Convertible Notes

A Stark Realization

2006-10-26T16:48:00.000-07:00

I’m well aware that I need to post. Even my associates from across the pond have noted that I haven’t posted in awhile, and they’re usually too busy planning when to use their 9 months of a vacation a year to notice. So, dear reader, here marks the triumphant return of Convertible Notes.

Let’s recap what has happened in the past 2 months that merited mention:

1) New analyst class came in – always cause for hilarity (“what’s TTM stand for?” “good question, you should blast email the firm, I’m sure someone out there knows…and make sure to include VPs and above on the email too”);

2) New associates in the group – always interesting, especially from a 3rd year’s perspective;

3) Work has sucked – no summer downtime here;

4) This and this; and

5) I took a vacation – though this was decidedly “unbanking” of me to do, I mention it only because I became intimately familiar with my company’s VPN system.

Now there, off the top of my head are five (5) stellar subjects with which to fill many posts. Of course, I got busy (and lazy) and didn’t really know what angle to take when trying to write them. It’s easy enough to lambaste the 1st years, but that gets tricky because I know one of them reads this. Plus, it’s the dumb one, so if I make fun of him, he’ll know. Not good.

So what am I going to talk about today? Not really too sure. Well, since we’ve been apart for awhile, maybe I should update you all on my outlook on banking; it has changed since, well, most relevantly, bonuses were paid out.

Banking is tedious. The most underrated incentive to stay in banking is the promotion track. Most people talk about bonuses as if those are the end-all-be-all of banking incentives, and they are, but the idea that in two years you’ll be promoted to a position that doesn’t have to spread comps is crucial. The monotony of banking is lost on new Analysts; everything is new and crucial and it takes maybe a year and a half before you realize that the actual work you’re doing sucks. New types of projects or new challenges are just as crucial factors as obscene bonuses to get me to stay in banking. Of course, when the flow of these new assignments dwindles, I naturally become ornery. Which led me to this calculation:

Assuming bonuses stay static from this year to next and that I quit this job now, 4 months after the performance cycle ended, I would be losing (4/12 x $100,000 = ) $33,333. That’s right, to leave banking now would mean I most likely forfeit $33,333. Discount appropriately (25%) and that’s worth $26,666 right now. That’s the price of a car! Or the down payment on a really nice car!

And I realized, more than anything, I’m full of shit. It’s the bonuses that keep me here. New assignments are great to break the day to day rigor, but they aren’t enough. The new challenges make me like my job, but I don’t love it. And so, to answer the question of why someone would stay at a job they don’t love…well, it’s the money.

The Printers

2006-07-28T13:22:00.000-07:00

I’m at the Financial Printers today. I find it hard to explain to people who haven’t had the pleasure of attending these sessions what actually happens here. In a nutshell, before a company files most major public documents, they spend 2-3 days at the Printer offices, tweaking, editing and rewriting their drafts so that they are (from Management’s perspective) consistent with the Company’s objectives, (from the banks’ perspective) filled with enough marketing points that the deal is sellable to investors (if there is a deal associated with the filing), and (from the lawyer’s perspective) free of liability.

Of course the question should be asked, why do you need to attend sessions at a professional word processor, especially when said word processor changes hundreds of thousands of dollars over the 3 days to host you? Can’t you just word process yourself? Well, I don’t have a great answer to this question, suffice to say that long ago someone decided that this was the best way to file documents, probably only because it forced everyone to be in locked in a room till the job got done.

Anyway, Printer sessions are largely a waste of time unless you’re the Company’s counsel, Company management or the lead banker on the lead bank. I am not any of these. So, largely for my edification, here is a summary of my activity at the Printers today:

7:40AM – Traffic wasn’t bad, so I get in 20 min early and grab a corner table spot (near the door). Grab coffee, OJ, smoked salmon and lox for breakfast.

7:50AM – Signed on VPN, answered some emails, checked Fantasy stats, set Fantasy roster, read CNN.com [Note to Lou Dobbs: stating the obvious hardly merits mention in a major news source; next time please offer us something with a real conclusion (I’m pretty sure this article would have earned me an C in any PoliSci or IR class I took in college, and that’s only because I went to one of those fancy schools that inflated grades)].

8:20AM – Per the usual, we get started 20 min late.

8:35AM – Make my first value add attempt (VAA) of the day: “please add comma to third line of paragraph one, after third word.” The change is accepted. Score one for me.

8:50AM – Second VAA of the day: “can we add a modifying clause to this sentence?” Suggestion is struck down; I tried to fly too high. Better stick to comma changes.

9:20AM – Feel remorse for picking on Lou Dobbs earlier. I’m a firm believer that, when giving others a hard time, you should not go for low-hanging fruit, and that’s just what I did. Sorry, Lou. Yes, I’m aware that there was an implicit insult there.

9:45AM – HA! Another successfully converted VAA with a comma change. I even got a “good change” from the lawyer. I think he meant it the same way you say “good catch” to a dog after it catches the frisbee for the 15th time of the day.

10:00AM – It’s been 1.5 hours and we just got done reviewing page 4. Awesome

11:00AM – It’s been 2.5 hours and we just finished page 9. By the way, this is a 150 page document. If we assume we keep this recent rate of 5 pages per hour, we will finish reviewing this document 28 hours. Working around the clock, we’d finish tomorrow at 3PM. This is also under ideal conditions.

11:25AM – Getting a little bored. Here are some stats for the participants of this Printers session (n=16)
 Blue shirts: 44%
 Males: 69%
 Rolex’s: 25%
 Comb-overs: 13%
 Blondes: 0%
 Polo shirts: 19% (Company Management, duh)

12:00PM – Just got this link from a friend. Awesome, that killed 2 minutes. You know, I’ve yet to meet a girl who fawns over the fact that I work in banking. This is a good thing; I'm not about the gold diggers.

12:30PM – Boss got here…can’t really post too much.

Fuck, ok, it’s now 9AM on Day 2 of the Printer sessions. I stopped writing because, well, I read this and got a little freaked. Then, around 3AM last night when I had a little down time, I thought about it some more and realized that this person is a complete dumbass. Jeeze, she even posted a picture of herself on the blog. It should come as no surprise that she worked for an accounting firm.

***

Anyway, truth be told, reader, this is where the post breaks down. As I sit in my cubical, now a couple days later, I’m not really sure what happened those last few days at the Printer. Like much of banking, as the hours dragged on and as bankers and lawyers alike fell into a caffeine / word-processing induced haze, memory became indistinguishable from delirium and for the life of me, I can’t tell you what happened in the intervening hours.

All I know is that, like some alien abductee recounting trauma years later, I am only now remembering that I had 72 hours of my life stripped away from me.

Briefing Advice

2006-07-16T14:07:00.000-07:00

I can’t stress this enough: always be briefed on the meetings you attend. Always. It’s honestly the difference between looking like a moderately “with-it” person and a complete and utter dumbass. To clarify, looking like a complete and utter dumbass is not a good thing when representing your firm. It’s also not a good thing in general.

