William Keenan: you take my charger?
John Bukowski: uve asked me a million times. no
William Keenan: not the bberry one. My iphone charger
John Bukowski: still no
John Bukowski: possible INCOMINGGGGGGGGG
I pop my head above my cube, and seconds later, two pint-sized girls dressed in dark green Girl Scout garb emerge, berets propped on their heads and scarves tied loosely around their necks. After a brief conversation, they part ways, the smaller of the two heading to the far end of the cubes, and the taller one toward my end.
“Hi,” says the girl, hands behind her back. An American flag patch and a number of badges dot her vest. Her smile reveals a missing top tooth. “My name is Natalia, and I’m a member of Troop 3746. My troop and I hope you’ll support us and the Girl Scouts of America by buying some of the delicious cookies we’re selling today.”
“Who’s advising on the sale?” I ask, a question she outright ignores. “What are the flavors again?”
She hands me the piece of paper she’s holding, which displays the eleven flavors.
“Does your Dad work on the floor?” I ask as I scan the list. She nods. “What’s your name again?”
“Natalia Masters,” she says. “What’s yours?”
“Bill Keenan,” I say.
“Oh!” she says with a jump. “My dad knows you! I hear him yell your name at home a lot,” she says proudly.
“What’s your favorite flavor?” I ask. She leans in and points at the cookies set against the purple background on the sheet of paper.
“The Samoas—caramel plus coconut,” she says, eyeing me. “They’re the best.”
“I’ll take three boxes of Thin Mints.”
“Those are my dad’s favorite!” she exclaims.
“Actually, I want three Tagalongs,” I say.
I fill out the order sheet, and she’s on her way to the next cube.
John Bukowski: how’d you make out?
William Keenan: 3 tagalongs. You?
John Bukowski: got hosed. Baker’s dozen of samoas. No idea how I’m gonna unload ‘em
Shrewd move selling cookies the same day the summer interns start. The group staffer weaves through the cubes, wrangling up junior bankers to attend the weekly meeting in the main conference room on the forty-fourth floor.
“Let’s go, folks,” he announces. “Unless it’s a client deliverable this morning, you should be in that conference room.” He slowly snakes through the cubes of analysts and associates.
Normally, I wouldn’t go, choosing instead to dick around on my iPhone. But since someone took my charger and my phone is dead, I follow the herd of interns into the large, rectangular-shaped conference room.
On the perimeter of the room stand the juniors, interspersed with the interns, all of whom clutch notebooks under their arms. The full-time juniors, a group whose hollow eyes, shirts torn at the elbow, and slumped shoulders stand in stark contrast to the eager interns who ready their ballpoint pens in anticipation of the wisdom senior bankers from across the bank are about to impart. Within a month, half the interns won’t be carrying notebooks. And by the time they start full-time, most won’t even show up.
While attendance by junior bankers waxes and wanes throughout the year, senior-banker turnout is fairly predictable—those with deals recently announced show up to bask in praise and distribute “case studies” on their deals. Today’s turnout is unusually big because of the new interns.
“Chicago, can you hear us?” says one of the senior bankers into the speakerphone as he looks at the projector at the far end of the room, where a group of bankers in Chicago is displayed.
“Chicago’s on,” says a voice on the speakerphone, accompanied by a thumbs-up from someone displayed on the projector. Boston announces themselves too.
“Let’s get started,” says one of the seniors in the room. “Equities, want to kick things off?”
The equity market is ripping. Let’s push IPOs and secondaries.
“Folks from investment grade?” says the senior banker.
Debt markets are as strong as ever. Great time to refinance notes, reprice those term loans.
“Rates?”
Interest rates are at all-time lows. DB revised its house view of future rates down by fifty bps. The party ain’t ever stopping. Let’s get our clients levered to the hilt.
Blah, blah, blah.
An intern nods his head enthusiastically and jots something down in his notebook, as a senior banker reels off some jargon I’ve heard more times than I care to remember.
