“You have twenty minutes remaining,” announced Rupert as he erased the “45” on the dry erase board and replaced it with a “20.” He sat back down in his seat at the head of the classroom and returned to Architectural Digest.
“Fuck me,” I said, mostly in my head as I repeatedly tapped the F9 key on my computer, which is as useful as repeatedly tapping the elevator button when it’s already illuminated. In the front row, the Wharton crew had already finished the exam and were now drawing attention to themselves by crunching on granola bars and whispering to one another about the deals they were browsing on Mergermarket, the TMZ of investment banking.
The exam was a culmination of all the concepts Rupert had taught us over the past six weeks: accounting, valuation, forecasting, and financing. While business school had given us a solid financial-analysis foundation, Rupert had taken everything to another level. We had three hours to complete the comprehensive three-statement model, which tested all concepts in some capacity.
The goal was to forecast five years of financials for a company whose name he had inexplicably obscured from the assignment—as a former banker himself, Rupert adhered to the banking maxim: blatantly omit information to create a veil of importance. Every public company in the US discloses audited financial statements each year (and unaudited financials each quarter). There is a ton of useful (and useless) shit in these filings, which can run upwards of 400 pages. As bankers, our focus was on the company’s three primary financial statements: income statement, cash-flow statement, and balance sheet. Using the company’s historical figures as a base, we referred to the assumptions Rupert provided, and were tasked with building a five-year forecast of all three statements. Despite the complexities of the test and the nuances that go into modeling it out, checking the “integrity” of the model was simple.
Does it balance? If the balance sheet balances, you’re golden. If not, then fuckin’ A. The balance sheet is a snapshot of a company’s financial health at a given point in time. A company’s assets must equal the sum of its liabilities and equity. The assets are on one side of the balance sheet and show everything the company has, including cash, inventory, equipment, receivables, and the like. The other side of the balance sheet shows how all those assets are financed, either in the liabilities section (through debt, loans, and so forth) or through equity (owners who invest money). Thus, we get the equation: A=L+E. Due to the way the model flowed, the balance sheet was last to be completed. Therefore, Rupert simply had to check the balance sheets of the five forecasted years and ensure in each year that A=L+E. Checking was made even simpler with the following excel function: =(IF(logical_test,[value_if_true],[value_if_false]). In this case, the “logical test” is whether A=L+E. If it does, the given cell will display the “value if true,” which was input as “OK.” If it doesn’t equal (“value if false”), the cell will show the difference between A and L+E. In the Excel template Rupert provided, the row with the “IF” function was already input so it would automatically populate as we modeled out the forecasted years. Passing the exam meant that the row of cells at the bottom of the five forecasted balance sheets (row 230) looked like this:
|
OK |
OK |
OK |
OK |
OK |
Mine looked like this:
|
(34) |
###### |
#REF! |
#REF! |
#VALUE! |
Had they all been numbers, I’d have been in better shape to identify the root of the problem, which most likely would’ve been me neglecting to drag over a set of assumptions in the income statement. But these cell errors were cause for concern and an emergency trip to the bathroom.
“Shit,” I said, noticing the darkened pee stain on my gray suit-pants as I washed my hands at the bathroom sink and blotted a wet piece of paper towel on my pants, exponentially increasing the size of the darkened area.
“Gotta push up on your grundle,” said someone I soon identified as a fellow associate who’d just entered the bathroom. He paused on his way to the urinal, raised his hand, and made an upward motion with his middle finger. “Two pushes usually do the trick,” he continued.
I considered the advice and acknowledged it with a nod as he continued to the urinal. I finished washing my hands, splashed some cold water in my face, then returned to the classroom where I passed the Wharton crew, now loitering in the corridor along with the majority of the group who’d also finished the exam.
Only a handful of associates remained in the classroom, including Vikram, who had empty Coke cans peppered around his computer. Unlike Vikram, I didn’t buy that the bottom 15 percent of the class would have their job offers rescinded, but that didn’t mitigate my concern. My fear was that the majority of my peers were offended the exam was so easy they didn’t need the full time to complete it. The guy I’d seen in the bathroom then returned to the classroom.
“Five minutes,” said Rupert. “Please ensure you save up a version so we don’t have any issues.” I didn’t want to save up a version. I wanted to hurl my computer out the window, have it careen off the Westminster bridge, sink to the bottom of the Thames, then have Rupert rely on the honor system when I told him my balance sheet balanced.
