by Ira Trivedi
I trudged back to the office and for the first time since I had come to the US I felt a pang of homesickness. What else could this extremely disturbing feeling in the pit of my stomach even be? (It was different than the hangover nausea.) I longed to be in Indore, in my parent’s house, sitting in my dusty veranda, hanging out with my parents, eating home-cooked Indian food and drinking cups of overly sweet tea. I wanted to be in that slow, lazy city, in that chaotic household with the maid so fat she could hardly move, the driver so old he could barely see, and the guard who so was frail it seemed like the wind would blow him away. It was strange that this feeling was hitting me now, at a time when I was living my dream. Here I was, a Goldstein Girl in New York City, and yet I missed the most boring place in the world—Indore—and my claustrophobic parents. I was as far away as I could be from that dull life, but how I longed for it at this moment. What I wouldn’t do to go back, even if just for a day!
The Cardinal Rules of Banking
Banking Trick #1
Expense. Expense. Expense. If we stayed in the office after 9 p.m., we were eligible for a free meal of our choice worth $30. I had always had minor gluttonous tendencies and banking brought them out in full force. Very soon dinner became the one thing I most looked forward to in the day. SeamlessWeb.com was the clever creation of a computer geek banker (who made millions from the website and promptly quit banking) that listed all the NYC restaurants which delivered food to the office. SeamlessWeb was a gastronomic adventure for me. I would wait impatiently for the clock to strike nine and then order a meal of my choice, experimenting with different cuisines. Initially I had stuck to ordering Indian food that stank up the already stinky pen, and earned me dirty looks from my analyst colleagues. Since I didn’t want to be known as that Indian girl I subsequently refrained from Indian fare. SeamlessWeb orders were an HR ploy, tempting employees to stay in the office for as long as possible. The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and this seemed to do the trick. I was getting my New York gourmet dining experience courtesy Goldstein Smith, even though it came at the small price of spending my life in the office.
Banking Trick #2
Taxi cabs. If we left the office anytime after 9 p.m., we could take a taxi to any place in the city and expense the trip to the firm. It was a neat deal to begin with, but Sean made it even better. He taught me the art of blank receipts. Any cab driver in New York would give us blank receipts. Once we got hold of these receipts we could write in any reasonable amount and we would be reimbursed. I began collecting blank receipts and would fill in fictitious amounts and expense these to the firm. More often than not, I took the subway home and pocketed the money, which could easily turn out to be upto $100 a week. My father had always told me there was no such thing as a free lunch. Well, I had managed free drinks, free dinners, free lunches and free rides around New York City.
Oh, the wonderful, wonderful life of a banker!
Investment Banking Intellectuals
Summer analysts dabble in fine arts and mathematics, otherwise known as PowerPoint and Excel—the two tools necessary for an analyst’s survival, both equally brain-numbing. What I had thought was going to be a summer spent making deals, negotiating, engaging in strategic planning and enjoying fancy lunch and dinner meetings was turning out to be a summer of pitch-work aka bitch-work.
In my eagerness to be proactive I had told Sally that I would like to get some experience working on a real deal. I was put on a deal team with Sally, Sean and Amit who told me with great excitement that my name would be included in the list of people who had worked on the book.
Joining the deal team was a painful experience for me. I was expected to sit in on several hour-long meetings with lawyers, rating agencies, investors, other banks and various other really serious-sounding people. The convoluted conversations didn’t make very much sense to me, and Sally had given strict instructions that I was always to be on mute. Interns were not allowed to speak. Editing hundreds of marked-up slides became the reason for my existence. I failed to understand how the width of an arrow could matter so much or why margin sizes were the reason for an argument between Amit and Sean. How could a nano-centimetre’s increase in font size, or a slight change in font colour make such a big difference? But being the minion, the lowest of the low, the measly intern, I had to do everything I was told. No questions asked.
‘Wow!’ I would tell Sally, ‘this deal is so fascinating. I love working on pitch books. It’s the best educational experience ever.’
I was also the production bitch. The one who ran back and forth between the production department on the fourteenth floor and the analyst pen on the seventh, carrying piles of pitch books to be printed, photocopied and bound. I was made to wait for embarrassingly long hours in the lobby for the delivery boy, and was sent out to hand-deliver books around the block, and make sure everything was logged, reported, confirmed and delivered. This would take up hours of my glamour-filled day. To keep me ‘busy’ during the long hours that I spent in the office, an average of seventeen hours, from nine to two the next morning, Amit introduced me to financial modelling, which was another brain-numbing ordeal. CAPM, EBIT, EBITDA … none of it made any sense to me, and no one had the time or the inclination to sit with me and explain what it all meant, or the point behind it. No matter how long I puttered around the ‘baby model’ that Amit had especially created for me, I never seemed to get it. There were just too many desolate cells of black and white, and everything eventually just merged into one mass of numbers. Every time I tried to shift something from one row to another column, from A-98 to G-104, something else that wasn’t supposed to move inevitably did, and the self-destructive cells would turn red, which basically meant that I had messed up. Over time I just gave up. The more I fiddled with the model, the more cells turned red and the more weary looks I got from Amit and Sean, and the dumber they thought I was. It was a vicious, unending cycle. My staple diet consisted of bland data entry to Excel spreadsheets, cleaning up random PowerPoint slides and the most exciting of them all, photocopying, photocopying, photocopying. Was this why the bank was paying me $18,000 for the twelve weeks that I was here? And that wasn’t even including all the money that they spent on all the intern events or the money they had spent in hiring me. It would have been a financially prudent decision to just hire a lowly secretary, or two, or three, to do all the menial labour that I was being subjected to. When the pitch book was finally ready, I looked through it for an hour trying to locate my name, and finally found it at the very bottom of the page in a font size six. With tears in my eyes I wondered what had happened to the fabulous summer that I had dreamt of once upon a time. The only jet-setting that I was doing was between the office in mid-town Manhattan to my ratty, roach-infested apartment in Chinatown. The only negotiating I did was with the production and presentations departments as I tried to get them to speed things up and skip the queue. The only deals in my world were used eBay handbags.
