Back in May, we had a frank discussion about drinking with colleagues and/or clients after work. Specifically, how many drinks one should put away in order to have a good time but not cross any unfortunate lines. At the time, we used a young lady named Sophia Anderson as our guide and said that, assuming you have the tolerance of a 21 year-old female and consider being arrested post-Happy Hour for driving your car through a stranger’s house one of those lines, no more than a dozen beverages should be consumed, with fourteen being the absolute max. Today we have just a quick update, to those for whom it bears mentioning, that if you’re going to ignore said guidelines and have that fifteenth cocktail shortly before accepting a ride home from an equally sloshed coworker who confuses someone’s front lawn/foyer/kitchen/backyard patio with the road, you should probably not agree to lie to the police, say you were the one driving, and have them breathalyze you with 370 ounces of alcohol (and some cocaine) in your body. Not even if you’re in love with him or her; not even if he or she promises to take take you on vacation after all of this blows over; not even if you were passed out the whole ride and a bit disoriented after “[waking] up as…the car drove through the house.” Read more »
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Food Eating Challenge Of The Day: “It’s Not Clear What’s Going On In His Mind And Body”
By Bess Levin
As you all are well aware, from time to time we cover food eating challenges around these parts. We don’t chronicle all the feats of gastrointestinal fortitude that come our way, though, because while we love you all, not all of your FECs constitute what we’d consider an actual challenge worth covering. As previously discussed, our high bar has everything to do with the first contest we ever wrote about (as a postmortem), which involved a man named Oyster Boy, who consumed 244 oysters in 1 hour at Ulysses, throwing down the gauntlet down for one of you to pick up, vis-à-vis goring yourself for sport. Do we really expect anyone to match OB in magnitude or strength of stomach lining? No, we do not. Having said that, “challenges” such as eating 8 vending machine items in 12 hours (or in an unlimited amount of time!) are not going to cut it. It’s not an exact science but we look for FECs that are imaginative, topical, and/or represent a high degree of difficulty. (And while we wouldn’t actually advise it, live streaming the whole thing would make our day.) Which brings us to this afternoon’s challenge. Read more »
Have the past several years wreaked havoc on your looks? Do you wake up with new wrinkles every day? Is your face starting to look like an old catcher’s mitt? Do you stare into the mirror and wonder who the old, haggard looking man staring back is? Does it look like a bag lady has taken up residence under your eyes? Do you have trouble concentrating at work because you’re constantly wondering if people are discussing how badly you’ve let yourself go? Do you catch a glimmer of your reflection and think, “Why would anyone want to fuck me? I’m hideous.” Are you generally disgusted with yourself? Do you want to do something about it, something involving a doctor’s office and needles, but are afraid of what people might think? Don’t be! According to Bloomberg lots of guys are taking 20 to “refresh” themselves and in fact, financial services employees represent “the fastest growing segment” of Dr. Dendy Engelman’s “patient population.” Everybody does it, it’s just that no one talks about it. Read more »
If This Investing Thing Doesn’t Work Out, One Tudor Venture Employee Has A Future At Radio City
By Bess Levin
Earlier this week, we had a little chat about letting your hair down in the summer months, but not so much that you get a reputation among colleagues and/or law enforcement officials. For example, while you should definitely allow yourself to enjoy some adult beverages during leisurely outdoor lunches and cut out early to grab a few or more with coworkers you actually like, you don’t want to have so many drinks that you drive a car through a stranger’s house. To that end, while you should certainly feel comfortable dancing atop a bar nobody’s watching, you might want to consider not getting up on table at a restaurant and (allegedly) destroying thousands of dollars in lighting fixtures while demonstrating a roundhouse kick or the moves you’ve been practicing for your Rockettes audition. Read more »
Prison Life Not Such A Bad Deal For The Many Who’ve Long Fantasized About A World In Which Sticking A Fork In Someone’s Arm For The Smallest Of Offenses Was Considered Reasonable
By Bess LevinAs America’s lockups have become more crowded, so has the prison-prep industry, a field built for white-collar criminals with the means to pay for lessons on coping with strip searches and with getting along with a tattooed cellmate named Bubba…Patrick Boyce learned the etiquette of incarceration by hiring a convicted fraud artist-turned-prison consultant. Now Mr. Boyce, 42, has become one, too. Among the most important principles of proper prison behavior, he says: Be polite. Don’t butt into conversations, don’t forget to say “excuse me” when you bump into someone, even when it isn’t your fault. Don’t watch TV in another man’s chair. Don’t reach across someone else’s plate at chow time. “That could be immediately answered with a fork in your arm,” says Mr. Boyce, a former stockbroker who completed 11 months in the pen in 2004 and advertises himself as a “federal mitigation specialist.” [WSJ]
For Valentine’s Day this year, Fortune put together a slideshow of various executives, analysts, fund managers, and disgraced AIG CEOs posing with their one true loves– their dogs. For the big names who missed the deadline to submit photos, fear not– this feature is clearly going to become an annual thing. For those already mentally directing a photoshoot of yourself and Jamie the Younger, maybe running down Park Ave or shooting hoops at the Garden, you might first consider looking to this year’s pioneering efforts for inspiration.
