As I sat eating the stem of a shiitake mushroom while googling "Can you eat the stem of a shiitake mushroom?" (yes, but they are tough and typically not eaten) I briefly looked out the window and realized that snow is a social life killer. It's early yet though. I want to go out. In fact I want to go out just so I can say that I didn't stay in and absent-mindedly watch She's Just Not That Into You, because I'm not doing that right now to be clear.
What I am doing is thinking about a hedge fund holiday party that I was invited to this past week, and while I may be staying in solo tonight, there is some hedge fund guy out there with a special black book entitled "Snow Days" and he certainly is not watching She's Just Not That Into You this evening because that would be pathetic. Let me tell you, all is well in the hedge fund industry, you know aside from all that insider trading stuff. As for said party, unbelievable location, top shelf open bar, hiring of an internationally acclaimed music group. You know, a usual Wednesday night for the average New Yorker. I was hearing that some firms were sending out letters to employees to not gather in groups of 12 or more as that might constitute a, dare I say it, party, and we all know that if there is one thing Main Street cares about, it's gatherings of 12 or more people. I'm just waiting for AIG to be blamed for this party somehow.
Soon after I arrived at the party I thought to myself, this must be blogged about. While the employees were downstairs at their employee and dates-only dinner, the invited folks were upstairs milling around, dropping $20 tips on singular Miller Lites. Good for them. That's one less delicious bowl of ramen soup they're going to be able to afford this week, suckers. But alas, the evening's most interesting tales did not involve the $20 tips, but the 20-some year old women flanking these hedge fund "ordinaires". There was a gentleman, a nerdy looking gentleman by most standards, with this one young lady. She wore a black outfit that might've been a one-piece. She was either coming from a Beyonce video, a yoga class, a biker rally or a Rydell High Class Reunion.
I don't know exactly, but the outfit was perhaps something that CatWoman once owned, and any CatWoman will do here (Eartha Kitt, Michele Pfeiffer, or Halle Berry). Anyway, the back of this outfit simply did not exist, and several law of physics were surely broken just to keep the top part from coming off. So here is this guy, who is with this girl, and this girl is shaking it, and showing off her God given/Doctorally enhanced? talents for everyone to see. The fellow...he looked like he no idea what to do with her. Like none. I half expected him to escort her out so nobody else could witness her gyrating herself into his midsection while he stood there flummoxed, and I half expected him to put a big ol' tag in her ear stating that this piece of meat belonged to his farm. While several of us were witnessing this spectacle, some guy behind me probably summed it up best how ridiculous it was when he remarked, "I think I'm going to go home and kill myself". These hedge funders just live in a different world I suspect. A world where they can descend the stairs of their plane in Cabo with their gaggle of girls and say, "eh, too cold. Let's head to Curacao" and then run back up the stairs while slapping the barren backsides of his travel companions as the girls playfully spray champagne all over the tarmac. What? That's how it happens.
I am a big fan of the HBO show Eastbound & Down so let me share with you what kind of sums up how these guys operate, or at least how I'd like to imagine they operate, because as we all know not everyone is like this, but enough are to where I can write a blog like this and at least a few people will shake their heads in affirmation...
These guys can make it rain every, single, night, dollar dollar bills ya'll.
There were wives and girlfriends there, and as the night wore on it was clear that there were a lot of women still milling around who were unattached, and how did I know they were unattached...because of their (beat) "huuuungry eyes". I can understand the appeal for both sides. The mantra of my most interesting class at Michigan was "the market knows best", and as the night dragged on, and more alcohol was consumed and as the married and coupled folks went home to their million dollar apartments, the market knew best, with guys undoubtedly doing the requisite financial models in their heads, and the girls scoping out which guys had the most hair on their heads. I'd like to think that perhaps a few marriages will come out of that evening. I'd like to think that two people, one with love of finance and one with love of finances, one with a penchant for creating complex models and one with penchant for surrounding themselves with models, one who used to look up to the great corporate raiders and one who used to date the Oakland Raiders...I'd like to think that these two seemingly different types of people can come together and make a real honest to goodness love connection in this crazy crazy world. If not, I guess a trip to Curacao works too.
First things first. Right before I left for my Southeast Asia backpacking adventure back in the first week of June I decided to put up a website hit counter at the bottom of the blog just to see what the traffic was like. This week, six months later, I surpassed 10,000 hits, and no I did not sit at home in the dark and refresh the webpage 10,000 times. I'm not saying there have been 10,000 unique visitors, but I am saying that I appreciate the love and wish I'd put up a counter back in May 2007 when this started. I hope that you'll continue to come on through and visit every once in a while.
So apparently the blog I wrote about Tiger seemed to have pushed him over the edge and into professional golf purgatory. My bad. I don't want to continue to beat a dead horse here, but I just want to share something that I've heard several times from several different people this past week. People say how Tiger's wife is way better looking than any of the women he allegedly had relations with, and wonder why he'd downgrade. But you have to think of it like this; every time you see a gorgeous woman walking down the street you have to remember that there's someone out there in this great big world who is probably bored of having sex with her. Yup. Listen, I didn't make up the rules here. Such is life.
