Damn, It Feels Good To Be a Banker

by Leveraged Sellout

  “Is it the jet-setting lifestyle?”

  —That’s a small part.

  “Is it the opportunity to work on complex problems in a stimulating environment surrounded by peers who push your boundaries intellectually?”

  —Somewhat.

  And, the inevitable dose of naiveté, of course: “Is it the money?”

  —Hardly. How shameful for you to even bring that up.

  So then, what is the best part about working in finance? If Bankers aren’t overly concerned with the bling, the glam, or the science, what is it? What, in the end, is the aspect that makes it all so worthwhile?

  That aspect is, indisputably, the kids.

  That’s right—the kids. Bankers donate to charities and foundations across the board, from curing multiple sclerosis to saving the environment to developing the $100 laptop, but more so than any other cause, they make sure to help out the kids.

  And because of the way Bankers tend to organize their charitable donations, what merits the cost is, quite appropriately: the benefit.

  Let me explain.

  I once went with my MD to a benefit where he was on the board of a youth foundation and watched him buy a hideous $50,000 painting in a live auction. The painting was done by a graduate of the youth center and can be summed up as Banksy meets thirteen years of heroin addiction meets fourth-grade special-ed watercoloring. But my MD didn’t even bat an eye when the bidding started. He bought that painting for $50k, took it home, and it stayed in his garage until his eighteen-year-old son put it up on the wall of his dorm next to his “Beer: Rounding Out the Hourglass Since 1886” poster. And why did he buy it? Because it was the right thing to do.

  Another time, some of us were at a benefit for leukemia, and the little cancerous kids came around asking for people to sponsor them by buying $100 gold ribbons. When this happened, did we make our fingers into cross signs and shun the genetically unsound, shielding ourselves from their malignant afflictions? No, we all bought gold ribbons, and we wore them proudly on our lapels. Yes, we were a little nervous the pins might damage our fabric, but it still felt good to help the cause.

  Bankers even go the extra mile for the kids. I’ve recently become a member of the board of a nonprofit started by me and my peers that helps youths in Africa somehow or the other. Every three months, I dedicate two hours to organizing a benefit that brings together young professionals from all over the city for a night of fun, dancing, and, most important, lifesaving. Sure, being on said board might help with B-school applications and, sure, girls generally tend to come wearing dresses that look more like onesies (hot!), but that’s just fringe. It’s not the sloppy titties and the remarkably easy hookups that fill me with joy, it’s that overwhelming communal feeling of “We’re doing everything within our power to make a difference.” And that’s unbeatable.

  You see, in life you can try to better things by joining the Peace Corps or volunteering at a hospital or making some other sort of Bowdoin College–style individualized gesture, or you can get into finance and be part of a movement. I recently read that for every $10k collected at a proper benefit, $1 ends up going to charity. That’s not bad at all considering the high cost of decent caterers, cover bands, Grey Goose, and Sotheby’s auctioneers. That one dollar is like cereal and powdered milk for a month for a small village. Hey kiva.org, kinda lookin’ like shit now, huh?

  But the best for me is that sometimes, when I’m in a car home, I’ll have this recurring work-induced hallucination/reverie. In my vision, I see a little orphaned tribal boy in a desolate community. But my boy’s got spirit in him, and he’s clawing to save his last bit of protease inhibitors before they’re ripped away by a gangster with an AK-47. Then, empty-handed, the little boy turns and stares at me with big, pleading eyes.

  I reach out in my dream and touch the boy on the shoulder with a firm, paternal grip. His eyes are no longer pleading; they’re now hopeful, waiting for me to rescue him from his condition. At that point, I say to him, encouragingly: “Don’t worry, Dikembe, breakfast’s on Blackstone.”

  And that’s the best part about working in finance.

  FACT #15

  Every little deal I do is magic.

  Music

  WITHOUT QUESTION, BANKER music is the best music. The sound we appreciate is the kind that touches your soul, moves your feet, and either evokes profound thought or provides a cool dulling sensation—whichever is appropriate at the time. It is the music that is able to capture a movement, mentality, and culture and preserve them indefinitely, wrapped up in 4/4 time. Like the Bankers Whol listen to it, it’s raw.