Even the smallest tidbit of information is important. It’s the difference, say, between knowing that you’re talking to the CEO and making insipid small-talk with someone, only to realize 5 minutes later when he hands you his business card that he is, in fact, the CEO. Note to me: just because he wears cowboy boots does not mean he works in sales.

Additional note to me: talking about the weather when trying to hold a conversation with a girl is bad, doing the same with a company executive is even worse. These people take time out their busy days to hold meetings with investment banks in order to hear glorious strategic and financial insights and recommendations – they do no hold meetings with investment banks for any of the following reasons:

1) to talk about their kid’s little league team;
2) to talk about the commute;
3) to talk about their childhood; and

to talk about any of these is a ginormous waste of their time.

In other a related story, I am a complete and utter dumbass.

I May Get Fired

2006-07-11T19:14:00.000-07:00

...not for incompetancy or anything like that. Just because I keep asking my performance manager when the hell I'm going to learn my numbers, and I can only imagine how annoying it is for him, given the fact that I'm getting pretty annoyed asking. There are stories from back in the day of such slip-shod HR work that Analysts and Associates alike only found out how big their bonuses were when they checked their bank account statement at the end of the month. This has the potential to happen to me. In the scheme of things, it doesn't much make a difference whether I find out now or find out after; it won't change how big or small my bonus is this year.

The issue I have is this: why do we have to be nearly the last bank of the Street to report numbers to its minions? Seriously. A little team work would be nice. A little quid pro quo. For example, I finish this Committee Memo, and you tell me my numbers. Does that work?

Training Wheels

2006-07-05T11:56:00.000-07:00

I was at a BBQ yesterday when someone remarked to me that, yeah, so-and-so reads your blog. So-and-so happens to be an Incoming First Year Analyst. I had a moment of panic when I realized he might not be enthused about some of the banking insight he’s read here, but then I learned he’d already started spending his signing bonus, which means we have him locked in until December. Ha.

So, Incoming First Year, this post is for you. Plus, it gives me an excuse to bring up Training – which, as a Second Year, isn’t really a subject I could organically bring up in a blog since I am two years removed from it. To the uninitiated, Training is a 3-4 week period held by banks in their New York offices to impart their vast library of protocols, procedures and company culture upon recently graduated college kids. They will teach you to do comps, how to use various research tools, various company-specific macros and programs and most of all, they will tell why you are working for the best bank on the street.

Here’s the secret: only 5% of the things you learn will actually be useful. And all of that 5% will be reiterated to you over and over again once you actually start working. So please, Incoming First Year, DO NOT take Training as seriously as they tell you to take it. Take all of that alpha-male personality that got you hired in the first place, that need to impress college professors that earned you the inflated private university GPA, and tuck it away until it will actually be useful again. Which is to say, tuck it away until you start work and I start giving you things to do – then take it back out and impress the hell out of me, because I will be reviewing you come next June.

Back to Training – I’m sure you’re asking at this very second, well, if I’m not supposed to take Training seriously, what do I do for 3 weeks? Good question, so here are some tips:

1) Attendance Policy – I was dismayed when I learned our firm had started instituting an attendance policy last year. Complete crap. Listen, they will pretend to have leverage and tell you that your attendance will be reported back to your performance managers, who will then decide how to punish you once you start work. Here’s the catch – you’re performance mangers don’t give a damn. As long as you come to work and show some level of competency, they could care less how much training you attended or how tardy you were. The only reviews that matter for you are the ones next June, and don’t think anybody is going to remember, much less care, how diligent you were during Training.

2) Do Not Get Intimidated – Specifically, do not be intimidated by other Incoming First Years, especially those who majored in accounting. They will nod smugly during Training as the instructor goes over the more arcane and esoteric points of accounting, meanwhile, you will be sitting in your chair wondering how you will ever learn this crap. Listen, you don’t really need to know it. Again, of all the Accounting Principles out there, only 5% will be directly applicable to your work, and another 2% may crop up on occasion, but you can always look those up in text books when you need to.

3) Take Advantage of the Free Stuff – Well, you wanted to live the life of a banker, now’s your one chance to do it without putting up with the work load. There are more free meals during the 3 weeks than actual meal times. There are dinners held at restaurants that you would only take your girlfriend to on yearly anniversaries. And every function has an open bar. Do not pass this up. Do NOT drink yourself into oblivion, mind you (or even to the point where you think hitting on a co-worker is advisable), but at the same time, don’t shy away from the freebies. Embrace the freebies.

I think those are the salient points here. Bare in mind, I’m giving this advice within the context of knowing Incoming First Years are not complete morons, and can show some level of self-restraint and common sense. Within that context, have fun during Training.

Attn: Recruits Re: MySpace

2006-06-26T17:11:00.000-07:00

Some unexpected departures and increased workloads have led my firm to attempt a mini-recruiting drive to fill some needed analyst spots (though, before I continue, I should mention that this point will not be a solicitation to apply for a job; if anyone is addled enough to apply for the Analyst position through this blog, well, I don’t want to work with you). Anyway, this whole recruiting effort is great; it teaches accountability. For example, IF you apply for a job at a firm, you should be held accountable for anything and everything you post on your facebook.com, myspace.com, friendster.com or match.com profiles. Trust me, we check these things.

I don’t believe that this is online stalking per se – it’s more along the lines of performing proper due diligence on a candidate before accepting them into our ranks. As great as the interview process is (and trust me, asking questions like “how many ping pong balls fit into a 747?” and “you have two candles, one will burn in 45 min, the other in 15 min, etc…” are excellent at weeding out the brilliant from the simply autistic), it is still lacking in some regards. There is no way to quantitatively tell during a 6-hour Super Day exactly what the breaking point of a candidate will be. Will he break down after 37 consecutive hours at work? 39 hours? 42 hours? Moreover, how can you “manage” the candidate to push back that break down number? See, these are things we really need to know, and looking at profiles on the internet does more than just satisfy some latent voyeuristic need, it provides us with useful information.

Here are some common things we notice on profiles…

1) The guy flexing. While this probably indicates some deeply buried insecurity, it also goes hand-in-hand with the need to prove oneself. Anyone who will be driven by the need to look over at the Analyst next to them and talk shit about how their LBO model could run circles around the other’s will be a hard worker. Then again, I hate people like this, so they won’t be hired.

2) Party pictures. I actually think these are OK. There is nothing wrong with partying or blowing off steam. Hell, it’s even necessary at times in banking. Plus, I want to work with people who can have a good time.

3) Type Formatting. I can’t stand aLtErNaTiNg tYpE cAsE or instant messaging syntax (e.g., LOL, ur, wit, etc…). The former suggests a lack of understanding of appropriate formatting and will result in shoddy work (the last thing I want to do is review a first-year’s model, only to find that I have to sift through pages of inconsistent formulas, mislabeled categories, misused caps lock and improperly sized cell widths), while the latter suggests laziness (if you can’t type out the whole word, you’re not going to handle working more than an 8 hour a day).

