“Got any good hashtags?” asks Steve as he stands by the glass window of the nearly empty forty-fourth floor, turning his phone from portrait to landscape mode. The bright orange sun emerges on the horizon over Long Island. With outstretched arms, Steve focuses his camera phone on the sunrise and snaps a pic.
“Wait to post it until this afternoon,” says Kwame from his cube amidst the perpetual chatter of his keyboard. “You’ll get more likes.”
“This one goes right to the wife, guys. Need evidence I’ve been at the office all night and not at Sapphire.” He snaps another pic, admires it, then pockets the phone and returns to Kwame’s cube, where I sit propped beside one of his monitors.
“Homestretch,” says Steve as he posts up behind Kwame’s chair and eyes the near-final version of the bake-off deck on Kwame’s computer. “How many times did Masters change the comp set?”
“Lost count,” says Kwame, hammering away on his keyboard as he conforms footnotes and ensures all slide titles are left-aligned perfectly.
“Went from six to eight to seven back to eight. Then we split the eight into tier-one and tier-two comps. Then scrapped that, went back to seven, then six—same six we started with,” I say.
“Sounds about right,” says Steve. “How we looking, Kwame?”
“Like ten minutes. Just need to go back through and re-paste a couple charts as pictures since labels got messed up.” Steve smiles at me, conveying equal parts relief and befuddlement. He has a way of communicating subtle thoughts without using words. Like the first time he asked me a substantive question in person and I stumbled through an incoherent response. He gave me a look like I was the type of person who appears like I should know more than I actually do. But he never made me feel badly about it. We always worked around it. Hence, Kwame.
“I’m going on a quick food run to Duane Reade,” says Steve. “You boys want anything? Beef jerky? 5-hour Energy? Red Bull? Sixty milligrams of Adderall?”
Steve returns ten minutes later with a plastic bag full of snacks, just as Kwame changes the file name of the bake-off deck from “Project Liberty bakeoff_v58” to “Project Liberty bakeoff_vF.” Steve takes one final look before giving Kwame the green light to PDF the final version of the deck and email it to the DB team.
“You’re a beast, Kwame. Now go the hell home and get some sleep.” Like most analysts, Kwame lives within spitting distance of the office. As he’s told me, it’s quicker for him to get to his apartment across the street from the forty-fourth floor than it is to get to some places within the actual Deutsche Bank building.
Kwame, with his shoelaces snaking the ground beside him, shuffles down the hall to the elevator, his suit jacket slung over his shoulder, his Oxford shirt untucked on one side.
Steve eyes a small stack of books—Den of Thieves, Liar’s Poker, The Art of War, and Barbarians at the Gate—in the adjacent cube. Like most things in banking, they’re there for optics—look about as read as the textbook I bought for Science B47: Cosmic Connections, a class I took pass/fall spring semester of senior year. “Can you imagine if people knew what corporate finance was really like?” says Steve.
“I feel like only a fiction writer could show this world, what really happens here,” I say.
“Don’t sell yourself short. These models you guys crank out, these decks…some of the best fiction there is.” Steve smiles. “This your first all-nighter?”
“First double all-nighter,” I say.
“You did a good job.”
“Kwame did most of the numbers,” I say, not to deflect praise but because it’s true.
“MAKS or a robot can do that stuff. Half the job for an associate is making sure phone calls are productive, everything is organized, and shit gets done…and the analyst doesn’t die—it’s about seventy percent of the job as a VP. And that’s harder than crunching any numbers.”
Despite the sleep deprivation, the absence of stress since finalizing the deck buoys my mood. “I’ll be honest, Steve. I had a mini-breakdown last night—couple tears involved.” It’s the first time I’ve admitted something like this to someone more senior than me at the bank.
“Just one?” asks Steve, looking at my sideways. “When I was an associate, we had a friggin’ designated conference room for crying—tucked away on the far side of the floor away from the MD offices.”
I shake my head and smile. “Any advice on how to get through banking?”
“Yeah, don’t do it. Get out now.”
“Must be something keeping you doing it,” I say.
Steve removes his iPhone from his pocket. “Absolutely. Three reasons,” he says before showing me a picture of him with one arm around a young-looking boy while the other hand cradles an infant bundled in a pink blanket. Got three big reasons I’m doing banking. Right there.”
“Third on the way?”
“Third reason is the mortgage I got on that house in the background,” he says. Steve eyes the picture of his two kids, smiles, then returns the phone to his pocket. “When I started as an analyst, I told myself I’m out in two years, since I had no reason to stay. And I was out after two—went to business school. Then I met a girl there. A year later, we’re married.”
“Pretty quick,” I say.