“Agile Minds Ask Questions,” reads the cover of the DB folder that another female intern holds in her hand and uses as a clipboard. I tried asking Masters a question once. “Figure it out,” he advised.
While interns scrawl copious notes, only pausing to turn to a fresh page in their notebooks, the full-time juniors stare absently with vacant eyes at nothing in particular—a disenchanted group, of which I’m a member.
Sitting at the large table are the MDs, directors, and a couple of gutsy VPs. There are six empty seats, and they’ll remain that way until promotions are announced.
Some MDs scroll through their BlackBerries, while others flip through the bullshit market-update decks from the capital markets teams. At some point, each MD will lean over and whisper something to the MD beside him, eliciting a smile and nod. All part of the dance.
Most MDs can be bucketed into one of two categories: the large ones, who steamrolled their way to corner offices and who now relish the ability to walk slowly down the hallways, a lethargic speed afforded to them based on their size and standing in the group. Then there are the small MDs who race around the office and whose unrelenting drive makes you wonder what happened to them in high school.
Christ, these guys know a shit ton, I remember thinking at my first meeting. And they do. After twenty years doing it, one would hope they have developed some expertise. But when I look around at the MDs now, I don’t see industry experts, finance gurus, and trusted advisors of some of the world’s biggest companies.
There’s Ethan, who, despite spending 90 percent of his day jawing on the phone, resorts to stealing my phone chargers—both of ’em—a guy who doesn’t have the patience to figure out how to renew his own passport, so he has someone else figure it out for him. Ethan seems to derive pleasure from finding fuckups in decks. Turning in a deck without faults somehow angers him. He’s happier when he has something to be angry about.
There’s Dick, who refuses to open Excel, despite it being the foundation of the analysis we present to companies to make key decisions. And Masters, who’s just a flat-out dickhead.
Maybe complacency is rampant in this place, maybe not, but there’s a complacency rampant in these seniors. They’re masters of outsourcing, skirting responsibility when it suits them. And the mindset funnels down. I’m as guilty of it as they are. Price chart? FactSet. Benchmarking? MAKS. Growth rates? BIS. Model? Analyst. Well, try, cry, then analyst.
The longer you’re here, the higher you climb, and the more resources you have at your disposal. But while I’m sure some of these guys enjoy their jobs, I know many are stuck. Their ability to perform the seemingly meaningless number-crunching exercises atrophies over time as they become more dependent on others and climb higher.
After market updates conclude, Dick knobs off all the MDs in the room who closed big deals, as the interns listen in awe. “Next year’s pipeline looks even stronger,” he says before the meeting adjourns. “Let’s get to work.”
Juniors funnel out of the room first, and as I wait for the bottleneck to subside, I see more congratulatory backslapping among MDs seated at the table.
“You get your BlackBerry to work?” whispers one intern to another as we return to our cubes.
“Yeah,” she responds holding it up. “Just got my first staffing email.”
“Nice. Anything cool?” asks the intern.
F1 keys will soon be popped. Excel shortcuts memorized.
I shove through the meandering interns and return to my desk, where my desk phone is ringing. I put on my headset.
“Go for Bill,” I say.
“May I speak with Mister William Keenan,” says the male voice.
“You got him.”
“Hi, Mister Keenan. My name is Jason, and I’m contacting you on behalf of your dedicated American Express team. I’m following up on some overdue charges on your corporate card. As a valued customer, you—”
“Jason,” I interrupt. “I’m actually about to head out. Can you give me a call on my cell later?”
“Absolutely, Mister Keenan. Ready for the number when you are.”
I remove the neon-green-highlighted sheet of contact info for MDs and read off Masters’s cell phone.
“Thank you very much, Mister Keenan. Is there a convenient time to call?”
“I’m in London, so how about first thing in the morning here, which I guess would be, say, 2 a.m. EST.”