From the corner of my eye, I spotted Vikram flipping double birds to his computer monitor and shaking his head wearing a scowl. I felt a level of solidarity with him—almost made me smile.
A few moments passed. More computer keys were tapped.
“Yes!” said Vikram, louder than he should have. I whipped my head around and caught him as the birds were no longer flipped, and he was mid fist-pump. He rose, tilted a Coke up to his face, emitted a satisfied exhale, then made a show of gathering his belongings and leaving the room. I tried tripping him as he passed me, but my foot didn’t reach far enough. So much for solidarity.
I scanned to the historical financials tab in the spreadsheet and checked that I input all the original data correctly. I did. Then I checked that my growth assumptions were in line with the information Rupert had provided. They were. But it was too late to go through all the troubleshooting steps I’d outlined on the one-page cheat sheet we were permitted to use.
“One hundred seconds,” said Rupert.
I stared at that fucked-up row in my Excel spreadsheet. Part of me wanted to type “OK” in all the cells—and I would have, except the template Rupert had given us was configured in such that any hard codes (when a figure is typed directly in the cell) appeared in a bright blue font, while all cells containing functions (like the “IF” formula) appeared in black. So much for that honor system I’d imagined.
=IF(AE225=AE248,“OK”,AE225-AE248). Logical test, I thought. How could I make it illogical? Fuck logic. There was nothing in the world I wanted more at that moment than to see the word “OK” five times. But the equation was false—AE225≠AE248. Then some neurons in my cerebral cortex decided to engage, the same devious neurons that fired when I tried to pick up a girl at a coffee shop. What if I inverted the scenarios? Then the display would read “OK” in the false scenario, and the equation would look almost the same: =IF(AE225=AE248,AE225-AE248,“OK”).
“Fifteen seconds,” said Rupert as he rose from his chair.
This was it. I quickly rearranged the formula in the far-left cell then dragged it over so it would automatically reconfigure the formulas in the four cells to the right, which aligned with the rest of the forecasted years. I hit enter and row 230 now read:
|
OK |
OK |
OK |
OK |
OK |
I saved the document. Then saved it again…and a third time.
“Time!” said Rupert. He exited the room, and I heard him call for the class to reconvene. My fellow associates reentered the room, finishing up conversations they’d started over an hour ago in some cases.
“Please have your spreadsheets open, full screen, with your balance sheets showing,” said Rupert as he picked a clipboard off his desk and removed a pen from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He began in the front row, leaning over each person, inspecting row 230 of the spreadsheet. It was far from the cursory glance I was hoping he’d perform. I counted twelve “Mississippis” for the first person and thirteen for the second.
“Do we balance?” he said far too giddily before he began each inspection.
“We balance!” he then exclaimed, as he found the person’s name on the sheet fastened to his clipboard and marked a check next to the name. Fist-bumps were exchanged between members of the Wharton crew as they rose from their front-row seats. Rupert made his way to the second row of seats, my row.
I looked to my left down the row of students. I had about sixty “Mississippis” left. The way his finger tapped the computer screen of each person gave me less and less hope that my inversion plan would work. Even worse, I began to wonder how I would explain to him what I’d done if he identified my ruse. For a second, I thought about switching the formula back, but then I heard it again—
“We balance!” he exclaimed to another associate. I didn’t need a miracle, but I did need some fortuitous intervention. I looked up to the heavens: Remember that time a couple weeks ago when I saw that pregnant woman on the Tube and gave her my seat? I know, technically, I didn’t actually get up, but I thought really hard about how good it would feel to give it to her, and isn’t it the thought that counts?
“Mister Keenan, do we balance?” said Rupert. He leaned over my shoulder. I could smell the mix of Acqua di Gio cologne and his morning coffee on his breath. “Would you mind increasing the brightness of your screen?” he said. I had dimmed it to one-fifteenth prior to his arrival and slowly increased the brightness to four-fifteenths. “One more notch up, please.” I went to one-third—that was as far as I would go. Rupert muttered to himself as he eyed my spreadsheet. I held my breath.
“Let’s see,” said Rupert. He leaned in closer over my left shoulder. I could hear him breathing now. “Mister Keenan, make sure in the future, you format such that all negative figures are in parens…can you please hit F2 on cell—”
An eruption of laughter from the class—this time, not at my expense. In the doorway stood my divine intervention.