  Banker music is the exact opposite of everything pretentious, faux, and “artistic” in the music industry. It is not “abstract,” it is not “edgy,” it is not “hubristic,” and it is certainly not “independent.” Banker music is like the companies we deal with: dedicated to generating profits.

  Our iPods are filled with tracks that reflect our common goals and sensibilities. Bankers do not do “everything in moderation.” We do “everything in excess.” And we pump songs throughout the day that echo our core values.

  Underground Hip-Hop

  I have a “Banking” playlist that I listen to throughout the day. I had to play with it for a few months before finally getting it perfect, but one day, all the pieces and genres fell together in what was a true “soundtrack for my life.”

  I woke up to Notorious B.I.G.’s “Juicy.” “Fuck all you hos,” he started casually, and a steady snare set the cadence as I threw off the covers. Unlike Biggie, who sold drugs in the ghetto before finding rap, I always knew I was going to be a Banker. But we’re not that different, he and I, and as his deep grumble continued, it became my intro instead of his:

  “This life is dedicated to all the professors who gave me my thesis award. To all the people who interviewed me and wined and dined me until I accepted my offer when I was just trying to make sure I got the best comp so I could feed my prestige. And all the Bankaz without struggle. You know what I’m sayin’?”

  “It’s all good, baby baby.” We paused before the beat dropped, and I mouthed the lyrics to the verse along with him.

  “It was all a dream…I used to watch Squawk Box as a teen / Goldman Sachs and Blackstone up in the limousine…”

  “Schwarzman’s picture on my wall!” I said out loud. Big Poppa and I shared a moment, celebrating ambition.

  It was a regular Monday, and the hip-hop built my excitement as I got ready for the work week. The symbolism was subtle and unpronounced but powerful.

  In the bathroom, “Money, Cash, Hoes” blared as I scraped the multiple, pulsating blades of a Mach 3 Fusion over my face. The melodic whistle of “Big Pimpin’” accompanied my buttoning up a pink, checkered custom-tailored shirt and tucking it into my black pants. Pulling on my loafers, I hummed along with the stereo, subconsciously modifying the song’s chorus to be: “Mo money, fewer problems.”

  I slung a messenger bag over my shoulder, grabbed my iPod out of its dock, and stuffed my ears with its earbuds. As I picked up my Wall Street Journal on the way out of my building, I saw an ink sketch of 50 Cent in a baseball cap above an article about Glacéau’s board of directors. Waddup, 50! I thought, and suddenly the connection between hip-hop and finance was not so cryptic.

  Bankers really are “true heads” that appreciate underground hip-hop from the likes of Biggie, Jay-Z, Nelly, and Ludacris. Rappers have “whips,” and Bankers have “black cars.” Rhyme slayers wear Sean John and deal slayers wear Turnbull & Asser. Which came first: Westside connection or Buyside connection? Who knows. In the end, we’re all just straight thugs who end up having to get dirty for “the paper.”

  The rap had made me feel particularly “street,” and so I rode the subway. As I read my skillfully folded-up newspaper to the sound of “It’s All About the Benjamins,” a mass of people encroached on my personal space. It wasn’t a comfortable “look over my shoulder to inspect analysis” infringement but a painfu
l “I have to look at your $15 jacket up close” offense. I finally emerged, free.

  My steps in sync with the bass drum, I walked along the Financial District’s streets to a slow, powerful beat and high-pitched violin. I reached my building and got swept into a line of people breezing through the spiral doors. Making it through, I was welcomed by the taste of crisp, oxygenated air and the chorus of none other than “Gangsta’s Paradise.”

  Well played, Coolio, I thought, slapping my ID down on the sensor in time with a high hat.

  For the rest of the morning and early afternoon, I transitioned to pop. The music market is fairly efficient, and unlike the stock market, hunting for undervalued bands has only marginal returns. There are no hidden John Mayers or U2s. No Dave Matthews is buried below undervalued physical assets. As such, pop music is the only case where Bankers trust the majority.

