Monkey Business (10 page)

The investment banking recruiting machine was not naive to this strategy, though. So the investment banks would not give official
offers at all but would wait until the candidate gave them the assurance that he would say yes if offered a job. This was
the pinnacle of the mating dance. The proverbial cat-and-mouse game. On the one hand, the banks wanted to give exploding offers
so that the business school students wouldn’t use the offers to find better jobs. On the other hand, the school wouldn’t
permit exploding offers. Well, the business schools were no match for the investment banking recruiting machines.

Les said, “We’re not giving you an offer, but
if
we did offer you a job—remember we are saying
if
—would you accept it within three weeks? If you can’t accept it by the end of October, then we can’t offer you a job.”

“So,” Star chimed in, “we’d like you to climb aboard. So will you? We’re not giving you an offer, but if we did you would
have to get back to us by the end of October, because if we didn’t have an indication that you would accept the offer, which
we’re not officially making, then we’d have to look for other people and extend them offers instead. So, if you can give us
a
strong
indication that you want to work for DLJ and that you would accept an offer if one was given to you, then we could probably
extend you an offer.”

I’m still not sure what a “strong indication” should have been. Should I have jumped up on the table and screamed, “Yes, I
want to work at DLJ!” Maybe if I had run outside and peed the letters “DLJ” in the snow, this would have given them a strong
indication. The game was ridiculous and I played right into it.

“You have the right stuff,” Star went on. “You’re our kind of guy. You’re the man. You’ll work in Merchant Banking, and do
deals, and get levered and make money. We’ll protect you.”

That saying—“We’ll protect you”—is akin to a nineteen-year-old horny high schooler sitting in the backseat of his dad’s car
with his eighteen-year-old date and saying, “Trust me.” Somebody’s about to get screwed.

I was so high by this point. These guys had pumped me
so full of hot air that I was almost floating away. My head must have been the size of a pumpkin. Right then and there I accepted.
I had promised to talk to Rolfe before I accepted, but I couldn’t wait. I sold my soul.

Well, maybe I really didn’t accept anything because they had never officially offered me anything. I went back to my apartment
and called Rolfe to tell him what I’d done, but on my answering machine there was Rolfe.

“Hey, Troob, the guys brought me out and I think that this banking thing will be a good move so I went ahead and accepted
their offer.”

I spoke to Rolfe and we assured each other that we had made the right decision. Explanations like “This is a great stepping-stone
and the hours won’t really be that bad because we’ll be more senior” pervaded our conversation. We had a favorite explanation:
“We’ll only work for the good people. They’ll protect us.”

Within a week, I’d received all of the checks that I was now entitled to and had also received a bottle of Dom Perignon with
a note attached: “Welcome to the DLJ family.” I thought that this showed class.

A couple of weeks later they flew me to New York to say hello to other bankers and just revel in the bliss of being part of
the DLJ team. They sent me plane tickets and had a car pick me up at the airport. I stayed at the Four Seasons and was told
to order as much room service as I wanted. The DLJ Hoover machine was sucking me in like a piece of dust on a carpet. I liked
the plane flights, the cars, the nice hotels, the feeling of being rich, the lifestyle. I was a junior banker and no one could
stop me. God help me.

However, from November through June I didn’t hear from Ed Star, Les Newton, or any of my so-called comrades-in-arms
again. At this point, I called Rolfe and found out that he’d had the same experience. This was our first indication that we
were just cogs in the Big Machine. Star and Newton had come to Boston and had done what they were contracted by the firm to
do. Make me accept a job that they never really offered to me. They had closed the transaction and moved on. Other bankers
closed on the Rolfe transaction. We were two excited and eager suckers.

The first contact we had with DLJ after officially accepting our non-official offers came in June when an administrative assistant
called to tell us that we had to take a drug test before starting work. Well, this scuttled a whole load of fun plans we’d
had for the summer, but we were willing to do whatever it took to be able to be part of the elite DLJ club.

With the start of our new careers edging ever closer, we were beginning to feel good about our choice. We had a conversation
in July and talked about doing IPOs and doing deals in the Merchant Bank. We talked about the big money and the time we’d
have to spend it. We discussed our grand plans of taking the New York social scene by storm. The parties, the big life. We
talked about being hotshot investment bankers at the hottest firm on Wall Street. We were stroking each other and it felt
good. We thought we were entering nirvana, and that we would soar like eagles over the heads of the common folk.

Actually, we weren’t eagles. We were pigeons, following a trail of bread crumbs.

B
oth Rolfe and I graduated from B-school in May. DLJ training didn’t start until mid-August, so we had over two months of pure,
unadulterated freedom on our hands. We were both thoroughly relaxed by the time DLJ training began. We entered training bright-eyed
and bushy-tailed, and believing that training was the first step on the road to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Investment banking training can be summed up pretty succinctly. It’s a huge waste of time and money but a necessary step for
the investment banking machine to teach you your role as an associate and lure you into a high standard of living. Once you’ve
started living with limousines and expense accounts, it’s hard to go back.

On the first day of training we did nothing. We said hello to our fellow associates and found out that they, too, had been
wined and dined and told that they were the best candidates that the investment bank had seen in
years. We found out that all members of the associate class had been told that they were going to be the next “golden child”
and that they were going to work in the Merchant Bank and make all the dough. They, too, were told not to worry and that they
would be “protected.” We started to realize that we had all been duped.

However, the human brain has a peculiar way of rationalizing everything and filtering out the unpleasant realities that it
knows to be true. Each of us sat there and said to ourselves, “All these other associates were told this nonsense to cajole
them into taking the job, but what they told me was the truth.” Somehow this warped rationale made everybody feel a whole
lot better.

