Last week, RBS’s Stamford trading floor lost power for about ten minutes. Many wondered what was going on, and with no official word from the bank, imaginations ran wild. Had someone kicked over some crucial cords? Was RBS going out of business? As is our wont, we printed a rumor from the inside about what had happened, a rumor which, in fact, turned out to be true. Someone had clogged a toilet on 7th floor and it leaked into a communications closet on 6th floor (trading). Before I get into what senior management’s reaction was to that story, let’s take a few moments to backtrack and offer a little color on how we got to this place.
Last April (of ’09), we wrote about a food eating challenge taken up by a RBS Greenwich Capital analyst, who endeavored to consume 40 vending machine items in less than an hour, with $400 at stake. He ended up puking with moments to go, and couldn’t find it in himself to rally. This event was attended by employees from top to bottom, including those much more senior than the analyst in question. We chronicled the contest, as we often do. About 10 minutes after our story went up, we were informed, “That kid just left the head of North America global banking’s office (hi Mike!) and was told to go home.” To that end, we were also told that RBS was fairly bent out of shape about the story appearing in the press, and while “there have always been plenty of those challenges here before, that was the first time it got out like that, and it never mattered when times were good. They’re not happy with you.” At this point I’d like to throw out some questions– did we organize the event? Did we hold a gun to this kid’s head and say ‘shove these vending machine items in your mouth as quickly as possible or I shoot’? Don’t answer yet, just marinate on those points and and we’ll revisit them in a bit.
In December, we mentioned the firm’s holiday party, which, given its manifold success, essentially consisted of rationed bags of generic-brand chips (one per group). The information was passed on to us by a fairly level-headed individual, one not prone to exaggeration, simply interested in sharing the truth. People were upset about it– needed to laugh to cope with the pain!
In February, we wrote about a MD who’d been fired on account of the fact that he was embezzling money from the company, which left a bad taste in many a staff member’s mouth. Because we occasionally like to exercise caution, we got this story confirmed, by RBS, before printing it. Still, there were some people who were not happy about the new shit coming to light. RBS had had enough. The aggression would not stand! A thinking man might reflect on the situation and realize that the anger at Dealbreaker was a tad misdirected, but please! We are talking about RBS here, where there is no place for rationale thought.
Later that month, we waxed poetic on the firm’s kick-ass new building. Were we the ones who sanctimoniously wondered if anyone inhabiting the palace on I-95 should feel guilty about the fact that despite having 84 percent of its ass owned by the British government and being the recipient of a massive taxpayer bailout, the bank had shelled out the money to build one of the most enormous trading floor in the world, where employees needn’t leave headquarters to grab a massage, because they’re provided on-site? Were we the ones who asked if the company ever consider “canceling the move in light of the bank’s problems,”? Were we the ones who compared RBS TO AIG? No, those honors go to the Gray Lady.
And over the course of the entire year, we’ve written a fair amount about the bank’s method of compensating its employees (which at RBSGC includes base salaries for over two years, no bonus since March 2008 (for calendar 2007) and the next bonus coming…this June. It’s unclear at this time if those will involve any cash, or simply a bunch of that sweet RBS debt). This information has been confirmed by many other outlets by this point, which some of whom are helpfully pointing out will lead to a “mini exodus” from the bank, as people have been planning to get the hell out of there once they get paid. I believe we’ve also mentioned the rampant ship-jumping of employees to another shop down the road, where every day isn’t a trip to idiot island, and it’s not necessary to fantasize about life that doesn’t so closely resemble Hell.
And finally, we come back to the toilet clogging incident! I’ve been informed by many an irate employee this morning that the reaction by management to the leaking (you like that?) of the story was to officially ban Dealbreaker. Which, in the minds of the the Queen’s bitches, is genius! We can’t turn a profit to save our lives, the Queen’s got a shiv up our asses, we haven’t paid our employees jack in years, which has resulted in at least one of them simply helping himself to a bonus, we make Citi look good, and at this point we’re literally up to our ears in shit. So, what then? Oh, oh wait, we’ve got it! We’ll ban our people from reading a completely non-threatening website that merely tells the truth (most of the time). We don’t want to, of course, because that place does have its charms. Pretty nifty with the Photoshop. Tells a great dick joke, and you know we love those. Etc. But it’s got to be done. Because, other than the stories appearing on this corner of the internet, things have been going swimmingly for us. Yes, THIS is the thing that will ruin our reputation, not the incredibly impressive ass-bleeding, or the “damaging losses,” or the amateur hour embezzlement, or the headlines like, “RBS Alone Among U.K. Rivals in Posting Quarterly Loss.” No, no, it’s THIS, this insidious Dealbreaker and that awful Bess Levin.