The IBD-GenX Reunion
Goldstein Girls,
I hope your summer is going amazing. It’s been forever! I would love to meet you guys at a hip New York bar for a cosmopolitan (just like in Sex and the City). Are you girls up for it? I am so excited! Miss you guys and can’t wait for econ classes next semester.
xoxo
Liz
(A faithful IBD-GenX member)
I had suggested we meet at the bar at the downtown W hotel. Liz would appreciate the swarms of bankers that infested the bar. In order to look the part of the glamorous Goldstein girl that I was, I had dressed with particular care in a pair of white linen pants, a pink paisley blouse and matching pink loafers. At the bar, bankers clad in snappy suits sipped on cool summer cocktails, enjoying a relaxed drink after a day spent in the office raking in the millions. It was the picture of perfection. And I played the part as well as anyone else here.
As soon as I entered, I spotted a head of frizzy hair and an very non-New-York beige top. Liz, standing out li
ke a sore thumb. I walked over to where she and Pam sat with two cosmopolitans in front of them.
‘Babe!’ an excited Liz leapt out of her chair when she saw me, spilling her drink on the table in the process. ‘Oh shit, my cosmo! That was twelve bucks!’ she wailed.
‘Liz, don’t worry about it, we’ll get you another one, and it’s on me,’ I said trying to calm her down. We were beginning to attract attention. I helped her mop up the couch so I would have a place to sit while Pam motioned to the waitress.
Pam was dressed in banker perfection—a navy blue linen suit, crisp white shirt, pantyhose-clad legs that ended in delicate shoes. She sat daintily at the edge of the couch, sipping her drink.
‘How are you? It’s been forever,’ I said.
‘Yes, it has Ms Goldstein. How are you?’ Pam asked curtly.
‘Pam, you’re a Goldstein Girl too!’ said Liz.
‘Technically I guess I am …’
‘Huh? What happened to that brokerage firm that you were supposed to work at?’ I said with surprise.
‘Well … a last minute a job opened up. Some foreign national couldn’t get a visa or something and they offered me a position in operations.’
‘Oh … that’s cool,’ I said with relief. I was still the only Wellesley girl to have been offered a position in investment banking at Goldstein Smith. Pam’s job in operations didn’t compromise my position at the top. Us bankers looked down on operations. They were the fake, inferior bankers trying to sneak their way into our world through the backdoor. As far as I knew, their offices weren’t even in Manhattan, which just showed how important they really were.
‘Operations, huh? How is that?’
‘It’s really very exciting. It’s a great way to really understand the bank, the way the internal processes work. It’s the perfect place to spend the summer!’ Pam said with forced enthusiasm.
‘Cool.’ I did not believe a word of what she said.
‘You know, I can always get an offer for I-banking if I want it, so I’m really happy,’ she said with a too-bright smile.
‘You’re living in the city though?’ I asked her curiously.
‘Er … no. I’m at home. I’m always in the city anyways, so I figured it doesn’t make a difference. And apartments here are just so … gross and small.’
‘It’s probably a long drive though, huh.’
‘Well, two hours tops. I did think of living here, but I’d rather save up for the real thing next year.’
‘Yeah, I guess that’s a good plan.’
This year had been a particularly tough one to get an internship. Banks had drastically cut down on internship positions. Most of the banking army, except a few lucky ones including yours truly, were forced to settle for internships at no-name financial firms in New York and Boston with measly salaries. They couldn’t even afford apartments in New York and had to live out in Connecticut and Jersey.
Pam gave me an embarrassed look and turned towards Liz who was looking around the bar in awe. ‘So Lizzie, how are you?’
As I had suspected, Liz had not received an offer. She had a job at a small accounting firm in New Jersey where she was living with her parents.
‘I’m really loving it. You know, the partner at my firm used to be a banker and he told me that bankers love people with accounting experience under their belt. So hopefully next year will be my big year.’
‘Oh, that’s great!’ exclaimed Pam. ‘Hurrah for Liz! I’m sure things will work out much better for you next year.’