On my way to work Friday the last song that came on my iPod was Journey's "Don't Stop Believing". Somehow it just seemed right for a Friday morning. It was one of those weeks. The week just reminded me of that cliche classic classroom scene where it's 2:59 and everyone is anxiously waiting for 3:00 so they can leave, and they pan to a shot of the clock and the minute hand goes backward to 2:58. Nine more days of work until I head out on vacation. Not that I'm counting. Other people out there have clearly started their holiday vacations early, as evidenced by the throngs of people walking up and down Fifth Avenue this weekend. I walked down Fifth yesterday to buy some sneakers right around Rockefeller Center. At one point my bobbing and weaving came to a slow crawl and I wondered what the hold up was. A dropped camera? People admiring chestnuts roasting on an open fire? I soon realized that I'd been sucked, tractor beam style, right into the mosh pit that is the line to get into Abercrombie & Fitch. After I immediately disentangled myself from the Midwesterners and Europeans clamoring to overpay for a plaid shirt I had to just admire what Abercrombie had done. They basically set up a velvet rope situation out in front of their store. I can't confirm this, but it almost looked as if it was a "one in, one out" door policy. I don't know what goes on in there (I'm guessing a lot of midriff comparing based on their ad campaigns) but they pump extremely loud music and all that cologne and perfume wafting out the doors makes midtown smell like a summer camp social. I continue to prefer the no-longer-mysterious maple syrup smell. I really have never seen anything like it though, but person after person left the store with a little Abercrombie bag, so clearly things are being purchased, and these days, "you gotta do anything to move product". I put that in quotes, because these days, with nothing really great on TV on Sunday night I put anything in quotes that vaguely reminds me of The Wire, and I always attribute the quote to Slim Charles. Always. Damn I miss that show.
For your viewing pleasure this rainy Sunday. Not Safe For Work (masterfully crafted explicit language).
If I ever resign or quit a job, you better believe I'm going to say "the game ain't in me no more".
I always heard that things slow down during the holidays. That's clearly a lie. I just think that we slow down during the holidays. I am tired. The unpredictability of my hours at work have driven me to working out before work, because work can't touch me before 9am. Yes America and beyond, the hours of 6:30a and 8:30a officially belong to me, and only me. At school I used to work out in the mornings. Wake up, you know, around 8am, hit the gym by 8:30, in the gym for an hour, come back, shower, make an egg sandwich, and get to class by 11am. Now, an early morning outing to the gym happens at 6:30am, and by 6:30pm I'm gassed, and by 11pm, I'm a zombie. I did it two days in a row, and then my doorman remarked how shitty I looked (I paraphrase) so I decided to refrain from getting up early for a third time in row. I suppose I'd get used to it at some point, but right now is not that point.
It would feel wrong not to address the Tiger Woods saga. The initial story was kind of boring. We all know it went down like this...
I like to envision Tiger and Elin actually yelling with sub-titles. But like I've said, this was the boring part. I mean, we've all chased down loved ones with golf clubs, smashing the back window of our own SUVs, have we not? What is this, amateur hour.
The interesting part happened today. I don't really know about prenups. I married some Cambodian woman I met at an ice cream stand this summer (annulled the next morning...turns out she wasn't Jewish) and received a dowry of a couple chickens and three motors scooters, but we didn't do the prenup thing. But Tiger, well, he and Elin have one hell of an agreement.
"The initial prenup was worth $20 million after 10 years of marriage. However, the Chicago Sun-Times' Bill Zwecker has reported that Elin Woods will receive an immediate payment "into an account she alone controls," and that the 10-year timeframe -- which began when they married in 2004 -- has been shortened and the value increased "substantially."
The Daily Beast quotes "a lawyer familiar with the couple's negotiations" in reporting that the term of the prenup has been shortened to seven years, and that a series of staggered payments could increase the total value to $75 million."
But apparently there's also a behavioral component to all this: Elin Woods must "be a dutiful wife in showing up with him at social events and in public as if they were still the perfect couple, and sign a nondisclosure form that will prevent her from ever telling her story."
What the what? So basically Elin Woods is like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, except she kisses on the mouth? Is this a marriage or an endorsement deal? Do you mean to tell me that every time I buy Gillette razors that my money is going to Elin's "Dutiful Wife Fund" via Tiger's endorsement deal with Gillette? And can I invest in this fund because I'm pretty sure the return is going to be better than the 1% I'm getting on my money market savings account. Where the love at? Are these mega star athletes just absolutely so far removed from reality that they have to make up elaborate contracts with their significant other(s)? I just have so many questions. Like for one, how did this agreement even come to pass. Of course, this is how I envision it going down...
So the deal is, I'm going to pay you millions of dollars and you are going to act like we are the perfect couple.
But aren't we the perfect couple?
We're good, but when I pay you it'll be a guarantee. Do you understand?
Ya. I like Sweden.
Jesus Elin. I'm paying you to look good and shut up. It's a contract. Like you know how Gatorade is putting food on my plate because I say how tasty it is.
Ya. I like the red one.
Well just think of me as your Gatorade.
Ya, because you wear the red on the Sundays.
Listen. I'm paying you because I want to bang whores. There, I said it.
I know I said the next post would be post-Thanksgiving, but sometimes, like nature, blogging calls. So my birthday...good times. First trip to Sammy's Rumanian....check. Last trip to Sammy's Rumanian...check. I'm not sure my body can handle that again, at least not for another few years. Between the heart-attack inducing foods and the copious amounts of vodka (which I don't even like), in celebrating another year of life I most certainly lopped off another two on the other side. The next morning, as I sat on the N Train on my way down to Union Square I noticed that someone near me smelled like sweat, garlic, and onions only to realize that that holy trinity of olfactory nastiness had embedded itself quite nicely in the material of my Patagonia jacket. Suffice to say I let that bad boy air out over the course of the next few days.
But getting into the details of my birthday is not why I'm here. I'm here to single-handedly keep the financial system on its axis. I'm here to make sure that on Monday we all have jobs, and we all can go take out money at the ATM, and we all have someone for Main Street to yell out when bonuses are paid out this year.