4) Relationship status. While we don’t discriminate on this per se, having a significant other naturally detracts from the amount of time one wants to spend in the office. On the other hand, having a significant other is a drain on cash flow, so these people will be incentivized to get that big bonus at year end. It’s a wash here.

You also have to be careful what you write in your profiles. There was a candidate a couple years back that listed the following things under his “Favorites”: (i) dream care: E55 AMG and (ii) favorite drink: Patron silver, chilled. Well, (i) tells me that he has low standards (it’s like saying your dream girl is Tiffany Amber Thiessen…I mean, it’s not a bad choice, but out of all the girls in the world, that’s the pick? Really?) and (ii) tells me that he can’t handle his liquor (you need silver tequila chilled? Maybe you should slow down and stick to drinks with umbrellas in them, big guy).

Anyway, these aren’t huge issues in the scheme of things; if a candidate rocks, then we won’t be dissuaded by his listing of Kelly Clarkson under the music that he listens to (or, to be fair, if it’s a girl, we won’t be dissuaded by Linkin’ Park appearing in her profile). Ultimately, these things just provide Analysts with something fun to laugh at during recruiting season.

I've Got (Some) Soul

2006-06-15T12:11:00.000-07:00

A couple things have been brought to my attention over the last couple days:

1) I don’t really post on music anymore. The reason for this is pretty much that I have no real insights that I find interesting enough to fill an entire blog entry. So let me just sum up some musical thoughts very quickly: (i) Silversun Pickups have their debut album coming out on July 25th – I have not been more excited about an album since the Pumpkins followed up MCIS with Adore; (ii) venues that I enjoy hearing music at (in order): Café Du Nord, Bimbo’s and the Fillmore, venues that I do not enjoy hearing music at (in order): Shoreline, Bill Graham Civic and Bottom of the Hill; and (iii) I think it’s OK that Steve Perry used vocal tracks during live shows - I’d much rather have my Rock n’ Roll gods stay Rock n’ Roll gods and not be reminded of their mortality.

2) My readership has grown by 1 or 2. Including people with whom I may work. I may have to be more discrete. May.

3) Smallchou’s scathing response to my It’s That Time of Year Again post, in which he refers to the “utter soul-lessness of investment banking.” I don’t really know how to respond to this extremely ill-informed and utterly short-sighted opinion. Look, if wads of cash, heaps of material goods and a penchant for unnecessary accoutrements can’t procure you a soul, then I don’t know anything anymore. Ultimately, I trust myself and my 13 years of parochial school to know that I do, in fact, have a soul and that material possessions and a latent-resentment of my profession do not relieve me of that essential essence. True, there was a moment there where I felt lost and dissatisfied, but I am happy to report that I now have my feet firmly planted on the ground (albeit with a soft-layer of Italian-formed calf-skin between my feet and said ground).

In seriousness though, aside from the long-hours and tendency towards the money-makes-it-worthwhile-ness of banking, and ignoring the fact that the powers that be are drumming up business because that’s what fills their pocket books (look, gas is getting expensive and M5’s get mileage in the low 8’s, so I don’t begrudge them this), the fact is that banks provide a needed service to companies looking to survive and grow. We facilitate or sometimes provide financings to small companies so they can commercialize product, we organize mergers or acquisitions between companies so that they can realize operating and development synergies and pass the benefits onto the consumer and we underwrite financings for larger companies so they can grow.

I don’t intend to present the “ends justifies the means” argument to support the premise of banking (admittedly, we are too far removed from the ends to justify our means), but I still feel it is salient to point out that what we do is not solely about making the rich richer. Moreover, I don’t really accept the premise that you can adequately argue whether a corporation has a “soul,” it kinda sounds like hippie-talk to me, and that’s something I can do without.

Furthermore, seeing as Smallchou’s comments stem from a trip to Napa Valley and the passionate viticulturalists there who love their job, I feel it incumbent upon me to mention that this was Napa Valley and there is virtually no old-school, stomp-the-grapes-in-the-barrel wine done there anymore. The people you talk to while wine-tasting are salesmen who are more driven to close a sale than they are to have a good bottle of wine come out of their cellars. Not that this is relevant or anything, I’m just regurgitating something a girl said to me once.

Sometimes banking is surreal, other times it's just your mom

2006-06-12T09:00:00.000-07:00

I had this conversation with Convertible Notes Mom yesterday:

Me: "Hey Mom."
Convertible Notes Mom: "Did you call last Thursday?"
M: "No, why?"
CNM: "Oh, well someone called."
M: "Really? Saying they were me?"
CNM: "No."
M: "So...someone called last Thursday?"
CNM: "Yes, the called and said, 'Hi mom,' so I said 'Hi, Honey.'"
M: "Oh, that definitely wasn't me."
CNM: "And then they said, "Mom, you sound different," so I said, 'Do I sound sexier?'"
M:
CNM: "Did you call last Thursday?"
M: "No."

The Pantry

2006-06-06T00:59:00.000-07:00

From what I can tell, my firm has a fairly well stocked pantry. Apparently not all firms give their employees generous free-bees like soda, candy, chips, etc... And what’s more surprising is that not all offices within my firm have the same level of accoutrements found in my office; I was working in the City office the other week and couldn’t find a single Red Bull in the entire storage area. What the hell?

Most of the stuff we have is snack food – heavy in carbs and probably shouldn’t be consumed on a regular basis. Someone ordered a box of individually wrapped candies the other month, with each wrapper containing a special promotional code. If you collected the right promotional codes, you could win a free car or something. So one of the admins in the office opened each wrapper, took the promotional codes and left the now free-floating candies in the box. If she wins the car, I hope she forgets to pay the tax and winds up in debt to the IRS.

I bring up the Pantry in this post because of one of the most ridiculous firm policies that we have: the Pantry is locked at 6PM every day. It’s 12:50AM right now and I want Red Bull, Chex Mix and 3 bottles of fucking water and I can’t get them because the Pantry is closed. This policy has lead to Analysts hoarding the most coveted foodstuffs (usually Red Bulls, but occasionally Cliff Bars or other limited quantity items) in their desks as soon as the storage area is replenished every two weeks. As a result, most of these items are gone from the Pantry the day after they are delivered.

Luckily the fellow sitting in the cube next me to is one of those industrious souls who packed away a Red Bull in his desk drawer. Hopefully he won’t miss it.

Corp Law

2006-06-02T18:10:00.000-07:00

Pseudostoops just started her first week as a Summer Associate at some undoubtedly prestigious corp law firm in NYC. I can’t wait to hear how her summer goes. As a banker, I’ve interacted with lawyers a fair deal. Actually, I think it’s safe to say that I’ve interacted with lawyers far more than with bankers at other firms. Hm…go figure. This is probably due the underlying distaste banks have for other banks, or at least all other banks shittier than one’s own bank. And to be quite honest, while I don’t work at bulge, bulge, bulge or bulge, there are plenty of shittier banks than my own.

I digress.