“Was starting to lose my hair, and I was punching way above my weight with Kristy. So graduated from business school with some debt. Figured I’d go back to banking after school for a year or so to figure things out—pay’s good, already knew how to do it. Then we did the kid thing right away and all of a sudden, I’m here playing slapdick with you and Kwame.”
“Speaking of which, last night…or maybe night before, forget, but I went to the bathroom at like 3:00 a.m. and heard someone in the handicapped stall playing slapdick with himself.”
Steve smiles. “I was a second-year analyst and was walking home after a brutal night—think it was actually an IPO bake-off too—there was this homeless couple who set up shop right at the end of Pine Street under this overhang and heated grate. Saw some movement as I approached them—real dark since it was like 4:00 a.m.—and as I walk by, I see they’re having sex. Weren’t even fazed when I dropped a couple bucks in the plastic cup they left out.”
“That’s horrifying,” I say.
“What’s horrifying is that it reminded me of how long it’d been since I got laid. Here I was some hotshot banker, and the only action I got was a weekly over-the-pants HJ at Sapphire on Saturday nights from some Siberian stripper who couldn’t string together a sentence in English.”
Our BlackBerries ding simultaneously. We dig into our pockets. “Fine with deck. Need ten copies printed. Deliver to my house,” says Steve, reading the email Masters sent to the team. He lowers his phone and looks at me. “Thank fuckin’ God.”
“We’re still waiting to get the custom cover printed, but should be done by this afternoon, then we’ll print and deliver to his place in Greenwich.”
“Appreciate it, bud. I fly out tonight. Believe Masters’s flight is early tomorrow, so just make sure the books are delivered tonight once the covers are ready.”
“You got it,” I say.
“Go get home and catch some Zs.”
As I walk down the hall around 7:30 a.m., nearly every MD is in his office, working the phones, generating more staffings and sleepless nights for the juniors. But for now, I’m heading home, fantasizing about a warm shower and creeping under my bed sheets, which haven’t been washed since I was home for Christmas.
* * *
“Bro, you moved on me,” says Alonzo when I return to the office and my new cube later that evening after a few hours of sleep. He spots me on his walk down the hall. Every few months, about a third of the junior bankers swap cubes in the bank’s attempt to ensure people get exposure to as many of their fellow bankers as possible.
My new spot is tucked deep in the back corner of one side of the forty-fourth floor. Not only are my days of subconsciously monitoring everyone’s bathroom duration over, but more importantly, neither of my monitors is visible to anyone on the floor. Plus, I no longer have to contend with the image of the dread-inducing staffing sheet tracking my every move. It’s a highly coveted cube, and quite frankly one that I don’t deserve, but so we bank on.
As I unpack the cardboard box filled with all my stuff, Alonzo scrolls through his electronic device.
“Who you like tonight in the game?” I say.
“Yanks on the money line,” says Alonzo as he tilts his device for me to sign. He checks the packages on his dolly. “Shit, I musta left the box on your old desk when I went to the bathroom. Lemme go grab it.” He makes a move, but I stop him.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll get it later. Don’t think it’s anything important,” I say.
“Deal toys?” he asks.
“Probably,” I say.
“Yo, what the hell are those things? It’s like every box I deliver here, people be asking me if I got their toys.”
“Just these stupid little things we buy ourselves after we finish a project.”
“Why wouldn’t you just pocket the dough instead of buying a toy?”
We bump fists, then I catch up on my emails as I hear Alonzo say, “Happy, happy Hump Day,” to an unreceptive sea of bankers before he and his dolly disappear from my new view.
My BlackBerry emits the low-battery warning beep. After plugging in my power strip, I dig through my cardboard box of belongings but can’t find my BlackBerry charger.
William Keenan: u snake my bberry charger?
John Bukowski: I tried to that one time but you marked it with those stupid pink dots and caught me. I’d have to be moron to try and steal it again
William Keenan: k. someone took it though
John Bukowski: wasn’t me…how’s new digs?
William Keenan: good, earned this spot with my relentless work ethic and now celebrating with Californication marathon. Swing by if you’d like to be part of viewing party
John Bukowski: bake-off done?
William Keenan: finished deck. Waiting for custom cover. Print tngt. Bake-off tmw
John Bukowski: still wearing your stupid DB industrials groups vest?
William Keenan: yes’um. Still wearing ur stupid barablu vest?
John Bukowski: si
William Keenan: would love to continue this conversation, but I gotta go do some investment banking
An email from the reprographics team alerts me that the bake-off decks, complete with the customer cover, are printed and bound and ready to be picked up on the forty-second floor. I race down the back staircase, pick them up, and flip the ten decks, ensuring everything has been printed correctly—coloring, tab dividers, table of contents, and so forth. All looks good.