Everyone in my group is out on Friday. In fact, it was just me and the other associate in for part of the day on Wednesday and it was incredibly quiet as one can imagine. But on Friday, it'll be just me. Originally it was going to be cool if I took the day off as well, however, Tuesday afternoon it was determined that I should be there "in case things blow up". Sounds promising. I understand that it's not a bad idea for someone to hold it down and I'm local for Thanksgiving and I'm the new guy so I guess it falls to me. So while nobody really expects anything to happen on Friday, I, the eternal optimist, am thinking of every possible doomsday scenario that could happen tomorrow. For something serious to happen tomorrow my phone would have to ring, and let me tell you, I can count on two hands the number of calls I've received in the past two months and I can count on one hand the number of times the call was actually for me and not a wrong number.
Once that phone rings I'm assuming the powers that be will be calling on me to avert total and utter destruction of the world's financial system as we know it. If my phone rings, well shoot, it's time to run to your local supermarket to stock up on water and your local gun shop to stock up on guns. If my phone rings tomorrow, oh boy, that's bad news for everyone. Tomorrow I will truly be the last line of defense. The same man who was unsuccessful in growing a respectable mustache not once, but twice this year...the same man who successfully fixed a school bus by watching other more competent people fix a school bus...the same man who proposed the idea of milk-smellers...the same man who once contemplated adding the skills of Air Drying, Watching the Discovery Channel, and Not Wearing Underwear to his resume...yes...it is this man who will be the last line of defense on Friday, the proverbial backstop to a global financial catastrophe. Do you even understand how difficult it was for me to get two different colored highlighters when I started? It's been two months and I can't even get a thumbtack. Not a one. I tape shit to the walls in my cube with scotch tape. My cubicle walls look like the bunch of first graders grabbed a bunch of papers off the printer and played Pin the Tail on the Donkey. You want me to forward your call onto someone else. Oops. I hung up. Why? Because I don't know how to forward calls. My phone is not a phone, but some evil Transformer. One time during my first week I literally flipped the display on my computer screen upside down and had no idea how to fix it. I knew better than to take this issue to the VP in my group so I went around the office introducing myself, and then following it up with the question "So I flipped my screen upside down, do you know how to fix it?". That was an awesome twenty minutes of my life. So when I get the call from some panicked corporate voice tomorrow this is how it'll go down..
Me: Hello this is John. Voice: Is this John Finger? The man in charge on Friday November 27th? The man who can save us? Me: Yes, this is he. Voice: We need the 2045 through 2050 total assets under management estimates for our base case and adverse scenarios and we need them in ten minutes. Me: Sure, the kitchen is over around the corner by the emergency exit. Voice: What? Me: The kitchen. It's over by the emergency exits right around the corner. Just about 20 feet down the hall. Voice: What are you talking about. The financial system is minutes from collapsing. We need these numbers. Me: Hello? Hello. You're breaking up. You know what, I'm just going to forward your call on to my manager.
Oops. I hung up.
It's a steep learning curve, but I'm doing the damn thing one day at a time. I may have once flipped my screen upside down, but at the end of the day you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall because I WILL ORDER THAT CODE RED.
Yeah, maybe I sold my unborn first child to the black market for a pink and a yellow highlighter, and maybe excel has made me her bitch from time to time, but come tomorrow, I'll be there, in my cubicle, taking tacos to the FACE, while I wait for that red phone to ring so I can pick it up and say, "Hello Mr. President, I'm here to save the financial system today, thumbtacks or not".
I keep a notepad by my bed. I always have. You never know what kind of things you'll think about when you dream or when you are trying to fall asleep. At Michigan I'd often wake up in the middle of the night and scrawl some ideas down on paper in the dark and then wake up to realize I'd half written on my notepad and half on my nightstand, but at least I had the idea documented. Sometimes it was an errand I needed to run, or an idea for a blog, or just the name of a song I wanted to download.
The other night I woke up at some godforsaken hour and in a half-sleep turned to my notepad and wrote, "check the 06-09 pre-tax margins". When I woke up the next morning and looked at what I'd written I simply shook my head and muttered to myself, "Finger, you sandbaggin' son of a bitch". Finally when pencils are down for the day and I can think about anything anything anything under the sun I can't help but think about pre-tax margins? As the Germans say, "uber depressing".
Tomorrow is my birthday and I can vividly remember what I did last year for it. In fact a good portion was documented on facebook, so perhaps that's why I can recall it so vividly. I don't know what day it was exactly, because every day was Friday, but I had a bunch of people over to my apartment, or the Traphouse, as we liked to call it. Michigan was playing UCLA in a pre-season tournament. I had made a batch of Trapjuice, which is simply a delicious combination of Jim Beam and orange Gatorade (shake and pour over ice) and had a fridge stocked with Miller Lites. Ah college. We drank, hung out out in my super sparse apartment, and then took the party to Rick's where we celebrated a Michigan upset and partied the night away. It was exactly a year ago, but it feels like just yesterday. Tomorrow there will be no Trapjuice, no crew at the Traphouse, no Rick's. I'm simply hoping I get out of work by 9pm. That's really it. That's all I want. And if it doesn't work out, well, I have the weekend I suppose. I'll have the weekend. All weekend to have visions of pre-tax margins dancing in my head.
Bring on Thanksgiving I say. I won't be blogging again until the long weekend, so let's make it through this next week together loyal followers. Me, you, and The Man.
Safe travels to your Thanksgiving destinations and not to be preachy, but be thankful, even you jaded New Yorkers. Yes, I'm talking to you (and me).
I went into this week thinking it would be a full week, but on Monday someone told me I had off for Veterans Day. Of course I didn't believe it until I received confirmation from about twenty people, but if you don't want me in the office I'm happy to oblige. With my Wednesday free I set out to do what I'm guessing a lot of unemployed people/people who don't work for big corporations do. After easily sleeping until 9am I went to the gym, and then headed down to Tebaya for a meal that I've been meaning to have for a long time. A totally unassuming Korean establishment on a totally unassuming block, Tebaya's acclaimed chicken wings definitely lived up to the hype. I'm kind of a little sick of people using the wording "cloyingly" because every Tom Dick and Harry uses it in every food review I've read as of late, but the wings were perfectly cooked, crisp on the outside, moist on the inside, with a bit of garlic, some sesame seeds and what I think was a teriyaki glaze that was sweet, but yes, not cloyingly sweet. Damn it. I was the first one in at around noon, but when I left it was pretty busy. A testament to the wings no doubt.