I’m excited to read Pseudostoops’ take on the whole corp law gig. Corp law lawyers intrigue me. I’ve yet to find another profession where well educated individuals are paid six-figure salaries to do fairly simple tasks. Well, other than banking. But I feel that I may be wrong here – I have to imagine law is hard to do. That’s why lawyers start out their working career with so much school loan debt, right? I mean, it’s hard shit, so that’s why you have to go to school for three years and pass the hard-ass bar exam. I have a friend studying for the bar, and trust me, you do not want to be her right now. Unless you too are also studying for the bar, then I imagine it’s all a wash.

Anyway, here’s what intrigues me: why do corp law to begin with? I understand that it’s tremendously lucrative, but money can’t be the only reason why one would choose it. First year associates make, let’s say, $150 their first year. They’re going to work long hours, get berated and lose their hair. Why not just work in banking? It’s a similar lifestyle, plus you’re not $120K in the hole from school loans. And if you want to get technical, considering the time value of money, that $150K you receive in 3 years is less than the $120K you receive this year if you skip the law school deal.

So if it really isn’t the money, does that mean corp law is interesting? This is what I want to find out.

Or maybe it’s a far more practical reason, one that I’ve heard many times from various cynicalaw students (I feel like that should be coined as a new term): you go to law school planning on doing public policy law or urban development law or helping-those-less-fortunate-than-you law and then realize at some point after the 2nd year: FUCK, I have a lot of debt. How can I leverage my law degree into a lucrative career? And corp law all of a sudden seems like a great idea.

Or do people get sucked into the corp law gigs because of pride and prestige issues? If you’ve always been a top-performer and all of a sudden you see the other top-performers at you school getting corp law gigs, doesn’t some part of you say, Hey – to stay competitive, I probably should try to get a corp law job. I feel like this is the same reason consulting companies get the cream of the crop liberal arts kids. Look, consulting isn’t hard and it doesn’t pay all that well and I’m not if you could ever find arranging boxes in power point to be satisfying, but for some reason every year college seniors are shitting their pants to get an interview with Bain, BCG or McKinsey. Don’t get me wrong, banking doesn’t require hot-shot economists or anything like that, but at least we pay our poor souls a reasonable check to drive recruitment.

Again, I digress.

I don’t mean to say Pseudostoops is doing corp law for any of the reasons listed above. In fact, I really doubt it; she’s much smarter and down-to-earthier than I am. I’m also a little scared of her, so I don’t want to say anything that pisses her off. Honestly, I figure that since her observation, writing and humor skills are unparalleled, I can learn a thing or two from her about corp law.

It's that time of the year again

2006-06-02T13:23:00.000-07:00

It’s getting to be that time of year in banking. The time of year when downtrodden kids with nary a ray of sunlight for 12 consecutive months receive that portion of their compensation that incentivizes them to put up with being harassed, harangued, heckled and (for the sake of alliteration) horse-fucked just so the MD can get their damn pitch books on time.

It’s a universal truth that May and June are the slowest months in banking. Analysts begin to see the light at the end of tunnel and names like Ferragamo, Abboud, Pink, Zanella, Zegna and Terra, the really hot stripper at Scores, start to fill their heads. And, of course, there are those one or two Analysts who don’t give a german-engineered-damn about their 401(k) and will buy a Cayman (not a Cayman S, mind you, just a Cayman, because, hey, what’s the point when it’s underpowered anyway). Analysts start to dream big about how they will spend their hard-earned cash and the days slow to a crawl.

Here’s how it starts. In the beginning of May, the staffer lays out the timeline, which usually looks something like this:

May 5 – Provide the names of projects to which you were assigned
May 19 – Reviews are due from Senior Bankers and Associates
June 2 – Roundtable discussion
June 9 – Performance Managers give reviews to Analysts
June 30 – Bonuses paid

Analysts read this differently:

May 5 – Provide the list of projects on which you were staffed with the Associate and VP least likely to give you a bad review
May 19 –Pray that said Associate and VP are in a good mood today
June 2 – Fate decided
June 9 – Fate conferred
June 30 – Dinner at Nobu/Aqua/Koi, dessert at whichever strip club is the consensus that night

Each interminable day that passes brings each of us closer to a financial windfall. We say things like, “Fuck man, 29 more days and I’m out of this shit-hole,” or “Once I get that money in my account, I don’t give a shit anymore, this next year I’m outta here.” We reason that once we get our money, we’ve been made whole for the hair we’ve lost in the past year and there is no longer any incentive for us to stay. There are always some banks looking to hire seasoned meat at this point in the year, so if we don’t like the lay of the land after we get our bonus, we’ll just leave for greener pasture. There is no sense of, Well, I’ve worked my ass off for 3 months for a hourly rate that would make a school teacher laugh, so I might as well stick it out for the next 9 months to make it worthwhile.

That’s what we say. We talk big and dream big and look to the day we can stick it to the Firm for robbing us of girlfriends, lives, dreams, sunny days, day games and passions and replacing them with this incessant need to remind everyone not in banking that Hey, you, YOU are NOT in banking, because if you were, you wouldn’t look so fucking happy right now, you poor, ignorant douche-bag.

And then July passes quietly, August swings through with no more than a murmur and before we know it, Q3 ends and we think, well, I’ve worked my ass off for 3 months for a hourly rate that would make a school teacher laugh, so I might as well stick it out for the next 9 months to make it worthwhile.

Shatner

2006-06-02T12:06:00.000-07:00

The thing that gets me about this video is how great the Family Guy interpretation of it is, especially when Stewie/Shatner starts to loosen up towards the end.

Allowance, it's not just for the kids anymore

2006-05-17T13:26:00.000-07:00

So, I know, I haven’t posted in over a month. I apologize. Deprived reader, I really do apologize. But let’s put these differences past us and get on the post, shall we? Needless to say my absence is directly correlated to a spike in work hours, so let’s talk about something that suffices to brighten my workday: the meal allowance.

It is standard, at least for any bank that actually wants to keep its workforce, for employees to receive a $30 allowance each night for dinner. Technically, this allowance is contingent on the following stipulations: 1) The meal is ordered after 7PM (ensuring that only true “team players” partake); 2) it is ordered to-go; 3) it is consumed in the office. Pretty straightforward, right? Pretty sweet, right?

Well, Analysts don’t think so. I’m sure most people, given a solid base in reality, would be perfectly happy following the rules and taking the free food. After all, $30 a night, assuming 260 work days a years, is an extra $7,800 in your bank account. Let’s say you work half your weekends, and spend $30 on dinner and $10 on lunch, now that’s $9,880 in your account. Now, it’s unfair to say that it effectively bumps your salary up $10K (unless you were going to spend $30 a night on food anyway…), but still, it’s no chump change.

