Have you ever been in a position where you needed to compel a group of your peers to do something they clearly have no interest in participating in? Where every time you sat down to craft an email, it became a back and forth between "playing it cool" and the desperation that all people reach when charged with the task of rallying people to attend, for instance, an event like the business versus engineering student Olympics? Where the internal monologue (and words that you end up typing on the page) are something like "You better fucking come to this thing...or don't I couldn't care less...no wait I was kidding...COME, YOU FUCKING FUCKS!...I mean, whatever...do what you want...I hate you...I hate you all so much that it's really no sweat off my sack whether you come or not, asshole shits. WHO CARES? ...but I'd just like to note that if you're not there so help me GOD you'll be sorry, not that it matters to me...". Where by the end of any such gig you've basically lost the patina of cool no matter what, so there's no real use in trying? Then you can related to one undergraduate business major who was pushed to that "end my rope" mode earlier today. From: [redacted] Date: March 22, 2012 12:14:11 PM EDT Subject: A quick note about our next bar crawl and the BBA v Engineering Olympics Hello, As you probably don't know because you stick my impact messages go straight to your trash folder, we are currently engaged in a week long competition against the engineers. However, there has been a very poor turnout from the Senior Class up to this point - especially in the athletic events. I don't understand your apathy nor do I care to but I will say this: THERE WILL NOT BE ANOTHER BAR CRAWL IF WE LOSE THE OLYMPICS. Furthermore, If we were to lose this competition because people just didn't show up I would just assume that there is a serious lack of interest in our events and go ahead and shut down Senior Night as well. For those of you who don't know, Senior Night is where we completely rent out a club and allow each senior a +1. It's something like a boozy college prom. It's a very simple ultimatum actually. If you don't help me destroy the engineers, I will not help you get wasted with your fellow BBA's. It makes no difference to me because honestly i don't even remember the last bar crawl. Eat at Pizza House before 4am and raise some money for a great cause and sign up to play some flag football and ultimate frisbee. There is also an after party at the Blue Lep from 6-8pm on Friday and I promise I'll let you drink out of the trophy cup. [redacted]

What would posses a person to do an as-told-to article about the fact that after "failing miserably" at trying to pick up women in bars while working late for a "big name investment bank in New York," he turned to a "sugar daddy dating site" to bang hookers on his nights away from the wife and kids only to fall for one who ultimately broke his heart, because she was a prostitute and didn't actually care about him? The answer, quite, obviously, is love. Love, and a hope that a certain someone will see your story and upon reading that you're completely and totally over her and beating off call girls with a stick, COME RUNNING BACK. I met a girl who said she was a senior at Columbia University. She was so hot. Long brown hair, light eyes, perfect little body. We started an affair and I would give her a $4,000 "allowance" each month to meet once a week for dinner, or just to sleep together if I had a deal or a really late night in the office. Sometimes it was an hour of "small talk and sex," which, really, isn't a bad deal for her. $1,000 for an hour to spend time with me. I felt like a stud, there's no denying that, and I knew that she didn't want anything from me but money. She would come and go away when I made the signal I was tired. Soon though, I started liking her more than I wanted to. She was smart and kind of had a sarcastic sense of humor I found funny. I asked to see her more and she asked for more money. I said I couldn't do any more than that, and she said she couldn't give more time. It was the first time I felt a little hurt, like: "This person just wants my money and probably thinks I'm some gross horny old dude." The next month, I gave her the envelope of $4,000 upfront instead of $1,000 each time. We had sex, chatted, drank some wine and she left. I never saw her again. She wouldn't pick up her phone, then her phone was disconnected, my emails to her went unanswered, and her profile on the site was gone. It was such a blow. Though, really, what the hell did I expect? I guess some warning. Yes, some warning would have been nice but whatever. It's not like you're still upset about it. It's not like there isn't a moment of the day when she's not on your mind. It's not like you lie in bed at night thinking about her holding you. No, no sweat off your sack, which you use to bang hookers six at a time now that whatshername is out of the picture. Working girls line the street to get paid to have sex with you! You don't even have time to respond to all their propositions! The Jiltee has become the jilter! You can't even remember [theloveofyourlife]'s name you're so busy plowing prosties. After that, I decided I was going to go for quantity and not quality. I want hot girls, but a lot of them and substance isn't a huge deal. I have been with dozens of girls, and I give them money each time I meet them. The funny thing is often these girls are chasing me to sleep with them again, because it's easy money, but I just scroll through and delete or ignore the messages most of the time. Men want to be with a lot of women; it is just the truth...Maybe that first girl was a wake-up call. I'm already married. I don't need a steady mistress. But I have one or two I always go back to if I can't find someone I like, which happens a lot....I'm not hurting anyone by doing this. I'm always safe and upfront if I meet someone and know it won't happen. I just pay for the drink and let them know and leave, like "No deal, sorry." It is just like any deal. You have to know how to close it and have to know when you're not interested in putting in the effort to see it through. Why This Married Wall Street Banker Pays For Sex [Buzzfeed]

News you can use.