I then roamed around Union Square and because it was cold I went into Barnes & Noble where I read the first chapter of a book called Fordlandia about Henry Ford's attempt to build a utopian, rubber-producing, midwestern society right in the middle of the Amazon. I didn't make it to chapter two but I'm guessing Fordlandia ended up running as smoothly as the Detroit Lions. Zing. By the way, I was shocked at the number of people who had literally just found a couple feet of carpet and curled up with a book they surely had no intention to buy. I'm fine with that, but knowing that, the next time I buy a book at B&N I'm going to make sure that I grab a book from the back of the stack. I don't need any weirdo cooties on my brand new book, and believe me, there were some weirdo cooties up in B&N at 2:30 on a Wednesday. After meeting a friend for coffee and having dinner with my family it was off to see a New York Knicks team that had less chemistry than a New York City public high school. These guys are elite players. Don't get me wrong. But guys making that much money have no reason to look as horrible out there on the court as they did. The Knicks playing like they played...a shanda I tell you.
Wednesday left me fulfilled, but also exhausted, which is great because I'm sitting here waiting to head out to Chelsea Piers for a 10:15 basketball game. That's way too late, and if it were earlier in the week it probably would be something that could throw off my sleep for the rest of the work week. So I'm sitting here, trying to eat half a dinner, which I can't do because I'm an all or nothing kind of guy. I went "all" unfortunately, and I'm literally sitting here dunking cookies in milk and blogging, which is how I imagine much of middle America spends their evenings these days.
I got to thinking how a) at camp we had milk and cookies when we were younger, and b) how I'm pretty sure adult wannabes such as myself don't drink enough milk anymore. I do have a bowl of cereal each morning, and grew up drinking milk with dinner which surprisingly a lot of people find strange. Maybe I was subconsciously inspired to drink milk tonight because of this article in the NYTimes about the health benefits of drinking chocolate milk.
Somewhere in America a fat boy is crying out at the dinner table "I want my flavanoid-rich chocolate milk". And would you blame him? I know I'd rather give my kid chocolate milk for dinner than soda, which I've more or less sworn off since my junior year of college. Hell, Momofuku even has s Milk Bar, in which they charge exorbitant prices for flavor infused milk. If I want Froot Loops flavored milk I'll pour myself a bowl and let it sit in the fridge for a few hours to soak. I never looked at milk and cookies at camp as a way to get the youngins to get some calcium and flavanoids in their lives. I just remember it being a reason to have to climb down from the top bunk and freeze my ass off brushing my teeth for a second time. Anyway, I'm sure there was a good reason they didn't give us milk and cookies and then send us out to play basketball, because anyone who would do that is surely a moron.
I write this blog, and even I'm getting a little sick of reading about the working world in this space. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the workplace is fascinating, and often times for unpleasant reasons. Truth be told, several weeks ago I had consecutive midnight nights...to which the Investment Bankers out there say "boo freaking-hoo" and/or "FingerTheBlog is a candy ass"...but for me that was the first time I'd put in hours like that. On the morning of day three I was a bit on edge, a bit shell shocked perhaps. The sound of footsteps in the vicinity of my cube elicited a physiological reaction that wasn't particularly pleasant. In order to keep sane I realized I need to focus a little harder on the sounds at the office. I was going to have to learn to like be an office ornithologist of sorts.
I sit in a pretty highly trafficked area, but since paying closer attention to sounds I can sense when my manager is coming over to talk to me. I hear him walking and I know the sounds his shoes make against the carpet as they come to a halt just shy of the boundary to my cube. I'm beginning to understand what it's like to be SpiderMan. It sure is a lot of responsibility, but I can't wait until I can shoot webbing out of my hands. That'll definitely be a separate blog post. As of late there's been a bowl of candy that's been parked on the executive assistants' desk which resides right behind my cube. There's been an inordinate amount of foot traffic so basically my Spidey Sense has been tingling like whoa since Halloween and I still get those nasty mini-physiological reactions from time to time.
There's another fellow, who is from my best guess from a southern region of the midwest. I don't know for sure, nor will I ever ask, but he clears his throat in a eerily similar fashion to my manager who sits out of my earshot. For a while, the midwestern throat clearing really threw me for a loop because I thought that my manager was constantly near my cube, lurking, circling, waiting to swoop in for a kill. I jest of course. And if my manager was close at all times it's not like it would be an issue, because I'm doing anything illegal or illicit at my desk. I'm just working. I guess what it comes down to is the desire to not be snuck up on. A friend told me once that the partner at his hedge fund wears only socks all day, and has been known to sneak up on unsuspecting employees. Hopefully not on purpose. Sounds like a living nightmare to me.
I, like any mammal or otherwise, who has ever lived on this planet desires to have a maximum handle on his/her environment, and until humans evolve to develop eyes in the back of our heads (it's coming, oh yes, it's coming) we'll just have to rely on what we currently have in order to help us survive. I urge you to try it for yourself at the workplace, or even if you are just sitting at home or in the park or where ever. Not the car though. Close your eyes and just listen. I don't think we as a people listen enough. If you're at work though don't do this for too long because I've actually walked past someone who literally had their eyes closed and I don't think it was because she had read this blog. I think she had mastered sitting upright and sleeping, to which I earnestly say, "brava". Not everyone can do that.