So what, exactly, are the gripes that Analysts have with this system? Here they are: 1) If you spend more than 50% of your time in the office, and can get out and spend 45 minutes at dinner, you’re going to do that; getting food to-go and eating in your cube every night fucking sucks; 2) after 6 months, the restaurants in the area start to suck (remember in college when we swore the chef at 592 Mayfield was the end-all-be-all of college cuisine, and then got sick of it 4 months later?); and 3) Analysts are generally disgruntled and we tend complain about things for the hell of it.

Moreover, the system is complicated by the presence of loopholes: 1) We can use this dinner allowance however we choose, including purchasing items from grocery stores; and 2) We don’t need to provide itemized receipts to show what we’ve purchased at restaurants (unfortunately we have to do this at grocery stores).

So when you combine these loopholes with the general latent frustrations of Analysts, it becomes a game of what you can slip through the system and get reimbursed by your company. Alcohol at dinner? That’s easy. Borrowing someone else’s expense code if you exceed $30? Standard. Grocery shopping to stock up the home fridge? Well, that’s potentially creative, but it depends on what you purchase; snack foods, soda and other ready consumables are no big deal; produce, poultry, meat and seafood are bit more creative but still easy to get reimbursed; toilet paper, hair gel and toothpaste – now we’re talking!

But the dinner allowance goes beyond dinner. For example, let’s say you turn in a receipt that has a time stamp for Saturday at 12:20AM for a place called Suite 181. Now, who’s to say Suite 181 isn’t the restaurant you went to after working your ass off all Friday night? Who’s to say that Suite 181 is a club? If you don’t turn in a receipt that itemizes the 6 red bull vodkas you bought, who’s to know that you didn’t feast upon a dinner of more than just carbohydrates and ethanol?

Of course, invariably the office managers who approve these receipts for reimbursement start to catch on more and more. Of course, I haven’t seen an office manager last more than 6 months here, so there’s always new blood to take advantage of.

Leveraging Excel

2006-04-19T18:45:00.000-07:00

I’ve definitely learned a lot in my one-and-a-half years on this job. Right up there on my list of accomplishments is an extreme proficiency for Microsoft Excel. In banking, we refer to such abilities as “mad skillz” and usually follow-up the description with a high-five and “boo-yah”. Then we usually go home and weep. But that’s a story for another day.

Anyway, about three weeks ago I was sitting in my cube and thinking, how can I use my Excel skills to make me a better person? What area of my life can benefit from the ability to model and predict future performance based on a large amount of historical data. And then it hit me: Fantasy-Fucking-Baseball.

So I set about copy-and-pasting all the ESPN.com tables and historical stats and merged them with Yahoo’s Fantasy Draft template to give me a decent model to draft my team. Then I started tracking my player’s performance, by week, as well as the players I dropped, the players I want to pick to up, and the overall performance of the fantasy league. This way, I’m able to evaluate how my team is doing on a per-player basis, and see if I can track any rise or decline in the standings based on moves I made or should have made.

Plus, the best thing about this is, when I have this spreadsheet open, it is virtually indiscernible from any other spreadsheet I may be working on. So when superiors walk past and glance at my computer screen, it appears that I’m working diligently. (As an aside, for this same reason I’ve gotten very good at the Alt+Tab keystroke).

And at the end of the day, I can rest confidently knowing that all this just makes me a bigger tool. But, as I said from the start, I wanted to give you guys an idea of what banking is like, beyond the horror stories or the money driven panic panic or condescension for all things non-banking. And thus, behold the compulsive need to translate any large amount of data into something meaningful in Excel.

As a member of that crowd that doesn’t necessarily see sunlight, we try to weave what pleasure we can into our daily grind. This is not meant to be a complaint – I suspect all working stiffs do it – just an observation that some do it with “creative” lunches, still others try their hand at insider trading. I just happen to read a lot of ESPN.

The Sell-Outs

2006-04-11T15:20:00.000-07:00

Before I get into this week’s column, here’s a great Chuck Klosterman review of the Chinese Democracy album…I’m not sure how much it would change if it were true. Now on to the post.

I’ve struggled in the past couple of years to justify whatever sense of disappointment or haughty dismissal I’ve felt when a band I once enjoyed privately made it into the current pop music lexicon. Undeniably, when a band you “discovered” long before the senseless masses makes it big, there’s a sense of sadness, of loss; no longer can you claim them as “your band” when hundreds of teenage girls strut past you, cell phone ringers ablaze with their latest single. And no matter how much you want distance yourself from your erstwhile band du jour, the fact remains: their music hasn’t change, and no matter how you justify it to yourself, the only reason you feel this way is because it’s no longer cool to like said band.

Now I’ve always said that if the music is good, I’ll listen to it. However, dear reader, I’m a hypocrite. I’ve heard the proverbial cock crow after denouncing the Killers three times; I’ve caught myself dismissing John Mayer’s sophomore efforts while seemingly oblivious to the countless times [editor’s note: 1] he helped me score in college; and I’ve backtracked on my assertion that Jason Mraz was a mere pop fad after realizing that, holy crap, he can actually sing. For all these textbook cases of music snobbery, I apologize.

Though why do I even have the knee-jerk reaction to pan whatever the current fad is in first place? The explanations, I feel, are very reasonable, and, in some instances, even merit the denouncement of the band in question. Take, for example, the diehard concert-goer, who’s discovered a band (henceforth referred to as, Band) while Band was still playing urine soaked dives, follows them avidly while they try desperately to break out, and then looks on with upturned nose as Band makes it into heavy rotation on MTV. Well, there are 4 explanations for why this may happen, with varying degrees of validity…

1) Nobody likes Johnny-Come-Lately’s, especially the TRL variety, and especially when that variety also carries along daddy’s pocket book to justify the upcoming overpriced stadium tour (fuck you, Dave Matthews). Obviously, this excuse is largely bullshit, despite however annoying it may be to know that Band’s poster shares a wall with this. After all, these fair-weather fans drive the well-earned success that Band now enjoys, which rewards them for making music that you liked in the first place.

2) Their lead singer is Scott Stapp. Obviously, this is a very valid reason.

3) Their sound changed. My first concert, I saw Third Eye Blind open for…another band who started with promise and tanked. This was before 3EB was signed / Stephen Jenkins stopped doing coke. As skeptical as you may be of this, they were really really good. Rockin’ good. Hard rock good. And then Semi-Charmed Life came out, and as catchy as that was, deep-down, I was asking myself, “what the fuck?” Listen, it’s about the music, and if you don’t like the music anymore, then fuck the band. I find this excuse entirely acceptable.

3) The band “sells out.” This could well be the most maddeningly overused phrase among punk-rock kids everywhere. To this day, I’m not sure what “selling out” entails. Doing a commercial? I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t take $100K for a day’s work in front of a camera. (However, this has spawned the unfortunate phenomena of great 80s hits now used in lame TV spots).

Even more nebulous a concept is when a band’s “music” sells-out. Usually, this is taken to mean that the music is more mainstream than the band’s previous efforts. Now while this can fit as reason #3 above, I call bullshit; this reasoning just stinks as a crutch for an opinion that can’t be substantiated. Example: Someone on the radio said he’s done listening to RHCP since their new song is such a sell-out. Uh, excuse me? It’s any different than anything off Californication? Uh, really?