For instance, in addition to putting your love for each other on display, why not use the opportunity to showcase your credentials, as “Fortune All-Star Analyst” Mike Mayo does here? Read more »
Have you always wanted to date a man who works on Wall Street but found them to be a difficult subset of human to figure out? Today’s your lucky day. CNBC, for some reason, is running an “article” penned by a professional matchmaker on that very issue. Having “spent the better part of 12 years learning all the their habits, their likes and dislikes when it comes to dating,” Samantha Daniels is eminently qualified to offer the tips you need to summit your Everest. Her how-to-guide includes advice like “keep stories short and sweet because the mind of a Wall Street man is always moving so rapidly and focusing on so many different things that his attention span for social stories is very short,” “be sexy,” “don’t expect him to be romantic,” “don’t get upset if your plans get scheduled by his assistant,” “don’t work on Wall Street” (“Wall Street men tend to be attracted to women who are in industries other than Wall Street”) and:
Learn a little something about the financial markets and notice if something huge happens on a given day, negative or positive. Things like the fact that Facebook is going public is not just financial news, it’s world news and you don’t want to seem clueless if you completely missed something like that. You don’t have to become an expert but at least if you know something you can participate in a conversation with your guy. Additionally, you need to be prepared that the volatility of the markets might make your guy’s mood unpredictable, especially on a day that his personal portfolio went down dramatically.
Obviously this one here is key but it’s not enough. If you’re serious about hunting big game, if you really want to impress him with the extent to which you’ve got your finger on the pulse, you must also: Read more »
Mr. Mason, who sometimes posts online videos of himself in his underwear doing yoga or dancing, sat down for a recent interview in his Chicago office to discuss challenges facing the company and his ability to handle them. WSJ: The SEC also took issue with a memo you wrote to employees during the quiet period that was leaked to the press. Mr. Mason: I wrote the memo because 23-year-olds were coming into my office and asking how they should respond to their parents when they ask if Groupon is about to go bankrupt. The risks of not communicating to my employees were greater than the risks of doing otherwise. If I knew it was going to leak, I would have been less bizarre, and I wouldn’t have made a joke about my now-wife. She was upset. (He joked that his then-girlfriend asked him why he never said anything nice about her.) [WSJ]
Mike Bloomberg: You Can Take Unlimited Bathroom Breaks Or You Can Actually Make Something Of Yourself. Your Call.
By Bess Levin
Maybe you’re a first-year analyst at Goldman Sachs who’d like to run the place. Maybe you’re a SAC trader who wants to be the next Steve. Maybe you’re the CEO of JPMorgan, though you’d prefer the title of Mr. Treasury Secretary. Maybe you’re a mega successful hedge fund manager who dreams of breeding dogs and, one day, taking your best dog to Alaska to run and win the Iditorad in record time, with you driving. You’ve all got a dream but the question is, how are you going to make it happen? If you really want to know, Mike Bloomberg will tell you. The first thing you’re gonna do, the Mayor said in an recent interview, is you’re gonna stop being afraid. You’re not going to have a defeatist attitude that causes you to miss out on things. You’re going to seize every day as an opportunity and you’re going to realize that every situation has an upside if you look hard enough. Sayeth Hizzoner:
“You have that drive to look at the bright side. There’s never been a day I haven’t looked forward to going into work- even the days I knew I was going to get beat up, even the day I knew I was going to get fired…I had never been fired before and wondered what it was like-I thought okay, let’s go find out.”
Second, and most importantly, you’re going to put in the time. Now, Mike knows that anyone can spout off vague cliches about working hard and blah, blah, blah. He’s not here to do that. He’s here to tell you to keep your ass glued to that god damn chair and not get up for anything. Not fresh air, not lunch, not to take a leak. Think he’s not speaking literally? Think again! He doesn’t care if you’re about to piss your pants or if you have a family history of kidney failure. You get out of that chair and it’s over. Read more »
Trades Not Workin’ Out For Ya? Area Hedge Fund Manager Will Show You How To Save A Buck
By Bess Levin“I save a small fortune in taxi and subway fares—plus untold hours sitting in traffic or on a subway platform—by riding my bike everywhere in Manhattan,” Whitney Tilson told the Journal, which estimates you can save “at least $4,000 a year,” in addition to what you spend on the gym, using Tilson’s chosen mode of transport. “Plus, it’s great exercise!” [WSJ]
Think You Might Be Asked About A Horrible Crime With Which You Have But A Tenuous Link Over The Course Of A Job Interview? Penn State Is Here To Help
By Bess Levin
From time to time around these parts, we like to offer tips for those looking to successfully make the jump from one firm to another. Obviously a solid record of making money for your employer will help but in addition, or perhaps in lieu of that, nailing the first and last interview is key, and whether you’re a college senior, a third year analyst or a 20 year veteran of the industry, the interview is something with which some people still struggle. While eye contact, handshakes and how to discuss your “worst quality” have all been covered, one topic we haven’t yet discussed is what to do in the event the person conducting your session asks for your thoughts on sex abuse. Specifically, the sex abuse scandal that went down at your respective alma mater. Luckily, career services at Penn State is all over it. Read more »
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