I cannot wait for the sweet sweet sounds of Friday tomorrow. A little more laughter, a little less typing on the keypads, and hopefully the zipping of zippers and shuffling of papers around 6:30p as people pack up for the weekend. Back in the day TGIF meant Steve Urkel, but now I truly Thank God It's Friday. Oddly enough I just bought a shirt just like that because plaid shirts just like that are very much in style these days. Upon closer look, the tortoise-shell aviator-style specs, the uptown fade, the plaid shirt...I think sans suspenders and an unbuttoning of the top button Steve Urkel would be the hippest dude in Williamsburg with that outfit on. Too bad he was fifteen years ahead of his time. Seriously, let that thought just simmer until it blows your mind. Boom.
That was a lot of rain earlier this week. Walking to work became more of a mission to not step in a big puddle than anything else, and because I have cat-like quickness I was able to make it to work without getting too wet on Monday and Tuesday. I think it probably would make sense to keep an extra pair of socks at my desk for those rainy days. On Tuesday it was raining pretty hard and I went to pick up some food to bring back and eat at my desk, which is what I do every day. On my way back I was thinking about two things: avoiding stepping in puddles and how good my veggie soup would taste. Well I got a taste. A taste of about a gallon of puddle water splashing up from the street into my face/mouth. Luckily I had a full length trenchcoat on but NY puddle water to the dome was still demoralizing. I'm sure I drank a gallon of swine flu, and on top of that I smelled like wet dog. The rain never lasts forever though. Rain gives way to sun, and sun in turns gives way to grease.
Yes, grease.
It was Friday, moderately slow at work, and two friends from my program suggested that I join them for a sit down lunch. "Like sit down somewhere that's not my desk?" I ask incredulously. Scandalous, sure, but eating a Chicken TBM at Cosi would surely be better than eating at my desk, with my thumb on ALT and my index finger on TAB, toggling between the NYTimes and some spreadsheet that gives me heartburn. Cosi was great and I even grabbed a couple of those excellent, warm, salty, flatbread samples they put out while you wait in line. Ah, life was good, and then I get to the corner of 46th and Park, right across from my office and I'm looking at the ground and there are a hundred little specks of black, so I look up and from high above I see little droplets of oil raining down. I inspect my black Patagonia jacket and lo and behold I'm covered in grease and I smell not like a wet dog, but perhaps a wet dog who is a mechanic. The white shirt I had on as well...ruined. I love Patagonia, and all their products and their customer service and their eco-friendliness, but when the technological geniuses who designed my jacket picked the materials, they weren't thinking about whether their materials would be grease-repellent.
Over the next half hour I contacted the Helmsley building management company who put me in touch with the construction company, who then put me in touch with a guy who texted me quote "Can you meet me downstairs. I work for the mgmt company. I am wearing a black leather jacket". I figured this guy would either make my problems disappear or fit me for a new pair of concrete boots and make me disappear. Instead, with a cigarette hanging from his lips while he spoke, this fellow apologized like I imagine many NY construction workers do, peppering in four-lettered expletives amongst sympathetic sentiments. He said he'd get a check cut for me "for my troubles". All told, my damaged goods probably would run me about $300, but this guy emails his assistant to cut me a $400 check. Not bad. So Monday, hopefully, I'll have a $400 check in my hand. And hopefully at some point in the next week I'll have a new white buttondown and a new Patagonia jacket and an extra $100 worth of tacos.
I'm sick of the rain. Regular and of the grease variety. It's Halloween tonight. This week has already been strange enough, but I'm ready for the weirdness to continue I suppose. Bring it on. But first a nap.
I've been eating a lot of apples at work. Certainly at least one a day and often between the hours of 8p and 11p. Why so late you ask. I can't even go there right now, but I will say this, at 11p on Wednesday I took my eyes off my computer and grabbed an apple. I looked at it, bit it, admired it, bit it again, and thought, what if I was an apple. Then I thought to myself, if I was this apple I wouldn't be building this model right now, and I took a deep breath and buried my face in my computer and continued working. Existentialism has no place at the workplace though. In fact it's downright dangerous at 11pm on a weekday, especially on an empty stomach.
Today I got an email postcard (there's an app for that, apparently) from a friend who was back in Ann Arbor for the Penn State game. It was a blurry picture of a muddy patch of grass with maize and blue-clad students drinking from red Solo cups in the rain, and it was beautiful. Next week Michigan students will come to New York for their Wall Street Week and various other "professional treks". I chronicled this weird event back in 2007. This year I've been asked to speak to current MBA1s about the program, the process, the economy, the whatever. It's almost comical how different my world is now as compared to October 2007. So all these wide-eyed, wet-behind-the-ears students are going to come in and ask all kinds of questions so as to seem intelligent, interested, and smart, and all I'm going to want to say to them is, "Please have fun, please for the love of God enjoy yourselves, and appreciate those lazy Fridays where you wake up late, read or not read cases for a few hours, watch The Office and 30 Rock from the night before, change out of your pajamas, head to the gym, grab No Thai, and then go out with your friends". But really what I'll end up saying is something like prepare for your interviews blah blah blah, and then the MBA1s will look at me and see the tired look on my face and will say to themselves what I said to myself two years earlier which was, "whoa, it must suck to be this dude right now". As much as I hated standing in those godforsaken circles of chit-chat for all those months of recruiting, nodding my head at a bunch of guys I know would rather be doing anything else than talking to me, I would trade places with a first year MBA in half a second.