Okay. Now that I’ve regained my composure I’m going to give you an opportunity to think about how ridiculous this makes you look. Who do you want to emulate? The institutions that know how to make money and by no coincidence allow their employees to get on this shit, like Goldman and JPMorgan and the hedge funds down the road? Or do you want to proudly join the school of thought employed by the dearly departed Bear Stearns and the cat food eaters at Wachovia? We’re taking care of your employees in ways you can’t. Unblock us now and it’ll be water off a duck’s back.
If you don’t I’ll have no choice but to state the obvious, which is: two can play at this game. And to tell my darlings with whom a select few have attempted to cut off our communication: send us everything; all of the great RBS dirt you can. And do it with the kind of intelligence that is not rewarded at said firm, i.e., make sure it doesn’t get your ass fired or hanged-drawn-and-quartered. The good (and not so good) people of RBS won’t be able to read it all from their desks in the Pleasuredome, but everyone else will. Best story wins an extra-large bag of name-brand chips (your choice) for this year’s Christmas extravaganza, courtesy of your friends right here at DealBreaker.
RBS is the short bus of financial services.
Zing!
RBS is the short bus of short busses.
You get’em Bess!
Personally, I find you funny as shit. And those RBS guys really are a bunch of dick wads. But do me a favor and knock it off with the Fergie jokes. OK? Stop by for some bangers and mash if you are ever in town.
Queen E.
John Thomas Financial > RBS
The tags are the best part of this story…
@Bess, God help any man that scourns you. This was great. I was going to bitch about it being so long, but I enjoyed every minute.
Single fish on RBS
Lordy, what does that make Mizuho?
@7 the post is great. the tags always knock it out of the park.
You are wankers, the lot of you.
@8 no man would ever scorn BL. and yeah, this was great.
@9 what does that mean? joke briefer, please.
you should’ve posted this in slideshow form.
-the blodge
@14 Scottish bathroom humour @9
Marinade? Get an editor.
RBS is the Gary Coleman of Gangster Rappers
@11 or knock it into the electrical room one floor below
@1 and @18 have a good game started.
RBS is the ___________ of ___________.
Ready, go.
Rumor has it Dick Fuld was in the building interviewing for a trading assistant position and took a gorilla sized dump in the bathroom resulting in the plumbing mishap
RBS is the Kouwe of financial bloggers.
RBS is the short service of financial buses.
RBS is the Royal Bank of Scotland
@21 was it the result of mostly sticks and twigs in the fecal matter that caused the blockage?
for the buyside RBS stands for Really Bad service
Tim Geithner is the RBS of Treasury Secretaries
Aye, read DB and you may view the Firm through a different lense. Ban Bess, and you’ll feel reinvigorated… at least a while. And JO&Cing in your beds, many years from now, would you be willin’ to trade ALL the wanks, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our administrators that they may take Bess away, but they’ll never take…OUR VENDING MACHINE CONTESTS!
RBS is the black swimmer in the olympics.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704717004575268912714114950.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_5
-#18
RBS are the 18th, 2nd, and 19th letters in the alphabet.
Respectively.
Whats all this green shit on my other monitor?
-Confused in Florida
Shut the fuck up, RBS.
Did junior year of college in Edinburgh. First experience w RBS: walking into the mens room of a pub across from their headquarters and finding a 40-ish banker (pinstriped Savile Row suit and all) barfing red wine into the urinal. This was at lunchtime… clearly the quality of management has not improved.
CFA > MBA < RBS?
@31 – Kouwe ate a bunch of peas and you’ve got one of his stories up?
Bess Bravo! Amazingly eloquent American Beauty reference in there…
“fantasize about life that doesn’t so closely resemble Hell.”
You never disappoint girl!
Dear God, I am glad Bess is not mad at me. Although, the idea of being scolded by her is strangely appealing.
@35 That might be it. Also, I thought the major exchanges were working to fix this kind of nonsense from happening again.
NS – no, no. They’re only looking to fix / congressionally investigate DOWN moves. Unwarranted and possibly algorithm-driven UP moves are perfectly fine. It’s damn near policy. Anyone making money on anything falling in value is anti-American.
RBS is the HIV on Magic Johnson’s Dick.
-18
“BTW most of the people I know from RBS are great!”
=
“Some of my best friends are RBS employees. I love the feel of their hair, it’s like sheep’s wool!”
@40 too soon.
Wait he is still alive???
Awesome, Bess.
well two-thirds of it is B.S.
RBS is the Corky of the Thachers.
See you guys in hell.
Dealbreaker is banned at Morgan Stanley as well…
anyone with bloomberg can get around the ban by typing in dealbreaker, completely frivolous ban, mgt you dont think anyone has bloomberg at your shit company?