Again, there’s a grey area here, and it’s hard to tell when musical bias is subject to personal bias. But given the current state of the music industry and how hard it is to see good bands stay successful, I’m going to try to support the bands I like, even when they turn into this.

Hello Music Lovers

2006-04-06T08:36:00.000-07:00

Apologies to my loyal readership of 5 (±3) - again, I'm going to opt of out of posting an original post, but fear not, because hopefully something comes through later today. To pass the time, check out the below email, courtesy of Nate. There's some good stuff there.

"In case you guys aren't aware of these and need something extremely kick-ass to listen to and expand your musical knowledge, I strongly recommend registering for and exploring these three sites:

Last FM
This thing tracks your listening habits from your iPod and your home computer (with the help of a simple plugin). Also, Last.fm radio plays songs for you from you the histories of your musical "neighbors" - those people in the system who listen to some of the same music. It's really cool.
check out my page: http://www.last.fm/user/nateselt (although it looks like the server is struggling right now)

Pandora
This site is amazing, developed by some extreme music geeks in Oakland and now known on the international level. It's supposed to help you find new music that you'll like.
Basically they categorize a vast amount of music based on really detailed, anal characteristics like major key tonality, subtle use of vocal harmonies, punk influences, extensive vamping (whatever that is), etc. Then you pick an artist song, and they lead you through all these songs you've never heard before based on their technical similarities to the first thing you chose. Want proof that it works? I chose Hum as the artist, and the third song they played was "Cherub Rock" by the Pumpkins (although a cover, by a group called Roses Are Red [phil, on that comp i got of SP cover songs]). If you don't like the direction they're heading in, you can guide them. It's pretty much the coolest thing ever.

Woxy
Internet radio with live DJs play all underground and indie music. There's nothing else like this out there, and they do a really good job. They're totally hurting for money right now, so share this with whoever you think can pony up some cash to save them."

Heat Vision and Jack

2006-03-28T15:22:00.000-08:00

Prepare to be rocked. Hard style.

75 Bands

2006-03-28T15:16:00.000-08:00

There are 75 bands in this picture. Come on and rock it, Amadeus.

The Phone Call

2006-03-23T13:34:00.000-08:00

Blackberries are horrible horrible things. Trust me. I hate them. Of course, I didn’t always feel this way. I remember the first day of training in NYC, when I learned that all Analysts would be receiving these uber-cool, ergonomically-sexual electronic marvels: I was stoked. (Bare in mind that I entered Banking naïve and unaware of everything it entailed (hell, I didn’t even know how big the bonuses were) – and a fair amount of people probably think I’m idiot for admitting that.) Anyway, this “stoked-ness” lasted exactly as long as the duration of this explanation, provided by the person seated next to me: You don’t want a Blackberry – it’s allows your bosses to keep you on a leash, no matter the time or place.

Good point. In banking you’re on a leash. Even if you leave the office, there are several ways to get back in touch with you: cell phone, office voicemail and blackberry. (As a frustrating aside, while cell phone and blackberry are the easiest way to get in touch with someone, some still feel that the antiquated office voicemail system is preferable – why this is, and why I should have to check my in office voicemail when I am not, in fact, in the office is beyond me). The worst feeling in the world (read: admitted hyperbole) is sitting at home on a Sunday night, getting ready to relax and some sleep to prepare for the week ahead, and seeing your cell phone caller ID light up with the office phone number.

This exact occurrence is precisely why I am so tired right now. Getting “lit up,” so to speak, by your boss at 10PM only means one thing: you’re going back in to work. Screw your plans to watch the TiVo’d Family Guy and appease your girlfriend with Grey’s Anatomy – those will have to wait. I did, of course, toy with the idea of sticking with my original plans and just going into work extra-special early, but then realized that I’ve lost every battle with the snooze button for the past 5 years and that there was no way in hell I could get in before 8AM if I closed my eyes.

I eventually got into the office at 10:30PM and, for a moment, feared stumbling around in the awkward emergency lighting before managing to turn on the soothing fluorescents. This fear, however, was short lived as I realized that, even at this hour on Sunday, no less than 5 people were still in the office (that makes up about a third of the Analyst class).

I won’t bother you with what transpired between my arrival and departure at 3:30AM (not sure I could remember it in any case), but this episode has cost me dearly this week. I haven’t been able to recover full cognitive functions until this morning (when I awoke so surprisingly refreshed that I figured I’d overslept and immediately panicked) due to successive late nights, lunchless days and way too much caffeine keeping my eyes saucered even though they should be shut.

Gut Feeling

2006-03-22T11:01:00.000-08:00

I’d like to follow-up on Beratement. See, when I said that it’s the “healthy” work relationships that beget the most hostility, I was largely “speaking out of my ass.” In the business, we call this a “gut feeling,” but it largely means that, while one has no data or proof to back a claim up, they can cite a gut instinct to validate saying it.

But fear not, intrepid readers, for now I have proof. Context: an Associate is trying to protect his Analyst from receiving work from other people outside of their group. Here’s the exchange:

Associate: “Analyst, who’s your daddy?”
Analyst [confused]: “Um, what?”
Assoc: “Who’s your daddy?”
Anal: “Ummm…you are?”
Assoc: “Fucking right. Now say it.”
Anal: “You’re my daddy.”
Assoc: “Louder.”
Anal: “Umm, I have to finish some work.”
Assoc: “No you don’t, now say it again.”
Anal: “You’re my daddy.”
Assoc: “Good, now remember – never accept work from anyone but your daddy.”

See, as belittling and inane as this exchange was, all the Associate was trying to do was protect his Analyst from getting more work. Banking is nice like that.

I also just noticed that if you abbreviate Associate and Analyst, you get Ass and Anal. Nice.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Corgan

2006-03-17T17:17:00.000-08:00

Some links first. This is an excellent article on the loss of dynamic range in modern music. For those of you looking to blame one more thing on the record companies / justify pirating music, read it. And if you’re of the mind to, check out my friend’s site compiling his album and concert reviews – and if you want a quick fix, read his excellent article on the upcoming Flaming Lips album. This guy more than knows his shit when it comes to music, and is probably the reason why I can fake talking about music so well.

So my topic today, appropriately I might add, given that it is Mr. Corgan’s birthday, is the reunion of the Smashing Pumpkins. We’d heard hints of this last year when Billy took out the full-page advert / thank you note on the eve of his album release – hints that were reiterated in vague musings on his myspace page (yes, he has a myspace page – the curious social commentary here being that, in addition to a haven for sexual predators, myspace is turning into an excellent portal for bands to connect with their fans). However, given Billy’s penchant for the dramatic or ambiguous, all these statements were par for the course; most fans took the “I’ll believe it when I see it” approach.

