Monkey Business (3 page)

The phenomenon, mind you, was in no way peculiar to Wharton. In fact, 350 miles to the north, at that most venerable of all
institutions—the Harvard Business School—a like scene was being played out. And among the 750 dandy young recruits there was
one of those bastards who knew the game. A stocky little former investment banking analyst whom I’d later come to love as
we wallowed together in our collective misery paying our dues as investment banking associates at DLJ. Peter Troob.

Later, after we got to know each other, Troob would confirm my suspicion that things at Wharton and Harvard were just about
the same.

Yeah, I was going through the same mating dance at Harvard Business School. However, I had a big advantage: I’d worked in
investment banking before going back to business school. I’d been an analyst at Kidder Peabody. I knew the pain, I knew the
long nights and the late dinners eaten in the office six nights a week.

The thing was that I had sworn off investment banking. The sixteen-hour days, the people who had institutional authority to
kick my ass, the extra ten pounds I had put on since college, and my nonexistent social life. The investment banking life
as a junior guy sucked and I knew
it. It paid me well for a twenty-two-year-old snot-nosed brat from Duke, helped me get into Harvard, and taught me how to
break out a company’s financials with my eyes closed, but as I sat in Harvard Business School I promised myself that I wouldn’t
go back. No way. I promised myself that I would find a more rewarding career, one that made me feel good about myself. One
that cleansed my soul instead of soiling it.

So why was I willing to jump right back in? That’s a good question. I remember sitting with one of my good friends, Danny,
in the steam room at the beginning of the school year discussing that very question. We had both come from a two-year boot
camp at Kidder Peabody and we were both at HBS. Danny asked the question first.

“Troobie, are you gonna go back to banking?”

“No fucking way, man. Are you kidding me? Kidder sucked and my life was hell. Fuck banking. I’m gonna do something else.”

“What?”

“I don’t know, consulting or some shit like that.”

“Consulting? Making all those two-by-two charts and matrices and being shipped to some buttfuck place like Biloxi, Mississippi,
to help consult some manufacturing company for two months? No thanks.”

“Yeah, maybe you’re right, Danny Boy. Not consulting. I’ll try to get a job in a buyout fund.”

“Yeah, right, Troob. Tommy Lee is only taking two guys this year and KKR is taking one. You’re good, but either your dad has
got to be loaded or you’ve got to get the managing partner laid if you want that job.”

“Well, maybe I’ll look at the banking jobs again.”

“What! Troob, are you fucking insane?”

“Where else am I going to make that kind of money? Anyway, it’s a stepping-stone to a better job. It’ll open up opportunities
for me in the future. It’ll help me get to the buy-side.”

“Jesus, man, I don’t know.”

“Look, I can’t discuss this anymore, Danny. I’ve got to get out of this steam room. My balls look like raisins.”

Danny and I ended up interviewing at all the investment banking houses. We were sucked in even before the whole recruiting
process began. We had fallen into the trap of money, prestige, and security. We were about to start the selling of our souls.
We entered the Harvard Business School fray and away we went.

At Wharton, the highly scripted mating dance during which the recruiters first made contact with the recruits corresponded,
by no great coincidence, with the first few weeks of classes. Rolling updates of scheduled recruiter visits were distributed
to all the students on a weekly basis, and a prominent announcement heralded each day’s corporate arrivals: “Coming today,
Merrill Lynch in Room 1, Booze Allen in Room 2, and Johnson & Johnson in Room 3.”

Subliminally, what was being said was, “Those interested in the big money will head directly to rooms 1 and 2, and anybody
with a yen to learn how to market rubber nipples and non–petroleum-based sexual lubricants will kindly report to room 3.”
The daily routine was nothing if not consistent. The last classes of the day ended at 4:30
P.M
. The first corporate presentations of the day began at 4:45
P.M
. For Troob at Harvard, or for me at Wharton, it was all the same.

The recruiters’ presentations were no small-time affair. More often than not, the big guns themselves came out to make the
sales pitch. CEOs and presidents of America’s
Fortune
500 regularly swallowed their pride, pressed their suits, and shuffled past the rows of Formica-topped desks to go to the
head of the class. Once there, they described in gushing terms how incredibly honored they were to be standing in front of
America’s finest business school students, and why their diamond-encrusted clubhouse was truly the only one to consider becoming
a member of.

John Chalsty, then president and head of the Banking Group at DLJ, described just how fortunate he’d been to be able to spend
the last twenty-five years of his career at DLJ. DLJ was the hottest firm on Wall Street. It employed a lot fewer bankers
than Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, or First Boston, but when it came to salaries, bonuses, and sexy deals, it was the big
time. It was a swank firm full of young, aggressive bankers, many of whom were ex–Drexel Burnham Lambert employees. These
were the guys who’d defined Wall Street in the eighties, and they had a flair for the adventurous. They were deal makers,
and junk bonds (or, in the 1990s’ cleaned-up lingo, “high-yield bonds”) were their forte. DLJ was the home of the high-yield
bond, and high-yield bond sales were on a rapid rise.

Chalsty, dressed like we imagined a banker would be—Hermès tie, handmade suit, Ferragamo shoes, and a
monogrammed shirt—exhorted us in his regal South African accent:

“Just go out and do what makes you happy. It’s so important to be happy in this life, I implore you, just go out and find
what it is that makes you happy and really, truly satisfies you, and then don’t stop until you’ve made all your dreams come
true.”

He spoke on, telling tales of his trip to Russia as a member of a governmental delegation sent to provide advice to the Russian
economic and political chieftains on opening the markets to capitalism. He spoke of the professional opportunities that awaited
us at DLJ, the camaraderie, the ability to realize our potential. By God, this man sounded like a genius! You could see the
eager MBAs pleading, “Where do I sign? I’ll polish shoes! I’ll scrub toilets! I’ll bugger a billy goat! I’ll do anything,
as long as it’s with John Chalsty at DLJ!”

