So this Bloomberg story on suicidal coke addicts across the pond? Kind of a downer. And while it didn’t really illuminate much re: the similarities between trading and having a drug problem that we didn’t already know, or do anything but depress us, we have found ourselves a teachable moment.
At least one cocaine user at a financial firm was brazen enough to deal the drug from his desk. David Frith, a 28-year- old banker who worked at Barclays Plc’s office in Basingstoke, England, was convicted in 2007 of selling drugs from his desk and received a jail sentence of seven and a half years.
Police listened to Frith’s phone calls, which had been routinely recorded by the bank, and tracked his drug runners, according to a police spokesman. Barclays declined to comment on the incident. Frith’s Basingstoke-based solicitors, Talbot Walker LLP, declined to comment.
Barclays employees seriously considering making up the slack with a little biz on the side, you have been warned!
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 1:45PM
are hormone drugs okay?
-inquiring minds
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 1:46PM
guys at ubs deal drugs from their desk all the time. it's no big deal.
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 1:50PM
@2 gotta get paid somehow. Not everyone there gets to be in on the diamond smuggling gig
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 1:51PM
dont do drugs or you'll end up working on a chicken farm.
--Neill Junor
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 1:51PM
Great idea really. You have infrastructure (email, phone, interoffice mail) and clients (crack head frat boy finance types) all built in. All you gotta do is get the hook up and you're set.
Posted by CoveredLong , Oct 08, 2009 1:53PM
@2 - I wonder why that is...does anyone know why this happens at UBS?
P.S. The only reason these idiots are unemployed is because they heard there were lines at the unemployment office!
...I'll see my way out.
Posted by wcburrs87 , Oct 08, 2009 1:53PM
#5, Never get high on your own supply.
-Brooklyn IB
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 1:54PM
"The only reason these idiots are unemployed is because they heard there were lines at the unemployment office!"
huh?
Posted by NakedShort , Oct 08, 2009 1:54PM
Ayo for yayo
Walk around with yayo, all in my nasal
I must have been craze yo
That's some good coke
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 1:56PM
Joke Briefer, where art thou?
Posted by Tax Chick , Oct 08, 2009 1:57PM
@10
He's probably waiting for a joke.
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 1:58PM
I putz the money in da hole...and BOOM...a little baggie of nose candy comes back out, who'd a know it was a Barclays employee on da other side.
-CG
Posted by Anal_yst , Oct 08, 2009 1:58PM
guess he wasn't very good at his job.
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 2:03PM
@TaxChick -- 8. He didn't get it.
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 2:04PM
It bothers me that they continually refer to London as 'the City'
Posted by pfluger , Oct 08, 2009 2:10PM
@15:
They don't. "The city" refers to the financial district in London.
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 2:10PM
@14
I hope 8 was joking. Cl @ 5's joke was a pun. It's my understanding the Joke Briefer makes few appearances in regards to puns, but I could be wrong. The Joke Briefer is a bit like a skittish creature who must be coaxed and baited out with more than a bad pun.
-Head of JB Fan Club
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 2:11PM
I object!
-LK
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 2:12PM
that article made me depressed too. for my druggie days. fuckin nostalgia.
-big lar
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 2:13PM
I say, "Bollocks to you, sir!"
Nigel Cocktosin
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 2:13PM
Basingstoke is to London as Scranton is to NYC. Coked up traders make the story but this guy was more like a coked up Asst Branch Manager.
Posted by Meatbone9 , Oct 08, 2009 2:16PM
Huh, Bess was right with the "not feel good story of the year"...made me so sad I had to do a line of a assistance ass.
Posted by Sammy , Oct 08, 2009 2:18PM
Man, no wonder Nate's been blowing me off.
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 2:18PM
I'd kill for some blow right about now.
-KL
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 2:20PM
@22 same
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 2:20PM
I would kill Dennis Kneale right now for an 8 ball and 3fingers of JW Blue.
Posted by highlyconfident , Oct 08, 2009 2:20PM
Was that wrong? Should I not have done that? I tell you, I gotta plead ignorence on this thing, because if anyone had said anything to me at all when I first started here that that sort of thing is frowned upon . . . you know, cause I've worked in a lot of offices, and I tell you, people do that all the time.