Today, Sunday, I'm actually "on call". I was asked to be ready to possibly come in and work today. So today I wait, with an imaginary guillotine over my head, and every time my phone rings a little piece of me dies, but so far the calls have only been good calls, ie friends and family. It's the first time, but I'm sure certainly not the last I'll be in this situation. I suppose in situations like this the question is whether it's better to know working on Sunday is a possibility or is it better to be surprised and have to come in on short notice. Is it better to be told on Friday that you might get punched in the mustache on Sunday and have to think about it all weekend, or is it just better to be sucker punched on Sunday out of nowhere. I'm not sure which is worse but I am sure that if I was an apple these aren't things I'd have to worry about. Enjoy the week.
Wow. I guess you really don't appreciate free time until it's been snatched from you and thrown into some bottomless pit. It doesn't seem right to measure the time in days it's been since I blogged last. I shall measure it in spreadsheets. One, two, a million-ish.
At school, and I know I've written this and said it a lot, but every day was Saturday. Now, every day is not Saturday, but doing small things during the week, or as I like to call it, "being a person" during the week, really makes things exponentially better. I guess it's the little things that keep me going all day, like when they have a Cuban food buffet in the cafeteria. Eating chicharrones while stealing glances at NYTimes.com during lunch, or grabbing a fruit shake with a buddy at a food truck at 4pm like I used to do last summer, or crawling under my desk for a thirty minute power nap. These are the luxuries of my life now. And no I don't nap, although I heard some bankers do that when they are pulling all-nighters.
There's this song that I have on my workout mix right now called "Swag On" by Souja Boy. Swag basically is short for swagger. You can do the extra research if you want a better definition. The song is a remix and there are about five or six guys on the track. I think it's Jeezy's who says this, but he has a few lines, and they go like this
"...tell them lames to lose my number/ until they find some money/ being joke is a broke, so that's why I find em funny/ They say life's a bitch but you couldn't take her from me/ Now won't you quit making blogs and try to make some money...."
I really do agree with this, at least the last part. But when I'm not sure Jeezy, or whoever it was that said this, was pointing said "lames" in the direction of finance. Anyway, when you listen to a song a couple times a week for a few weeks you start to think about it a little bit. I'm not saying it's time to quit making blogs, but perhaps it's time to start pursuing writing in other avenues. Unfortunately there's this whole lack of time thing I'm dealing with now, which brings me to my next question. How in God's name does anyone do this and have time for kids? Bless the parents out there, or at least the ones that don't go locking their kids up in cages in the basement.
Before I literally fall asleep at the keyboard here I'll leave you with the chorus to the aforementioned song. Suffice to say, when I get out of bed in the morning I look in the mirror and do my best Nancy Kerrigan impression and say "Whhhhhhhhhyyyyyyyyyy!?!???" (see ~ 2:00).
Soulja Boy, how'd you get out of bed this morning? Quote... "hopped up out tha bed, turn ma swag on, took a look in tha mirror said wassup, yeeeeea im gettin money (ohh)".
There's a mandatory online compliance training class that all new employees have to take. It's short and sweet, and the contents are pretty obvious. Although given the shenanigans we've seen as of late in the world of finance, perhaps people have a difficult time knowing right and wrong. Anyway, in this compliance training class there's mention of blogs and disseminating sensitive info. Basically, you can't say anything about work to anyone outside of work. In fact you can'teven say the word "work" outside of wo...that was close. The first rule of compliance club is that there is no such thing as compliance club. I think the moral of the story here is that I'm going to be super careful of what I write in regards to work. For example, I work between the Equator and about said place where I go five times a week between 8:30am and 8:00pm.
Last Thursday night I played in my basketball league and after a late game (a win), a post-game beer, and a trek all the way uptown it was coming on midnight by the time I started to settle in at home. I needed to get in early the next morning to finish up some work for a midday deadline, so I simply didn't get a whole lot of sleep. The next morning I walked into work with my bacon egg and cheese sandwich and got into the elevator. I got out of the elevator, turned a couple corners and went to my cube to start the day, and lo and behold there's someone sitting in my cube, sitting in my chair, eating my goddamn porridge. I thought to myself, "wow, I haven't even been here a month and I've already been replaced, that sure was quick". And then I looked around and realized that it wasn't my floor, and it was this crazy moment where I wasn't sure if I was in The Matrix or The Matrix was in me. Red pill, blue pill, red pill, blue pill. There I was, with a bacon egg and cheese in hand and a dumbfounded look on my face, a passive observer in this world that was exactly the same as my world, just one floor below me and yet completely different. It was like an out of body experience where I was looking at myself eating breakfast and just thinking that on every floor in this building at that very moment there was some bizarro Finger at the same cube eating his bizarro bacon egg and cheese, and I felt mighty mighty insignificant. I think it's probably best not to think of such things at work though. That was by far one of the strangest ways I've started a Friday in a long time.
Today there was an article about the FTC's new rules regarding bloggers and compliance. Jeez. Why won't everyone just get off my back. Here's a recap from the New York Times:
"The F.T.C. said that beginning on Dec. 1, bloggers who review products must disclose any connection with advertisers, including, in most cases, the receipt of free products and whether or not they were paid in any way by advertisers, as occurs frequently. The new rules also take aim at celebrities, who will now need to disclose any ties to companies, should they promote products on a talk show or on Twitter. A second major change, which was not aimed specifically at bloggers or social media, was to eliminate the ability of advertisers to gush about results that differ from what is typical — for instance, from a weight loss supplement."
