself was paid £1,575 for his famous dictionary back in the 18th century (about the same amount as my first literary pay cheque 250 years later).

While nobody wants their life and work to be valued solely on the amount of money that they've earned, financial reward is still the most commonly used method of assessing success. Do a great job in bringing up a well-adjusted family and nobody notices. Earn an eye-popping salary and even if your family is a dysfunctional wreck, you're going to be envied.

We don't always understand happiness, but we sure as hell understand financial rewards. And nowhere understands massive rewards better than the financial services sector.

Barclays Bank - currently in merger talks with ABN Amro - announced this week it paid Bob Diamond, president and head of investment banking, a package worth a more than £27 million for 2006. This eye-watering amount is made up of a basic salary of £250,000 but includes a bonus of £10.4 million, shares worth £4.5 million, additional benefits of £17,000, a profit from the executive option plan of £5.7 million plus a further share allocation currently worth £7 million (although those can't be accessed for another three years).

If Diamond continues to do the business for Barclays, he's also in line for an additional performance-related allocation of shares currently worth £21 million (€31 million). He might receive a further £14.8 million "retention" bonus this year.

According to Barclays, Bob's package "reflects general practice in the investment banking and investment management industry". The annual report also reminds Barclays shareholders that their executive directors can expect outstanding rewards if their performance is outstanding. I suppose if Diamond manages to close the ABN Amro deal, then they'll agree that this year's performance has been outstanding. He has already said that the bank is in a "strong position" in relation to the deal. Somewhat unsurprisingly, the financial workers' union, Amicus, is less enthusiastic about Diamond's value to the bank.

It is wondering if the blistering package is worth it despite the fact that the investment banking arm of the company was responsible for 44 per cent of the bank's 2006 record profits of £7.1 billion. When you put his pay reward in context with profitability, perhaps it's not excessive.

At the same time, handing the boss more money than the average employee can expect to earn in a lifetime (or in a number of lifetimes) has an obscene ring to it. The money could as easily be re-invested, handed out in higher dividends to shareholders or in greater rewards to the bank's 113,300 employees. An extra £1,000 to all of them hardly makes a dent in the profitability, yet somehow I can't help feeling that most of the employees will be getting the usual lecture on productivity and the need to work harder for the year ahead.

The US, of course, is the home of phenomenal executive pay awards for "outstanding performance". While a few of those awards have been clawed back in recent years, there has been a move against the additional perks that many executives feel are their due. Companies are beginning to call time on country club fees, personal travel by corporate jet and other perks that don't cost very much but which really annoy shareholders.

Part of this is due to the fact that new regulatory rules mean companies have to disclose information on perks costing more than $10,000 (€7,500). In many cases, while companies have cut the perks, they've increased salaries to compensate.

Lockheed, for example, increased the annual salary for its chief executive, Bob Stevens, by $400,000 when it stopped paying for personal benefits.

Other companies grant top executives a "perks allowance".

Last year, the average US chief executive's salary was 170 times the average worker's pay. If he or she headed up a company with at least $1 billion annual revenue, the average salary was $10,982,000 - 262 times what the worker made. Generally, chief executives earned more in a day than the average worker made in a year.

There's a school of thought that says full disclosure of chief executives' salaries and benefits is actually making things worse. Sitting at their rosewood desks in the corner offices and looking at the packages that their peers receive, they are continually thinking that they're worth more, not less.

Donald Tyson, the now retired former chairman of Tyson Foods and worth an estimated $1 billion according to Forbes, once received $84,000 to cover lawn maintenance at his five estates.

Action was taken against Tyson Foods and Tyson himself by the Securities and Exchange Commission in April 2005 for misleading disclosure of personal benefits, and the company was charged with failing to maintain adequate internal controls over Tyson's personal use of company assets.

I bet Dr Johnson would have a lot to say about being a chief executive - but he'd make sure he was paid well for it.

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