  Pop Music

  After an hour or so, I got up to take a chart over to Word Processing. I left my iPod behind, and I only had my mental stereo system as I walked by the various people in the office.

  Meredith, a Banker Chick, was wearing pink headphones and trying not to chair-dance as she simultaneously browsed fashion sites and jammed on a spreadsheet. I passed, and she deftly alt-tabbed away Women’s Wear Daily in favor of a 10-K, but her head still bobbed back and forth happily as she lip-synced Madonna: “Material, material!” In my mind, I first heard “Baby Got Back,” but it was quickly replaced by Queen’s more appropriate “Fat Bottomed Girls.”

  My Associate had a look of strain and discomfort on his face as he talked into his headset. In his free ear, an earbud was connected to his iPod, and I imagined that he was being soothed by the likes of Kelly Clarkson, Michelle Branch, or Natasha Bedingfield—he’s that kind of guy. All three of these women have created epic Banker tracks, but not without the aid of a techno remix.

  I rode the elevator with Ted, a less-than-bright Analyst with some identity issues. He had started reading Pitchfork Media a month or so ago and now fancied himself to be on the bleeding edge of indie rock music. “You heard the new Bloc Party album?” he asked me, proud and eager to showcase his hipness.

  I didn’t even acknowledge his existence. This was another one of his “finds” Ted would office DJ until someone came by and pulled his wrinkle-free Brooks Brothers shirt over his head as if they were in an office hockey game. Real Bankers don’t follow his Third-Tier music, because, like Ted, it definitely doesn’t belong here.

  I finally made it to Word Processing, and Tania had on huge, Bose noise-canceling-style jug headphones. She was entranced, her spirit suffocated by minutiae. You have to be at some advanced stage of insanity to manage that job, and I wondered what tortured brand of music she was listening to. Deathrock? Emo? A capella?

  After passing off the chart, I got back to my desk and, as a sardonic tribute to her, Justin Timberlake’s “Cry Me a River” came on.

  Eighties Music

  The day progressed without event, and in the afternoon, I did some modeling in Excel while listening to the most consummate Banker music in existence: eighties. I wish I had been a year or two older back in the eighties, just when young professionals were gaining buying power and affluence; I could have shown those guys a thing or two about rolling hard. But now, Bankers are even better off, and eighties music still facilitates our celebration of indulgence.

  Running my thumb across the iPod’s wheel, I became aware that the very names of eighties bands screamed of number crunching: the Cure, the Fixx, a-ha, Extreme, and, somehow, even Rick Springfield. I worked at a blinding pace and dipped back briefly ten more years in musical history to feel like a digital version of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.” Another Analyst walked by and spotted me using a shortcut key he didn’t know. “Show me show me show me how you do that trick,” his awestruck eyes sang. Was there an eighties song titled “Fuck you, no!” I wondered?

  I was using the Capital Asset Pricing Model to value companies, and I similarly defined the Banker Song Assessment Model for music.

  The model has four variables:

  Melody (M): To be a true Banker song, a minimum of thirty people at a party must be able to sing along to the tune at the same time, and a minimum of fifty others must be able to mouth the lyrics while the song plays.

  Scoring: The melody variable is assigned a number from 0 to 5 based on how many days after one hears the song that it is still stuck in one’s head. A score of 5 takes about a month. If the melody is forgotten the same day, the entire BSAM score drops to 0 and there is no way the song could be a hit.

  Lyrics (L): As heady, erudite listeners, the lyrics in Banker music are crucial, and this variable is weighted heavily as a result.

  Scoring: For a given song, L is calculated by counting the number of occurrences of words from the following set: bling, baby, love, prayer, ice (not followed by water), bitch (all conjugations), South, umbrella, and magic.

  Rhythm (CCR): Bankers need to be able to get “crunk” to their music. CCR, the coefficient of crunkness, is assigned based on how crazy one can get to a given song. CCR is not dependent on the beats per minute of a song or how “urban” the rhythm is; those are irrelevant.