And then, in a moment of subtle biting wit so perfect for the moment that it made the whole room feel faint, Mr. Chalsty handed
the podium over to Lou Charles, at that time head of the Equity Research and Trading Group: “I’d like to introduce Lou Charles,
the head of our Equity Research and Trading department. Good God, Lou, where on earth did you get that tie? It looks like
the tablecloth at the Mexican restaurant I dined at two evenings ago.” The walls of the classroom literally shook with laughter.
An unprecedented level of mirth! Amazing! Unprecedented hilarity! They’re such good friends that they’re making fun of each
other right here in front of everybody! Everyone in the room was begging, “Tell me, HOW CAN I GET A JOB HERE?”

Lord, help the foolish. Within a two-year period we
would have heard the identical “do what makes you happy” speech, an indistinguishable rendition of the governmental delegation
to Russia story, and the very same Mexican tablecloth tie introduction line for Lou Charles a total of no less than four times.
But that was later. This was the present.

In general, the recruiting presentations lasted for about an hour. A question-and-answer session usually followed. The Q&A
sessions were an opportunity for the sycophants of the student body to shine. It was their opportunity to show the corporate
chieftains how smart and well informed they really were, and to vie for entrance to the International Pantheon of Brownnosers.

“Sir, could you tell me whether you’re planning to generate any new revenue streams through
international diversification?
Will the
emerging markets
provide an important strategic opportunity for you?”

“That was an absolutely fascinating presentation, but tell me, does your firm provide the
entrepreneurial
atmosphere which is so important to today’s top MBA candidates?”

“I’m wondering, what
competitive advantage
are you able to exploit to maximize the
economic value added
with respect to both human and economic capital at your company?”

MBA-speak filled the air.
Teamwork, mission statement, top-down approach, information age, global view, downsizing
, it went on and on.

Fortunately, these sickening ass kissers represented only a minority of the entire business school population, but the antipathy
that they engendered among their classmates was far-reaching. Most of the other students made no attempt to disguise their
loathing for this human detritus. The reassuring element, and the one that we weren’t privy to until we were on the other
side of the recruiting table (sadly enough trying to cajole others into our misery as associates in banking), was that the
recruiters—without exception—hated these sniveling little dogs as well.

The recruiters, after being asked one of these imbecilic questions, would generally respond with something akin to “That’s
an excellent, excellent question…” What was really going through their mind, though, as they proceeded to answer the questions,
was generally more along the lines of “Come on up here, Doughboy, so I can jam this Gucci loafer so far up your ass that the
tassels bounce off your tonsils.”

Unfortunately for most of the recruiters, the question-and-answer session was only the second step in the entire wretched
experience. A recruiter reception at which the mutual ass kissing reached even more nauseating levels generally followed the
Q&A session. At these receptions, the complimentary food and booze flowed as freely as the bullshit. It was a golden opportunity
to get a full stomach, a swelled head, and a skewed sense of reality all in one place. The orgy of backslapping would have
made Hulk Hogan proud.

There was a widely held misconception among the student body that going to the receptions and meeting the recruiters actually
increased one’s chances of later being granted an interview. However, what really mattered was experience. And so it was that
something of a chicken-and-egg situation existed for those people who didn’t have any relevant banking experience but who
wanted to try to make the transition to becoming career bankers. Without experience, you couldn’t get experience. It made
life difficult. There was really only one route to redemption. That was to land a banking job during the summer between the
first and second year of business school. If you were lucky enough to do so, you would have the requisite experience to land
all the necessary interviews for full-time positions during your second year, and you would then be in a position to ride
that gravy train straight into the sunset.

So there we were. Me, clueless about what investment banking was but willing to cut off my left nut to receive a coveted summer
job offer, and Troob, an ex-analyst who knew exactly what he was getting himself into but who needed something to believe
in. We both needed a vision to follow, something to aspire to. We needed a dream.

The dream was to overcome untold obstacles, become wildly successful, and have fun getting there. The vision was to stand
like a giant among mere mortals. We would shoot for the stars and at least land on the moon. We would walk into the Ferrari
dealership and say, “I’ll buy that one.” The salesperson would say, “But that’s over one—“ and we would cut him off and say,
“Whatever it is, I’ll take it.” We would be rich, powerful, intellectually
challenged, and happy—all by the time we were thirty. We were going to live the high life. We just knew it.

With these dreams burning in our souls we both decided to interview for any and all of the investment banking jobs out there.
Lehman, Goldman, Salomon, DLJ, Merrill, First Boston, Morgan, Bear—we were coming to join the investment banking parade and
travel down streets paved with gold.

T
roob and I knew that there were some basic things that we had to get done in order to begin turning our dreams into reality.
Step number one was the interview process. Troob’s experience interviewing was extremely different than mine because he knew
the ropes, but interviewing was stressful for the both of us. Let’s just say that Troob was stressed about
different
things than I.

Before going to business school, I had worked at Kidder Peabody as an investment banking analyst. I knew what buttons to push
in order to get a rise from the I-banking recruiters. However, this was now the big time. This was the interview process for
the real thing—a summer associate position that any idiot in business school knew turned into the opportunity for a full-time
offer and
a real job. As they said in business school, “Not just a job, but the first step on your career path.” The pressure was palpable.

At HBS the entire interview process lasted one weekend, three days. It was amazing. We went through this months-long process
of presentations, cocktail parties, and question-and-answer sessions to get to know all the different companies, but then
the part that really mattered, the interviews, got squeezed into one long weekend. For a prime recruit, that meant that you
were gunning for five, six, even seven different jobs in a single weekend. Here’s how the weekend usually played out.