Posted by CoveredLong , Oct 08, 2009 2:21PM
@17 - In all your puntificating you missed an opun opportunity....all you had to do was spell 'coaxed' like 'cokes'd'.
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 2:22PM
Joke Briefer here: I have just returned from a fine lunch where I had to stand in line for a bit and now I see that someone has called the Joke Line for assistance from the "JB".
After the talented Ms. Levin brought the thread to our attention in hope of quick wit and snappy patter from the "commentariat", a word your JB is fond of, it looks like Covered Long @6 started the mystery of humor here with the comment, "P.S. The only reason these idiots are unemployed is because they heard there were lines at the unemployment office!" Which caused a snort in some circles but @8 missed the volley and restated, " "The only reason these idiots are unemployed is because they heard there were lines at the unemployment office!" and then asked the interrogarory, "Huh?" in a way that Mr. Imus would if someone told him he was "live".
@8's plaintive call brings now forth some erudition on the humorous intent of @6 who used the classic "misinterpretative intent of a word (line)" to elicit brain chemical reactions that would result in a "snort, spit, chuckle, guffaw, squeal or knowing smile" as a result of the joke being defined in our brains as absurd and thus the humorous reaction is personally received by the reader. To wit:
"Lines" refers to, of course, the razored, furrowed derivatives of a small mound of cocaine, or "blow", "coke", "yayo", "charlie", "nose candy", "jack-up" , "white", "jelly beans" as well as the popular "tit lint".
The humor being that because "lines" were at the unemployment office, @6's bon mot revolved around the defamatory implications of youthful confusion of the meaning of "lines" (employment and coke) and the possibility that 28 year old bankers wouldn't know the difference. In restrospect, @6's humor is better in reflection if one rubs the gums of the humorous attempt for effect.
Sincerely,
The Joke Briefer
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 2:25PM
huh?
@8
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 2:25PM
I prefer the phrase "Bolivian Marching Powder."
LarKud
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 2:30PM
Joke Briefer,
You are the best.
-Joke Briefer fan.
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 2:30PM
Bravo JB!
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 2:31PM
Joak Briefer,
I don't get it.
@8
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 2:32PM
@29 I just made a teepee
-Cotton Briefer
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 2:36PM
Looks like Frith got his lines crossed.
When questioned by the po po Frith had no choice....he was line through his teeth.
Though I give him credit, he was as brave as a line.
Then he was just dead, line on his back.
- Toodles
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 2:37PM
Jeepers...Queefers...where dya get those Briefers...
Posted by CoveredLong , Oct 08, 2009 2:39PM
@29 - I just extended my trial.
-Legal Briefer
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 2:42PM
First, one must wash the taint.
-Blanuswalla Briefer
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 2:45PM
Queef Brief
That's nasty.
Posted by CoveredLong , Oct 08, 2009 2:47PM
@39 - Actually I have to do my job first.
-The Debriefer
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 2:52PM
@29 FTMFW!
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 3:10PM
Were these principal or agency transactions?
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 3:31PM
AIRPLANE GLUE, MICHELE LEE'S PANTY LINERS AND TWIZZLERS.
LD
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 4:14PM
@43, yeah that's one thing about Bloomberg reporting.
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 5:09PM
ay chico, get the yayo
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 6:35PM
@24, I got rifed from BofA today and laughed my ass off at that.
Posted by guest , Oct 08, 2009 7:43PM
jokebriefer- too long. didn't read.
Posted by Fixed Income , Oct 08, 2009 10:04PM
@21 nailed it. In 2007, Barclays didn't have Investment Banking or even Equities for that matter. It was just Fixed Income so any "bankers" there would have been the true retail branch types or cash management clowns that pitched loans, FX and bond deals and pretended to their moms and fat pitch book monkeys that they were bankers in the true sense. Not shocking that the Bloomberg reporter either misunderstood the idiot's actual responsibilites or embellished them beyond recognition. To a journalism major that has never worked in the business, everyone is either an investment banker or a trader when in fact most in the business are neither.
Oh and nice work as usual by the Joke Briefer.
- Fixed Income