  Scoring: Like M, the coefficient of crunkness must be observed. For the test, a set of Bankers is studied. Each is given ten shots of SoCo and lime and an unopened can of beer to hold in his hands while he listens to the song in a padded room. After the song has played, the can is opened, and the trajectory of the explosion is measured. The distances are averaged across all test subjects for a given song, and the results of the test are stored in a reference table.

  Duration (D): Bankers don’t have time to sit around waiting five minutes for a chorus. “Bohemian Rhapsody” is the only exception and is given a fractional score to inflate its score even further.

  I ate dinner listening to “If I Ruled the World” by Nas, my mind conveniently removing the conditional tense from the lyrics. Afterward, I cranked on a pitch book with a couple other Analysts and an Associate. Most of the VPs and MDs had cleared out of the office, leaving us together in the bullpen. We’re alone now, and music of all different genres blared out of someone’s speakers, encouraging us along.

  “Save Tonight” was followed by Green Day’s “Basket Case.” Ted’s eyes rolled back in his head as he formatted a pie chart, affectionately whispering the words to “I Wanna Be Sedated.” Matchbox Twenty told us the time at “3 a.m.,” and we finally e-mailed a file off to our MD.

  It seemed unlikely he’d respond before morning, and a heady wave of conquest crashed over the group. Some clever person cued up “We Are the Champions.” Fists were in the air and Meredith was head-banging and playing air guitar on a table when our MD called back five minutes later, disappointed: some numbers didn’t “foot.”

  Fucking Footloose soundtrack, I thought.

  Hearing my MD’s angry voice, I couldn’t help but imagine him lying in bed with his Deal Trophy wife, “Stacy’s Mom,” but there was no time to consider her; we were screwed.

  “Shattered Dreams” actually did not play and neither did “Hot in Herre,” because there was nothing in the air except everyone else’s worry. I wasn’t overly concerned, and we all pored over the figures, trying to pinpoint the problem. My Associate flipped out and walked into the hallway, singing to himself therapeutically.

  After forty-five minutes, I spotted the error nestled deep inside a formula on the fifteenth tab of a huge model. Sick. I didn’t make a huge deal of it but sent off a quick note to my Associate, CCing our MD. “‘Since U Been Gone,’” I started the e-mail, blowing up my Associate’s spot. “I found the issue.”

  I had queued up “You’re the Best” from The Karate Kid right after I noticed the bug, and as I victoriously clicked “Send,” it reached the hook. I nearly crane-kicked the monitor.

  It was now 4:30 a.m., and the workday was over. I headed out into our version of dusk and grabbed a car.

  “Take Me Home Tonight!” Eddie Money bel
ted through the earphones I jammed into the driver’s ear. His English struggled, but he understood.

  The twenty-hour playlist ran its course as I peeled off my loafers and collapsed onto the bed. Right before I shut it off, it looped, and “Juicy” came back on.

  I listened to the first few words again and looked back for a second on a rather regular day in Banking. It was all a dream, and now I’m livin’ it.

  * * *

  INSIDER INFO WITH EMINEH

  I’m part Banker, part freestyle battle rapper

  Wrote this on my BlackBerry while I was sleeping on the crapper

  You know I never leave the house unless I’m looking rather dapper.

  ’Cause I’m the illest MC from Greenwich, CT

  A six-figga jigga, and I’m only twenty-three.

  Spend all my money on slick clothes and blow

  Go ahead, I dare you to try to discount these lyrical flows.

  Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Device…

  This e-mail communication is privileged, confidential, or otherwise protected by disclosure and is intended only for the individuals or entities named above and any others who have been specifically authorized to receive it…

  * * *

  FACT #16

  Back that cash up.

  Dance

  ALONG WITH MUSIC, dance is another way Bankers demonstrate that, in addition to having society’s strongest left brains, our right brains trump everyone else’s whenever we deign to use them.

  At a certain level, Banker dancing is similar to traditional dancing: it’s entertaining, primarily performed when intoxicated, and serves to attract the opposite sex. But like everything we do, our dancing is sculpted to maximize utility, so our moves are much more robust and efficient than any normal two-step.