I think Dealbreaker should ice management at RBS.
300+ video links showing how to get around web site proxies at work/school
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=how+to+get+around+proxies&aq=0m
Confirming that DB was recently unbanned at MS…
a small victory.
@40 have you seen magic johnson lately? he’s thriving…more than ever!
either he’s lying, the HIV doesn’t exist, or maybe he’s NOT REALLY BLACK
- kid who’s had way tooo many diet mountian dews today
DB was recently unbanned at MS…
@51 you are going to get Mountain Dew Mouth….an Appalachian affliction
@50 I just confirmed that you are not a liar! I love you and James Gorman.
Bazinga!
Awesome.
Does anyone know if UBS still sucks, though?
@51, pussy. Drink the regular kind, none of this diet shit. You are fat anyways.
I don’t do too much bloggin’. I just run the town. I don’t do too much joggin’.
Three cheers for Gorman! Old JP can rest easy in his grave now knowing that the entire former House of Morgan has access to the best, funniest source of info on the web.
RBS wears sex panther
@57 ouch-town population me! I just iced myself…
RBS is no Raymond James.
So shit literally could have hit the fan?
RBS puts the plagiarism addiction in Zachary Kouwe.
@37 BL has scolded me (and it was strangely appealing)
RBS is the Royal Ballet School
you bite your tongue! Zachary is a brave and a decent man!
RBS is the Betamax of video cassette recorders.
2 Kouwes 1 RBS
tubkouwe
goatrbse
RBS is to pigfucking as Goldman Sachs is to moral bankruptcy.
SNL Book Club title of the month:
“How to Shoot Fhyself in the Foot, Again, With a Larger Caliber Weapon” By RBS, with extended edition/extra chapter “Public Relations and Techniques for Effectively Dealing with the Media”
@24
‘RBS is the Royal Bank of Scotland’
my first l-o-l of the day here at s[l]tate street.
I’m in love with Bess Levin….true story
@71 – my thoughts EXACTLY.
Wait . . . what?
RBS is the New Orlean’s oysters of oysters
@51 why would he lie about something like that. HIV doesnt exactly help out with the ladies.
- guy who doesn’t have HIV but knows it most certainly does not help with the ladies
I was merely laying out options…wasn’t advocating that he was lying, moreso the third aforementioned scenario
-Zach Kouwe’s assistant
@77 he could always guilt trip them
@37 – I once was scorned by Bess, just to see how it feels
@77
He slammed what, 5,000 women in 15-20 years? That’s like a new broad every night, the man was prolly resorting to literally beating em away with a stick by that point, what better way to get some peace & quiet than the hiv?
hell yes!
Bess, scold ME, now! Wait, don’t, I’m scared. No, wait, ok, scold me.
@47 Pretty much everyone at rbs has bloomberg (at least in stam), even the secretaries. They take cost control about as seriously as we take kouwe
Bess > CFA > MBA > UBS > RBS
@29 – I assume the 58% of hispanic children in the US who cannot swim are second generation…
Bess, you the Besst!!
Everyone should relax…we here at GS are advising Nails Investments on their anticipated acquisition of RBS.
Once the merger of equals is complete Lenny is planning on upgrading all toilets to the MLB standard of 8.9 LPF.
Bess—>Have my kids (interracial babies are cute)
-Black guy who can sling it
Somebody needs to identify exactly who at RBS made the ban DB call, so Bess can send him a beautifully gift-boxed plunger. Maybe with plunger in hand, he’ll be able figure out where he ought to be directing his anger over this little tempest in a potty.
What a bunch of poofs.
RBS is 3rd in Mortgaged Backed Securities of Q1 League Tables
ahm naw pleesed wi yoos, get yersel back in yer rotten caves, yoos dogs frem hell so ye are.
whars me deep fried mars bar en haggis sarnie? Thievin dealbreaker, ye started unrest among me ranks en we had tae bring in the pipers tae calm them doon wi some highland music, so we did.
- Braveheart of RBS (nae en Anglish bank, we’re better then tha, so we are.)
(breaks into song) “oh flower o Scotland, dee da dee da etc, tae send them homeward, de daa de daa, King Edwards Army…de daa de daa…etc”
@71 win.
@71 being Scottish, sheepfucking is far more likely than pigfucking
just “scotch” over the facts why dont you….
Dumbest fucking construction management team ever. I’ll bet they’ll bring in the same asshole architects and engineers and pay millions more to fix one toilet. They should shoot the ass hole that built the building to begin with and ship his remains back to Scotland.
RBS is obama’s Katrina
RBS Lev Fin rocks!!!