Typically, junior bankers will use the DB courier service to deliver books to an MD’s home. After putting the decks into a box, we usually affix a piece of paper with instructions for the driver including the address of the destination and a note requesting the driver to call our cell to confirm delivery. At the bottom, we’ll typically put any additional instructions like: “DO NOT RING DOORBELL!!!!” or “PLEASE HAND DIRECTLY TO NIGHT DOORMAN.”
But this isn’t just another deck. With no room for error, decks like this need to be delivered directly by the junior banker. But I ain’t sitting in traffic on I-95 to and from Greenwich tonight.
He picks up after two rings. “What’s up, Kwame,” I say into my headset.
“Hey, sorry. I’ll be in the office in ten minutes,” he says through a yawn.
“No rush, man. Books are printed and flipped. In a box on my desk. Can you deliver them to Masters tonight?”
“Yeah.” Shit rolls downhill in a hurry in banking. MDs push it out at the summit and analysts wait at base camp with no hope of ascension.
“Thanks. You have his address, right? It’s in Greenwich. His flight is early tomorrow morning and could be rush-hour traffic so just want to make sure we don’t wait too late.”
“I got it. I’ll order the black car now.”
John Bukowski: before you leave today, I need a written explanation on your shoes
William Keenan: what’s wrong with them. They’re good
John Bukowski: you got them andy dufresne shoes
William Keenan: who dat?
John Bukowski: are you insane? Unreal Shawshank redemptions reference out of me
William Keenan: joke was too premeditated anyway. Saw you make a note of it at your desk earlier today
John Bukowski: nevertheless, it’s good movie and good reference
William Keenan: never saw it. Worth me watching?
John Bukowski: yes
My eyes instinctively track over to my email after I hang up my headset—no new emails. It’s 6:37 p.m. A spurt of dopamine courses through me as I consider the prospect of leaving work before 7:00 p.m. and the possibility of not eating a Seamless dinner at my desk for the first weeknight since I can remember.
No need to duck out the back stairway, walk down to the forty-third floor, then elevator it to the lobby. Leaving for the day at this time is so inconceivable, I can exit the normal way—I’ll be the junior heading to the lobby to get his dinner from the Seamless guy or going to the gym for a quick workout.
Exiting 60 Wall Street, I fake a phone call to avoid talking with an associate who joined with me and whose name I forgot. With a lowered head and my hands deep in my pockets, I book it west to William Street, then north until I hit Maiden Lane, at which point I finally raise my head and check my phone: 6:52 p.m. The evening foot-traffic in the financial district is humming. In the glow of the enchanting metropolitan twilight, a flurry of women in yoga pants carrying Whole Foods grocery bags and men clad in a variety of suits, from custom-made to Men’s Wearhouse, churn through the city streets. Everyone walks with purpose, which serves only to highlight that my purpose is confined to the role I play (and fake) on the forty-fourth floor. It’s the same trap I walked into when I played hockey and allowed the game to define and dictate who I was and how I felt on a minute-to-minute basis.
I check my BlackBerry—still no emails.
I have no idea what to do with myself, so I watch Shawshank Redemption. It brings me to tears.
Then I order the same shit I would’ve ordered if I was at work and am mildly pleased with myself when I confirm the $24.89 order.
* * *
“Books delivered—left on front porch,” reads the email from Kwame to me later that night. After enjoying a rare weeknight on my couch, dividing my time equally between Seinfeld reruns and not “liking” Instagram pictures that I like, I get to bed early.
After a frantic few days of stress-inducing mornings, afternoons, nights, and back into mornings that can wreak havoc even on superlative hairlines of individuals like myself, I close my eyes and feel that sense of accomplishment that follows any difficult period of time.
When my bladder wakes me at 3:36 a.m., my left arm reaches instinctively to my nightstand to grab my BlackBerry. I stumble, bleary-eyed, to my bathroom. As I take aim at the bowl in the darkness, I see the familiar red light blinking. I enter the password, incorrectly at first. The second attempt unlocks the phone just as I reach down to flush. “Twelve new emails” —but that’s not what scares me. It’s “eleven missed calls” that terrifies me. I check the caller ID: four from Masters, four from Steve, three from Kwame.
I return to the email inbox on my phone and look at Masters’s latest email. “Where the hell are books???” Then Kwame’s email to me: “Call me ASAP! I don’t know what happened. I left books on porch.” Then I see Masters’s first email: “Why did you deliver a box of deal toys to me?”
My boxers are around my ankles when I realize how fucked I am.