My father taught me many years ago not to believe my own bullshit. Well, we didn’t heed this sage advice, and we were so deep
in our own garbage that we were suffocating underneath its weight. All of us, as associates, made ourselves believe that we
were different and special. We would soon learn the real truth. But until then, we felt great about ourselves and our choice
of careers.

At the end of the first day of training, the investment banking machine handed out corporate limousine account cards, beepers,
and cellular phones. It made us feel like investment bankers should feel. Like superstars. We imagined ourselves taking a
corporate car to the airport while negotiating a big deal on our cellular phone. Then, we imagined going out to a restaurant
with our clients and throwing down the platinum credit card to cover the thousand-dollar bill that included a four-pound lobster,
porterhouse steak, and two bottles of Château Lafite Rothschild red wine, all of which would be reimbursed by the firm.

We were ready for anything because we were the superbankers, able to force huge mergers to happen in a matter of minutes and
bring in monstrous fees to the bank. We were able to have our party house in the Hamptons and our memberships at Maidstone,
National, and Shinnecock. We were able to crap lightning and shit thunder.

Training lasted approximately three weeks. We met every day, including weekends, in a conference room from 8
A.M
. to 6
P.M
. A potpourri of officers of the firm were paraded before us, and each explained a different product or service the bank offered.

Basically, training taught us our role in the process and how we could get the process done as quickly as possible. We learned
that companies followed our advice for a fee and that was good. We learned that “a busy associate is a good associate.” We
weren’t being trained to be thinkers. In training we learned what we were going to be doing for at least the next four years
of our lives—processing lots of junk for fees and making things look pretty so that the Fidelitys, Putnams, and unsuspecting
individual investors of the world would buy them without asking too many difficult questions.

While some evenings during training were designated as social nights out, other evenings were reserved for projects to be
done the following day. Either way, every evening was accounted for. We needed to learn what we would be doing, for whom we
would do it, and how to get it done.

A second-year associate came to class at the end of the first week of training and explained to us what role we were being
paid to play. He didn’t seem quite as excited
about the whole investment banking shindig as we thought he should have been. He said…

“As associates, the standard stuff you’ll do is to help managing directors get business. The managing directors sit in their
offices and think of ways to make money for the firm, and to make money for themselves. This sets the ball in motion. We create
pitch books for the managing directors so that they have something to give to the potential clients. The managing director
wants the potential client to know that we worked very hard and spent lots of hours preparing for the meeting. This shows
the company that we’re serious about the business and will give the company our full attention.

“You’ll have to do some valuation analysis so that you can prove that DLJ will be able to obtain the most money for the company
being pitched. You’re going to spend a lot of time while you’re putting the pitch together working with the word-processing
department and the copy center.

“After you stay up all night doing the pitch you make flight arrangements for you and your team, and then you go to the pitch
and carry the books. If you have an analyst, then you have him carry the books. This is the advantage of being an associate.

“If you go to the pitch, and if you are able to stay awake, then you can watch how a managing director grovels for business.
If you get the deal, then you and your team have lots of work to do. You may as well cancel all of your plans for the next
six weeks because you’re in for some long nights and hectic days.

“All in all, it’s hard work. But, you know, you get paid
pretty well to do it and you’re learning important banking stuff. That’s really it.

“More important, tonight the firm is letting all of you live the high life on the DLJ nickel. Don’t waste time dillydallying
around here. According to my watch it’s five
P.M
. and if I were you I’d start whooping it up. I’d love to join you, but I’ve got loads of work to do. Have fun, because once
training’s over you guys won’t see the light of day again.”

Rolfe turned to me with his brow furrowed. “He seems a bit bitter. Maybe he had a tough night. Maybe he’s not working for
the right people. He probably likes his job and is pretty happy, right?” Rolfe was looking for assurance that we had made
the right choice, but I wasn’t able to give it to him.

Instead of further exploring this revelation, we ignored it and jumped into one of the black chauffeured cars that were waiting
for us in front of the offices, compliments of the firm, and went out for an evening of festivities—all paid for by DLJ.

The investment banking machine was beginning to suck us in with the lavish lifestyle that it would allow us to live.

Designated evenings out during our weeks of training were filled with baseball games, dinners at the Palm and Sparks, and
nights out at dance clubs and, finally, strip bars. Most of it was paid for by our beloved firm. We were living large. The
days were filled with lots of catnaps and free lunches. The firm was keeping us in an inebriated state so that we wouldn’t
realize what the hell we were getting ourselves into. If we had, we might have left immediately. But we were loving every
minute of it. A
bunch of twenty-six-year-old self-important business school grads wearing our best suits and ties and being told that we would
be the next big shots on Wall Street. This was where Rolfe and I rekindled our friendship, sitting at the Crane Club drinking
Jack Daniel’s on the rocks and discussing how we were going to be managing directors in five short years. We felt BIG. We
followed up our Crane Club fun with a visit to what would become one of our favorite hangouts, Shenanigans—a second-rate strip
club right around the corner from DLJ’s offices.

As the night wore on, the drinks all began running into one another. We had no idea how much we—i.e., the firm—owed on our
bar bill. As the bill racked up, though, something extraordinary began to happen. The alcohol actually cleared our brains
of all the clutter and set our thoughts straight.

“Hey, Rolfe,” I shouted over the booming Shenanigans dance music. “You know, you were right, that second-year associate was
pretty bitter. Do you think he hates what he’s doing?”

“Yeah, maybe. Maybe his life really sucks. Maybe he was told that he would work for the good people, but then when he finally
got to DLJ things changed.”