I can't even begin to count the number of products I've mentioned/reviewed/lambasted in the last two years. I've never received so much as a penny, a Mallomar, or even a hug for any of my writings. In fact, I've only ever gotten a product for something I've written once, and this was when FingerTheBlog was just a twinkle in my eye. One time back in college I wrote to Chipwich telling them how awesome I thought Chipwiches were and how since 7-11 was only a half a block from my fraternity house we would eat them all the time, and how I would be truly honored if they'd send me a Chipwich t-shirt so I could spread Chipwich love across the world. A few days later I get this email from Chipwich saying how great my email was and how they wanted to use it on their website as a testimonial. I literally had absolutely no clue what the hell they were talking about so I went back to my "Sent Items" in Outlook to see what email they were talking about and found an email I'd written to them at like 3am on a Thursday night. Interesting. I thought to myself, this is why computers should come equipped with breathalyzers. So I wrote back that they could use my email on one condition...they send me a Chipwich t-shirt. A week later I got my t-shirt, which I still have. It reads "Chipwich...a miracle in your mouth". So FTC, eat your heart out, I had a torrid love affair with Chipwich back in 2002 and I'm shilling for them right now. Chipwich chipwich chipwich. Eat 'em while their cold and delicious.
It's been much much debated. Much debated. How much does it cost to live in New York City? I'm talking about my twenty and thirty-something year old friends. I'm not talking about the outliers, and I'm not talking about the Naked Cowboy, and not the Avon Barksdales of the world, and not some of the clowns you see in the glossy summer magazines either. I'm talking about you and me, and even then Mr and Mrs Reader, chances are we're doing it differently. For example, I like chicken. A lot. I'll get some chicken at Food Emporium on a Sunday, and bread enough cutlets to feed a small army and then eat my way through it over the course of a couple days. Maybe you eat sushi four times a week. See, right there we're going to have differing food expense baselines. The point being, what I'm going to attempt to do is not a catch-all by any means, and my calculations are going to be crude and honest. This is a blog post I've been wanting to write for a while and since I'm taking off for Yom Kippur (note: it's taken me several days to actually get to posting) what better opportunity than to deal with elevated hunger and boredom levels than to lock myself up in my apartment and engage in a session of self-loathing, grouchiness, atonement, and blogging, followed by nine Mallomars directly to the FACE as soon as the sun goes down.
Bet you can't eat just nine. You know what I'm talking about Mallomars lovers.
I thought about trying to set up a spread sheet for this, but since I see excel in my dreams and/or nightmares these days I'm going to stick strictly to the alphabet to break down this money situation. So again, this is how I see it. Here goes.
HOUSING
Oh rent. I'm going to say let's assume that you are paying $2,500/month just to keep the numbers simple. If you're paying this much it likely means that you're in a doorman building. Who knows, maybe this amount of rent got you into a building with a fancy name like The Caroline, The Modern, The FedExKinkos, or The ShaDynasty. It's likely that this building comes with accoutrements. Perhaps a gym (that you never use), or a rec room (that you never use) or a laundry facility (that you never use). No, you never use the laundry room because who has time to do laundry. That requires you being home for about 3 consecutive hours, and let's face it, the only time you are ever home for three consecutive hours is when you are a) asleep, b) watching your HBO shows on Sunday, or c) watching football with your buddies on a Saturday or Sunday, and you're not going to be trying to fold laundry whilst crushing beers. But your place has to be clean, so inevitably at some point you've had a friend recommend his or her West Indian cleaning lady who is awesome because "She irons my socks, and washes my sneakers!" for 100 bucks a week x four times a month = $400. However if you grew up in Manhattan the person who cleans your parents' place just comes downtown once a week to clean up for you and then reports back that you still leave your wet towels on the floor in your bedroom. Mom and Dad pick up the tab on that one. Cost = $0. Throw another $100 for the unnecessary cleaning supplies your housekeeper buys and invoices you for (why do you need 2 gallons of grout cleaner again?), and we're at $3,000 so you don't have to live in a cardboard box and smell like you live in a cardboard box.
COMMUNICATION DOT COM
It's not an insignificant cost to be able to communicate with the world. As I blogged about a few weeks back, I got a blackberry, which I named Steve Jobs because back at Michigan my friends all called their iPhones Steve Jobs, and I wanted my own Steve Jobs too. It was always, "wait, it's going to be how cold for the game tomorrow?" and someone would say, "let me ask Steve Jobs" and they'd access their weather app. So figure you pay about $100 a month for phone and data. But maybe you are still part of a family plan like I am. Don't judge me because in my Fave Five are my parents, my sister, Charles Barkley, and Dwyane Wade. In any case, the family plan will reduce those cell phone bill costs for sure, but we'll stick to the aforementioned $100. But then you need internet, and if we're talking internet we should talk cable because these things are bundled. I don't have cable, and I've been successfully poaching others' internet for years. In fact I'm kind of like the Robin Hood of internet theivery. Over the years I've borrowed internet access from several prominent private equity companies, including some barbarians at a certain gate, and a few famous hotels. My all-time favorite was when for a period of several months I was using Chanel's corporate connection, and every time I walked by their crazy storefront displays I would say, "thanks, suckaaaas". Every time I want to connect I have to wrap myself up in tinfoil and hang wire hangers from my arms while standing on one leg in the western-most corner of my room, but it's free, suckaaaas. I don't know how you do communication dot com, but I'm going to say that per month it's costing you about $225 for phone/cable/internet and your splurges buying apps for your own Steve Jobs.
FOODSTUFFS AND DRINKSTUFFS
I'm not even sure how to figure this out really, but on the weekend if you go out to dinner and out to drink after your per person cost for that evening is going to be at least $100. I'm just going to say $160/weekend x 4 weekends = $640. That soundsweird and conservative buts that's what I'm going with. If you are an investment banker this cost is $0 because you are Seamless Web's bitch 24/7. In fact, I think if you are a banker you spend all your money between 11pm and 2am on DVDs and books and baselayers from online shopping sources. If you actually get to occasionally eat at home perhaps you buy groceries, which will run you probably another $200 per month.