As you may have noticed, Jamie Dimon has had some unwanted attention thrown his way over the last several weeks, on account of one of his employees losing a few billion dollars. Though the JPMorgan CEO has been dealing with public displays of hate previously reserved for Lloyd Blankfein and Goldman Sachs, and will certainly be on the receiving end of a lot more tomorrow when he testifies on Capitol Hill, he has had a few people come to his (and his bank's) defense. Yesterday Stephen Schwarzman told Bloomberg to lay off JD and JPM, noting that "occasional losses are inevitable" and "publicly excoriating JPMorgan serves no purpose except to reduce people’s confidence in the financial system," while former Goldman exec Bill Archer said the whale fail makes him just "kind of shrug." Lee Bollinger, who is President of Columbia and chairman of the Federal Bank of New York's board of directors told the Journal that Dimon shouldn't step down from his post as a director, as some have requested, and that those who cite conflicts of interest have a "false understanding of how [the Fed] works." Some individuals from the Columbia community read Bollinger's comment and, spoiler alert, are not happy. Enter, a strongly worded letter. Mr. Lee Bollinger President of Columbia University Office of the President 202 Low Library 535 West 116th Street, Mail Code 4309 New York, NY 10027 Dear President Bollinger, As faculty, alumni and students of Columbia University, we are writing to express our deep disappointment in your recent decision to support JPMorgan Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon’s continued membership on the Board of the New York Federal Reserve Bank. As the Chairman of the Board of the New York Fed, your unambiguous duty - as stated by the Guide to Conduct – is to maintain “the integrity, dignity, and reputation of the Federal Reserve System . . . and to avoid actions that might impair the effectiveness of System operations or in any way tend to discredit the System.” By supporting Mr. Dimon’s tenure you abdicated this basic responsibility. By echoing Mr. Ben Bernanke’s remarks that it is up to Congress to address this problem, you denied your duty to ensure the integrity of the Fed. By stating that Congress has more pressing issues to address than this one, you, in essence, urged inaction by all parties capable of affecting this important change. Surely you understand that a functioning financial system is a pre-requisite of our country’s economic recovery. By characterizing those who wish to see Mr. Dimon resign as “foolish” and in possession of a “false understanding” of how the Fed works, you have added insult – and inaccuracy – to the injury of encouraging this institution to continue in its current form. It is worth reminding you that JPMorgan Chase is currently under investigation for its recent $3 billion trading loss – a loss Mr. Dimon initially denied and then characterized as a ‘tempest in a teapot.’ It may also bear repeating that Mr. Dimon has long campaigned aggressively against important regulatory reforms designed to prevent excessive risk taking by Too Big To Fail institutions – institutions the Federal Reserve saved with $3 trillion dollars in special lending facilities and which Congress bailed out with $700 billion of taxpayers’ money. Certainly Mr. Dimon has no place as a leader of this institution. We urge you to reverse your support for Mr. Dimon and call for his immediate resignation. By way of reminder, there is precedent for this kind of action. In April 2011, Jeffrey R. Immelt, CEO of General Electric, stepped down from the NY Fed after it was clear that GE Capital would be regulated by the Fed as a ‘systematically important’ financial institution. As one of the largest banks in the world, JP Morgan is similarly – if not more ‘systemically important.’ As an educator, you have a special responsibility to demonstrate moral and intellectual credibility, something you have failed to do in this situation. As the president of a university, you have a responsibility to ensure that students have the best possible opportunities upon graduation. Surely you understand the connection between the unemployment crisis facing young people in America and the 2008 financial collapse. That collapse not only threatened the employment potential of millions of American students, but also risked the fiscal health of the parents and grandparents who co-signed their educational loans. That you would choose to uphold the interests of major financial institutions over students and their families is unimaginable. We certainly hope that the contributions made to Columbia by JPMorgan – sums north of $500,000 – had nothing to do with your decision. Three years after the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, the country is struggling to rebuild its economy. A stable and appropriately governed financial system is a critical pre-requisite of our recovery. As the Chairman of the NY Fed, we urge you to take the obvious step of demanding Mr. Dimon’s resignation. Thank you, Current Students, Alumni and Faculty of Columbia University Richard Adams Graduate Student and Alumnus Marcellus Andrews Professor of Economics Columbia University John Atlas President of the National Housing Institute Charles H. Revson Fellow, 2004 Partha Banerjee J-School, 2000 Hilary Beattie Asst. Clinical Professor of Medical Psychology in Psychiatry Carl Bettendorf Alumnus and Adjunct Faculty Lila Braine Dana Burnell Alumni Sylvia Bettendorf Student Jamie Chen CC Class of '09 Paul Colson Faculty Jonathan Crissman Student Mina Dadgar Alumni Carolyn Douglas Associate Professor of Psychiatry Nnaemeka Ekwelum Class of 2012 Tim Foreman Student David Friedman Officer Danielle G. Student Nancy Goody Alumnae -GS of Arch & HP Warren Green Administrator Robert Hanning William D. Hartung Center for International Policy Columbia College Class of 1978 James Hone Faculty Bonnie Kaufman Faculty, Medical School Jee Kim Columbia College, ‘95 Susan Lob Adjunct Faculty and Alumni Barbara Lundblad Faculty Union Theological Seminary John Markowitz Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Alumnus College '76, GSAS '78, P&S '82 Rangi McNeil School of the Arts Alumni Sara Minard Faculty Federick Neuhouser Professor of Philosophy Michael Newell Kaveh Niazi Alumni Jeffrey Ordower Columbia College Class of 1991 Alexandra Pines Class of 2016 Ai-jen Poo Director National Domestic Workers Alliance Bill Ragen Columbia College 1980 Yuliya Rimsky Columbia University Alumnus Class of 2012 & SIPA student Class of 2014 Katherine Roberts Alumna, GSAS Eva Salzman Alumni Jeff Schneider Alumni Shruti Sehgal BC Alumnus, Class of 2011 Eric J. Schoenberg Adjunct Associate Professor Columbia Business School The Honorable David Segal Former RI state representative CC ‘01 Anat Shenker-Osorio Founder and Principal, ASO Communications, Columbia College '99 Kobi Skolnick Current student of Negotiation and Conflict Resolution, Class of 2013 Jill Strauss Denise J. Tartaglia Alumni Stephanie Taylor Co-Founder, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Columbia University alumni, SOA '07 Alan Wallach Alumnus Mark Watson Alumnus James Williams Officer Libraries Thomas J. Yager Associate Research Scientist, Mailman School of Public Health

After years of receiving scripted answers to questions from would-be business school students re: why they want to go to Harvard/Wharton/Stanford/Sloan or what they think of a company's earnings potential or where they see themselves in five to ten years or what they ate for breakfast, admissions officers have lately been taking a new tack in an attempt to see the "real" side of applicants. Hoping to get a little "unrehearsed honesty" and insight into who these people really are, prospective students are being asked to submit "reflections" ("a short, off-the-cut note that must be submitted within 24 hours of an admissions interview") and take part in "team-based discussions," for which they're told to "relax, be genuine," not worry about giving the "right" answer, and just say what they really think, rather than what a coach told them to say they think. Unfortunately, Harvard and Wharton officials apparently have no idea who they're dealing with here. You can't make future b-school students relax and be genuine! You can't! You won't!