However, it appears these rumors might have some meat to them this time. Needless to say, I am excited. I can’t think of a single event that would just about satisfy every “now I can die happy” criteria for me as a new Pumpkins album and tour would. This isn’t hyperbole. Think about it this way – some people learned how to express heartache through Joni Mitchell; others learned that peaceful easy feeling with the Eagles; and others, for the first time, saw \their cultural identity defined by Selena. The point being, just like sports, literature, art, all media, music takes on real meaning when placed in a personal context. When we can identify with a player, a team, a song, a book, then it stops becoming a singular point and turns into something more personal. For me, the Pumpkins were so many of those things; first guitar hero, first delve in poetry, first hard rock concert, etc…

A Pumpkins reunion would mean revisiting so many of those emotions I had over a decade ago, when I was a teenager struggling through teenage things and rebelling in whatever way a suburban teen could. Corgan & Co were one of the ways I knew how to express what I was feeling inside; I related to their music because the lyrics themselves were so ambiguous and my grasp on their actual meaning so tenuous, that they mirrored my own inner tribulations. The power of that music was that it let me understand that the problems of youth had a context, while distracting me from the actual anger and frustration that came with trying to understand those problems. It was escapist in every sense and Melan Collie and the Infinite Sadness was the destination I were looking for – the liner notes written on aged paper, cryptic lyrics telling of far off oceans and hidden beauties, and the all important affirmation of what it felt like to be a teenager: “Muzzle”. I fear I am ordinary, just like everyone…opens the song in Billy’s razor-sharp voice and I realized that he was lamenting every moment we’ve ever felt lost, every moment we’ve never been heard, every moment we’ve lost consequence.

Even now I struggle to voice what I would feel if the Pumpkins came back. And maybe it won’t be what I thought it would be. In all likelihood, James won’t be back (and Darcy either, for that matter, though I am much more amenable to that) and fans will be left with a lineup that only looks half right.

In any event, I hope it happens, and I hope it happens soon.

The Bakeoff

2006-03-16T16:40:00.000-08:00

Bakeoffs in banking have little in common with their suburban counterparts. For one thing, there aren’t any baked goods at banking bakeoffs. In spirit, I suppose, the two are similar; both involve a competition among multiple parties (the banks) putting together their best product (the pitch) to woo and convince judges (the potential client company) that they are the best people for the job. The similarities just about end there, though.

Bakeoffs are interesting social dynamics. For one thing, you have the company who’s looking to hire the bankers. Typically there’s the CEO, the CFO and some key Board Members. There could be 12-20 people across table from you at the pitch. And for the whole day, all this group of people does is sit, listen and ask questions of the 5-6 banks who stop by to give it their best shot. I do not doubt that it gets very boring for them. And they get agitated, especially towards the end of the day. One CEO spent the first 10 minutes manically flip each page of the pitch book, then closed it and stared at the ceiling for the next 30 minutes. Their whole range of emotion runs the gamut of exhaustion to thinly concealed hatred of bankers. And honestly, that’s probably as it should be. After all, as bankers, all we really want is your money.

And then there are the banks. To the company (no big surprise), we’re as complimentary and sycophantic as possible. The real interesting part, though, is at the beginning and end of each pitch. That’s when the bank that just finished pitching is leaving and crosses paths with the bank waiting in the wings. Immediately both banks stand a little taller, look a little haughtier and try to figure out who the other one is. Think of two dogs sniffing asses and sizing each other up. If the senior guys know each other, there are handshakes. If not, then there are discrete nods.

But there are several things to keep in mind when sizing up your opponent in these instances: how many bankers did they bring with them, what kind of shoes are they wearing and who is carrying the books (this person is the Analyst, and the person you’d probably want to take if a fight broke out).

Beratement

2006-03-15T20:53:00.000-08:00

Overall, there isn’t a whole lot of brow-beating in investment banking. At least, there isn’t as much as people think. Of course there are isolated moments when the Analyst is hit over the head with a 2 lbs. pitchbook, but that kind of thing isn’t that common. I’ve only seen it happen once or twice, and honestly, you just got to learn to get out of the way of those things.

Ironically, it’s the good relationships between mentor and mentee that beget the most astounding stories. On the surface it might seem like the reason for this is simply because there’s an unspoken camaraderie, an implicit respect that exists between the two entities that allows one to get away with berating the other. Really, it has nothing to do with respect or camaraderie or “hitting you because I love you.” It’s simply that, in the more intimate relationships, the Associate has a better understanding of what they can and can’t do before pushing the Analyst over the edge. The last thing you want to do is actually harass someone who’s going to cry about it.

For example, there’s the story about the Associate who stood behind his Analyst screaming, “Finish this merger model now! I told you this had to be done! I’m going to look over your should and hit you in the back of your dumb fucking head every time I catch a mistake.” And then he proceeded to do just that. He smacked him on the back of the head for every mistake he caught. As an obvious aside: it’s impossible to not screw up when someone’s looking over your shoulder. It just is. But of course, this only happened because the smacked and the smackee had a good working relationship to start with. And it should be stated that this was a good Analyst too.

Which brings us to perhaps the biggest injustice of all: it’s ultimately the good Analysts that get the most shit. And this is for the simple reason that, after about 6 months, when the staffers (those who staff work) begin to get a grasp of who’s treading water and who’s going down with the ship and, concurrently, the VPs who request the Analyst’s resources from the staffers get a feel for who they can work with and who they’d rather fire, you start to see the good Analysts get the important/difficult projects and the bad analysts get stuck picking up the dinner orders. Anyway, no matter how good the “good” Analyst is, the more projects one has only equates to more opportunity to screw up. The screw ups may be few and far between, but they inevitably happen, and when they do, so comes the wrath of the Associate. Or VP. Or janitorial staff (we all were actually yelled at once for not cleaning up dinner in the conference room by the janitorial staff).

But I assume y’all started reading this to hear stories. And I’ve really only obliged with one. Well, there’s the story of the MD who, after catching a mistake in a pitchbook at the pitch, stopped by the Analyst’s cube and politely asked for “another copy of the book, so [he could] wipe his ass with it.” I like that story, actually – it’s genuinely funny. Or the (in all likelihood fictitious) story of the MD who, after spilling coffee on his Analyst’s shirt, got so annoyed with the kid bitching about it that he pulled out his wallet, threw $100 bucks at the kid and told him to buy a new shirt, then said, “but now I own the shirt you’re wearing, so take it off and give it to me.”

Often times the stories are less stories and more just condescending remarks…like the MD who asked a question of his Analyst, got the answer and came out with the gem, “Of course that’s what it is. Try working in this business for 16 years, maybe then you’ll finally figure it out.”

And sometimes the good stories aren’t even about the shit people are given – they’re about the shit people do to avoid getting shit. Like the Associate in the UK who worked all night for a pitch the next afternoon in Geneva, missed his flight and in his panicked daze, driven no doubt by fear of his imminent firing, decided his only recourse was to take the Chunnel to the mainland and then rent a car and drive to Geneva. In less than 3 hours.