“Diyor, glad you could join us,” said Rupert.
“I had personal issue this morning,” said Diyor, wearing the same suit he had worn the previous day and the same facial expression he’d had since the first day I met him. Diyor walked to his seat. “I can take the test now,” he said.
“Yes, well…I suppose I can make an exception,” said Rupert as he stood behind me watching Diyor power on his computer as if no other explanation was needed. This was my opening—I shut my laptop and began stacking papers on top of it. From the corner of my eye, I could see Rupert’s attention drawn back to me.
“Feels good to balance,” I said to the guy sitting in the seat next to me, just loud enough for Rupert to also hear me. I stood from my chair, the same way everyone prior to me had done after Rupert had informed them they had “balanced.” I turned and faced Rupert.
“Right,” said Rupert as he scanned the sheet on his clipboard, spotted my name, and marked a check next to it. The moment he walked to Diyor’s desk, I reopened my laptop, closed the Excel spreadsheet, dragged it into the desktop trash, then emptied the trash, eliminating any trace of the final document.
* * *
The Oxford English Dictionary doesn’t define “garbage goal,” but my junior hockey coach defined it as “a horseshit goal that counts the same as an end-to-end rush, ya fucks.” It’s not pretty, but it gets the job done. It was this rationale that I carried with me as I bolted from the building after I’d finished the final exam.
Training was over. Later that night, I’d be on a plane to Sweden engaging in one of life’s most notorious enterprises—trying to recapture something that no longer exists.
After grabbing a stale sandwich at one of the Pret a Manger restaurants that occupies every London street corner, I booked it down Westferry Road on my way home to pack. As I waited for traffic to pass, I spotted one of my fellow associates across the street—it was the guy I’d seen in the bathroom during the exam, the piss whisperer. He was one of the few people about to join full time who hadn’t interned at the bank, so I’d only met him in London. Standing a little over six feet tall, he wore a well-tailored suit, and he always seemed overly concerned about his hair—in short, he was like me, which explains why I’d spent most of training avoiding him, fearing he might be a better version of me.
The universal force that ensures you’re caught eyeing someone when you don’t want to be caught was in full effect. I quickly turned my head, removed my phone, and scrolled through old texts. The group on the sidewalk surrounding me began trekking across the street, so I moved with them.
“How’d it go?” said a voice as I reached the sidewalk. I looked up. It was him.
“Hey,” I said. “Jack, right?” He nodded. “Yeah, just glad it’s over. You balance?” I said.
“Not that bullshit,” said Jack. “The grundle trick. You try it?”
“Yeah, actually worked pretty well,” I said. The sun poked through the buildings as we continued down the street, its warmth washing over my body.
“What’d you think of training?” I said.
“Glad it’s over,” he said. “Just hoping I proved myself enough to get the Fisher account.” His comment lingered in the air.
“You’re joining the Power and Utilities group, right?” I said.
“My passion.” He flashed a smile. “Pretty limited options when you don’t intern. I took what I could get.”
The Fisher account—it was an American Psycho reference. Then it hit me: this was the guy who made the genius The Price is Right reference in the trivia game earlier that week.
“What you got on tap for dinner,” Jack asked.
“Dorsia’s,” I said. A hint of a grin emerged on his face. He did his best to conceal it, but I knew I had earned his respect.
“Tough reservation to get,” he said. “You start studying for these regulatory tests yet? I feel like I hear everyone talking about it like it’s no big deal, but the books are like five-hundred pages long.”
“I brought them with me—was gonna start studying on the flight home.” I shook my head. “But I know what you mean—it’s like everyone here is offended at how easy this stuff is.”
“Don’t get me started on those Wharton guys that sit in the front row,” Jack said. “Where you from?”
“New York City.”
“Manhattan?”
I nodded.
“You don’t act like it.” Maybe the best compliment I have ever received.
Jack stopped and looked at the street sign, then pointed at the Pret a Manger across the street. “Jesus, there’s one of those on every corner.” He turned around. “Did we bear right at that fork off Westferry?” He looked at me.
“Not sure. Don’t really recognize this street,” I said. I had no clue. I usually followed a group of associates home each day, making sure I was at least a half-block behind them to avoid agonizing conversations about financial statements.
“Fuck,” said Jack, removing his phone and opening up the Maps application. “I think we’re lost.”