‘Yup,’ Liz smiled happily, peanuts stuck in her braces. ‘It’s so much easier to get a full-time banking position than internships, and I’ve already started interview prep. See, I even have my Vault Guide with me!’ she said, pulling out the book from the backpack that she had brought along with her. She turned towards me with a look of deep respect on her face. ‘Riya, you’re my banking hero.’ From the corner of my eye, I could see Pam turn green. ‘You’re living such an exciting New York life,’ Liz said with a sigh.
‘Well, you know, I’m taking my job very seriously. I want to learn as much as I can this summer, so of course I don’t get much time to think about other things. I am working on a very interesting project though.’
Pam and Liz knew nothing of the manual labour that I had endured all this while, and I intended to keep it like that. I shuddered thinking about the pitch-work that was sure to have accumulated on my desk by now.
Pam’s voice jostled me out of my thoughts ‘Do you think you’re going to get an offer?’
‘Um …’
‘I hear it’s tough at Goldstein. They only hire about seventy per cent of their interns, as opposed to eighty-two per cent which is the average at other top banks. I am basically all set on an offer and when I get it, I’m going to swing over to IBD. I’m not complaining, operations is a really great experience, and Jersey city is so beautiful.’
Liz was brimming with excitement. ‘You know guys, operations might be the perfect fit for me. Pam, will you tell me in detail about what you do?’
I heard my BlackBerry beep. Twenty-seven unread emails, the last five from Sally. I saw Liz look at my BlackBerry with awe. I really didn’t want to go back to work right now, it was 9:30 p.m. In the normal world this was the time to unwind and relax—two non-existent words in my current vocabulary—but in my world it was when the real work began.
‘Ladies, I have to get back to work. I have some really urgent deal-closing stuff to work on.’ I could see the stars in Liz’s eye.
‘That is so cool, can you tell me about the deal?’ she asked with a desperate look in her eyes.
‘I can’t really talk about it just yet, it’s all confidential stuff, but I will once it’s announced. It was great seeing you guys!’
I put down some cash for the drinks, gave Liz a hug and as I bent forward to hug Pam, she stuck her hand out and clasped mine in a perfect banker handshake.
Gagan Mohanty, FOB
‘Beta, how are you?’
‘Hi Ma, I’m fine, just heading home from work,’ I said, glad it was 2.15 a.m. and not 4 a.m.
‘Oh my God, this late! They are working you much too hard. I don’t think this is healthy for a girl. Do the married women also work like this?’
‘Ma! It’s not like that. Everyone has to pay their dues.’
‘What dues vues beta? All this working so hard is not good for girls. What is this coming home at eleven? I think I must have a word with your boss.’
I didn’t correct her about the time. I did not for a moment doubt that she was perfectly capable of calling Sally and telling her exactly what she thought of the hours we worked. ‘MA! Don’t be crazy, I work very reasonable hours compared to some of my other friends. You know my friend Ivana, the one I told you about? I haven’t seen her in almost two weeks, she hardly ever leaves the office. I am lucky I haven’t had to spend the night in the office even once.’
All-nighters were definitely the cool thing to do these days. If you were an intern and not spending the occasional night in the office, you were definitely not working hard enough. Many interns talked about how they kept toothbrushes in their desk drawer. One had recently gone down in Goldstein Smith history for having pulled twenty-seven all-nighters over ten weeks, an amazing feat for an intern. A few days ago he was carried out of the office on a stretcher on his last day of work after having lost fifteen kilos over the course of the summer. My mother’s voice pierced my thoughts.
‘I know what I am saying, understand? By the time I was your age, I had already had you!’ she said angrily.
When my mother got fired up she really went at it. I took a deep breath; I couldn’t handle this, not at this hour. ‘I am sorry, Ma. Listen, I need to get into the subway now … I’ll speak to you later.’
My mother’s tone changed from angry to excited in an instant. ‘Just one second, beta. Prema Aunty has a family friend who lives in New Jersey, and their son is supposed to be very handsome. He is a basketball play
er so he must be tall as well. And he’s a banker!’
‘Mom, please … I’m too busy for all this nonsense.’
‘Just send him an email and meet him for a coffee. You send hundred emails a day, you can’t send one that I want you to? Do it for me,’ she said in her best cajoling voice. ‘All right Ma,’ I said, exasperated, desperate to get off the phone. She could always bully me into agreeing to anything she wanted.
‘Good beta, I am going to SMS you his number and please reply once you have sent the mail, okay?’
‘Yes, yes. Bye now!’ and I quickly hung up the phone, her voice trailing off in the background.
My mother had recently learnt how to send text messages and I had thought this would be a good thing because now instead of phone calls at the most importunate moments, she would send texts, and texts could be easily ignored. Unfortunately, it had not quite worked out as I had envisioned. Instead of decreasing, the frequency of phone calls had increased, especially when I did not reply immediately to the text message. I heard my phone beep. Gagan Mohanty [email protected]. Yuck. Bank of America, the Wal-Mart of investment banks. I was a Goldstein Girl, it was the Saks 5th Avenue of the financial world. I heard my phone beep again; it was another message from my mother reminding me to email him.