For Rock's Sake

2006-03-13T20:49:00.000-08:00

I’ve got some comments back regarding my first post: 1) I-banking sounds like it sucks (yes, it often does) and 2) please don’t talk about I-banking generalities, only relate stories about people being mind-raped by their superiors – those are the best (done and done).

But as foretold previously, this post will be devoted to music. (Now that I think about it, “foretold previously” is redundant…I should make a note to correct that before posting…)

Depending on your extreme good fortune, you may have heard me opine about Marah. To the best of my knowledge, they are an excellent rock band out of Philly. However, rumor and better heads than mine maintain they are no less than the Rapture / Zeus / Valhalla all rolled into one soundscape.

The simple pleasure of Marah is that their music is inherently happy. I don’t mean the trite Smashmouth kind of happy, or the naïve, flippant New Radicals happy, or that toe-tapping ska/punk kind of happy (Blink 182, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, etc…). I mean, like “Shiny Happy People” happy, or pre-9/11 Bruce Springsteen “Born to Run” happy. Think the Ramones’ “I Want to be Sedated” crashing headlong into Cash’s “Ring of Fire.” The thing about this band is that they remind me of everything that was good about rock n’ roll – back when lyrics about protest and anger and marginalization sounded more like folk stories than about protest or anger or marginalization.

And maybe that’s what I’ve found so dissatisfying about music post 2000 – it reminded me too much of what the music was about instead of distracting me from whatever it was that I needed to be distracted from. A large part of this problem is the laziness of the current batch of lyricists; it’s hard to write ambiguous lyrics that still mean something – the 90s stalwarts did it well: Pearl Jam, Pumpkins, Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine, Nirvana, etc… And these bands had the masters to inspire them: Black Sabbath, Zeppelin, Hendrix, Queen, etc… but it leaves me wondering where the current crop of crooners got their chops. Certainly not from the same blood as any of the aforementioned players.

But Marah keeps your feet tapping, as much for their beats and hooks as for their ability to make you forget that you had reasons to not tap your foot in the first place. In a way (and I can hardly take credit for this description) their music is a celebration of rock n’ roll more than anything else. Listening them evokes the Ramones, the Clash, the Boss, Dylan…just name a rock icon, and you’ll hear a piece of them in Marah’s music.

At their recent San Francisco show someone in audience yelled out, “you’re the best band ever!” to which the lead singer replied, “thank you, but that’s not actually true – it’s very flattering – but it’s not…well, actually, it is true.” And he said it without a sense of irony or arrogance – it was simply what he believed. And if you think about rock n’ roll – about the swagger, the brazenness, the give-the-finger-to-society..ummm…ness, his answer made perfect sense.

Over/Under of People Who Will Read This: 6

2006-03-08T21:28:00.000-08:00

Friends (I feel safe saying this, as I’m sure the readership of this blog will be limited), welcome to Convertible Notes. By way of introduction, I think I should note that this site will not rehash whatever petty ramblings took over my xanga during its last throws of relevancy. Instead, I will focus on two things that I feel about 65% qualified to talk about: music and investment banking. Hence, the name of the blog, Convertible Notes. Without going into the gory details, “notes” are nomenclature given to specific frequ – ahem, “notes” are found in music – and “Convertible Notes” are equity-linked debt prod – ahem, “convertible notes” are things that banks do. So you see, it all makes sense; this blog will be the intersection of two things of high relevance to my life (one by choice, one by necessity).

First, I’d like to give a shout out to all the people that have prodded, incited, given me inspiration or frankly just gave me such huge amounts of work that I am forced to procrastinate. Oh, these two are good too [1] [2].

Now on to my first post…

I am in banking because, at some point my senior year, I convinced myself that I didn’t want to be an engineer anymore. Fine. Good thing I spent the last 3.5 years working to that end. But it all paid off – I found out some banks don’t care so much about finance (or GPAs) and like to hire “market-focused, industry-knowledgeable” intrepid young explorers to navigate the financial wildernesses and seedy underbellies of “growth companies.” For those of you who don’t know, “growth companies” is simply slang for “shitty companies.”

It’s safe to say that the most common question I’m asked is, “so what exactly do investment bankers do?” Well, for one, they bank. I think that explanation should suffice. But rather than bore you with what I actually do from day-to-day (hint: involves way too much time on excel), I’m thinking observations of this job will be much more tolerable.

I’ve noticed bankers love to bitch. A lot. It’s this vicious cycle. The MD banker bitches about a mistake made in a pitch book to the VP banker, who then bitches to the Associate banker for not catching the mistake, who then bitches to the Analyst banker (me) for creating the mistake in the first place. Honestly, the Analysts would bitch to the Admins, but they’ve usually gone home by the time that thought occurs to them. Anyhoo, now we have the Analyst banker making last minute changes to a pitch book, taking away precious time from the 6 other pitch books due tomorrow. Oh, and it’s 3AM. Inevitably, a mistake will be made in one of the other 6 books, the MD will catch it and the cycle will start all over again.

Please, for the love of god, unless you are looking for someone to spends loads of cash on you, do not ever, under any circumstances, go to a bar, club or restaurant with a group of Investment Banking Analysts. They will bitch and moan the whole time about topics that seem like good things to you. Examples:

Analyst Gripe: Corporate is giving me shit about expensing all these dinners with other people’s expense codes.
Normal Response: You get free meals?!?!

Analyst Gripe: They overbooked first, I got moved to fucking business class.
Normal Response: You fly first class normally?!?

Analyst Gripe: That idiot [insert Admin here] completely fucked up the briefing materials I asked them to pull.
Normal Response: You have a secretary?!?

All-in-all, I don’t think banking is so bad. Or at least, my experience to date hasn’t been bad (1 year, 8 months and counting). What I once thought was nothing but insipid, rote work [mindless crunching of financial statements], I now find soothing; things I once thought would prevent me from ever associating with the opposite sex if I happened to utter them out loud [key board short cuts], are now a quiet source of pride. Now to expand this last topic a bit – have you ever heard two analysts exchanging keyboard shortcuts in excel? I doubt you have. It borders on the surreal and, well, pathetic. Banker 1: “Nice shading on that spreadsheet – bet it took you an extra 15 min to do that [smirk].” Banker 2, in loud voice: “Naw, you just set up the font menus on the top left corner of the toolbar and ‘Alt +’ hits them up – don’t even have to touch the mouse.” At this point Banker 1 just shat himself because he realizes 1) he betrayed some flaw in his knowledge of excel (major fucking no-no) and 2) Banker 2 is a superior banker, at least in this instance. This brings me to my next point regarding banking, and this perhaps the most crucial thing that I will say on this subject: DON’T EVER EVER TOUCH YOUR MOUSE. It is a horrible despicable waste of time used by the uneducated masses to create flow charts and draft fantasy football players. Don’t ever EVER use it.

And of course, about 20% of the time I am challenged to do something so interesting and extraordinarily beyond my skill set that I leave it to the last minute. Like now. I should be writing an Offering Memorandum, but instead I’m writing this blog.

Next time, hopefully some good vibes on music.