The Last Line of Defense

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".