Quick side anecdote...there is a gym in my building, which I use. In fact, sometimes I think I'm the only one who uses the gym. Tumbleweed everywhere. In the gym they have some apples and bananas for patrons and this fruit just sits and sits and sits. So back in the day when I was keeping it real and brown-bagging it to work a few times a week I'd stop down in the gym and grab a banana or an apple from time to time on my way to work. Well, after doing this for years and nobody saying anything I went down to the gym one morning and grabbed a banana and put it in my lunch bag. There next to the fruit stood a lady who worked in the building, and she exclaimed, like seriously exclaimed, "What are you doing!?" I said, "I'm getting a banana". To which she said, "but these are only for people who use the gym", and I replied "I use the gym almost every day, and I've been taking bananas for years and its fine". Apparently not. Well I get back from work and there's a note under my door asking me to please call the General Manager of the building. Am I in trouble for eating rotten fruit or something? So I call this fellow and I just need to add that he's German, because he is, and because it makes what he said to me even more awesome. I call the German and introduce myself and clearly he's not into the chit chat. He cuts to the chase. He asks me what I was doing in the gym that morning. I explained that I use the gym all the time and I just wanted to grab a banana. He said, and this is a quote which I will never forget, he said, "You need to stop this deviant behavior". Deviant Behavior? Holy scheiser dude, we're talking about taking a banana, not the Maltese Falcon. I felt like a street urchin who got caught red-handed stealing fruit in the bazaar and was about to get sent back to the orphanage. Bottom line, don't eff with a guy who is that serious about bananas. I adapted though. Instead of grabbing my fruit in the AM, I would just take some right after my workout for the following day, even if I looked like this leaving the gym.
Damn Chiquita, you fine as hell.
Anyway, I know I spend about $4 on a breakfast, $10 on lunch and another $10 on dinner, for $25 x 3 or 4 days a week for ~$100 x four weeks = $400. Can that be? I'm just going to throw another $50 per week for drinks x four weeks = $200.
$640 + 200 + 400 + 200 = $1440 per month for food and drink. Really? Damn, I'm a very hungry caterpillar.
TRAVELOGUE
You shouldn't skimp on travel. I think for the first time I'll run into a situation where I have vacation days but chances are I simply won't be able to use them. This makes me miss college and college part II even more. I can't break this out by month but I want to say $7,000 for travel all in per year and this is if you are really getting after it as you should be. This is travel to Australia and travel upstate, and everything in between. And maybe you say, well I spend more, and to that I say, good for you, you've earned it, spend that money. Or maybe that seems exorbitant, to which I say, child please, spend that money, you've earned it. The other day I heard someone talking about taking a week off and doing a "stay-cation". Go somewhere. Anywhere. Utah. Ann Arbor. Harlem.
WEDDINGS
You have to ask yourself "how popular am I?". Very = $10,000. Moderately = $6,000. Less So = $2,000. Hiring someone to dress up your two cats and throwing a wedding for them = $500. There are just way too many outliers here. Destination weddings, bachelor parties, replacing ruined suits, hotels, morning after pills. I've heard all kinds of stories. Let's just say $4,000 and we'll leave out "hush money" for your new baby mama. I'm talking to you John Edwards.
GIRLFRIENDS
"A milli a milli a milli a milli a milli". I must admit, I really don't have a good read on this these days, but I do know Valentine's, Anniversaries, Anniversaries of First Dates, Anniversatries of First Kisses, I-know-you-said-flowers-are-a-waste-but-here-are-some-flowers, and Birthdays aren't cheap, and the I'm Sorry Presents you have to buy when you forget one of the above don't exactly buy themselves. Maybe you date some emo girl who loves shopping at thirft stores and sewing her own clothing, but chances are you don't. Maybe you date a girl who's a Julia Childs in the kitchen, but chances are you don't and you're going out to fancy dinners a bunch. I don't what arrangement you have if you're attached, so this is the methodology I'm going to use.
But first let's do some math to see where we are.
Annualized
Weddings: $4000
Travel: $7000
Food/Drink: $1440 x 12 = $17,280
Communications: $225 x 12 = $2,700
Housing: $3,000 x 12 = $36,000
TOTAL = $66,980/year ($5,581.66 Monthly)
And back to girlfriends. Let's apply some percentage increases.
Girl from Long Island: Add 20% of monthly so (20% * $5,581) = $1,116 on top of your monthly spend, equals $6,697. I don't know why, but I find girls from Long Island to be the most unreasonable. They aren't bad people on the whole, but I just don't know what the deal is. Why wear a trashy t-shirt when you can wear a trashy t-shirt that looks like it was washed 20 billion times. And orange isn't a naturally occuring skin tone, at least not here on earth.
Girl from New Jersey: Add 18% of monthly so (18% * $5,581) = $1,004 on top of the monthly spend, equals $6,585. A little more reasonable, but claiming that mid level vodka gives you headaches...I mean, really? Too bad when you asked me to get you Grey Goose I got you Absolut and then watched you take a sip and say how much better Grey Goose tastes.
Girl from NYC/Westchester/CT: Add 15% of monthly so (15% * $5,581) = $837 on top of monthly spend, equals $6,418. In general, more likely to have their shit together, even though I know some people are going to vehemently dispute this. We all know some crazy NYC girls, yes we do, but don't we know waaay more crazy girls not from New York. I thought so
And I can't speak for any girl south of the Mason-Dixon line or west of the Allegheny Mountains, yet, which kind of makes me cringe a little. Man, I need to get out a little bit more.
Bottom line..."Now you're In New York/these streets will make you feel brand new/big lights will inspire you/ let's hear it for New York, New York...", so says Jay Z or actually Alicia Keys on Jay Z new track. What he omitted is that this place ain't cheap, and that Beyonce has her own small fortune. Oh that Beyonce. This was just a back of the napkin calc, and those numbers are going to seem high to some, and low to others. I tried people, I really did. I gotta get back to sewing my own clothes now.
