If you can’t sell yourself, you can’t sell anything. You should be your own favorite product.
That’s our industry’s suitability test for future traders and salesmen. Shyness is rarely rewarded. Humility is normally imposed upon us by outside forces or bad luck.
Talking my way onto a Wall Street floor without family connections, I made a home at 55 Water Street, then 5 Hanover Square, the New York Stock Exchange and more recently 245 Park Avenue.
It’s Whom You Know
Tutoring a limited partner’s daughter and typing 90 words per minute was my strategic angle. The Personnel Department at 5 Hanover Square shared me with the High Yield group during my summer internships.
Piano and typing lessons finally paid off, personalizing turndown letters for unsuccessful job applicants a few times a week.
Dad insisted that we all take 2 years of typing in high school. “These computers are going to be the next big thing. Maybe you should try that instead of Wall Street?”
Mom says I should go to law school. They’re both probably right. I should listen more. But I like trading.
Everyone at Bear Stearns harbors a story that originally got them here. Mandatory public ”help-not-really-wanted” classified ads satisfy the law yet serve as a decoy.
Bear Stearns historically promotes within. These Drexel guys wipe out the natives.
Competition in life, work or sports weeds out the weak. If not born with connections, make them. Use your strengths to garner favor. I tutored math and wound up on a Wall Street trading desk. I will need that same finesse to stay here.
Shut Up, Listen and Learn
Landing the job in the right elevator bank and surviving are two very different things. Once you’re in the Bear Stearns trading and sales aquarium, you’re on your own. The pH has changed forever. My guru got pushed out by Nick. It’s sink or swim again.
My fellow captives show up obediently for Saturday “face time” to appease the colonizing bosses. The entire desk fights for their survival. I don’t bother.
Nick claims that she denied me a bonus, so that it didn’t go to my head. It’s actually because I was brought in by the same team that tried to push her out. Woops!
The new chiefs wear Gucci loafers like a shoe that is earned, not bought. Priced to intimidate, these unremarkable shoes delineate the bosses from the serfs.
Their jingle tells subordinates to look busy. The High Yield Department becomes a bad master class at The Actors Studio.
Bond traders and salespeople stare nervously at flickering screens, changing topics from The Mets to Stone Container’s warehouse fire or Denny’s the growing diner.
They scrunch their eyebrows over decoy work, whenever senior management returns to the trading desk. It’s very funny to watch.
Master Class
Traders bond by treating each other to reciprocal shoeshines. We even have our own shoeshine guy on salary, who covers the entire firm.
Everyone’s favorite is Eddie. He’s so quiet and polite. Eddie smiles and mini-bows gratefully at any size tip. I’ve only ever heard him say “Thank you” and “Excuse me.”
One day, he just doesn’t show up! Then his Bear Stearns broker spills the beans.
Eddie pulls off the most respectable Wall Street heist that my career will ever witness.
As it turns out, the shoeshine guy spent every day silently collecting information about distressed securities. He traded volatile reorg penny stocks in his PA (personal account) at night.
Just like any other retail broker, Eddie’s registered rep got his shoes shined and took stock orders from the shoeshine millionaire. Only the retail guy and secretary knew.
Bear Stearns is Eddie’s real master class.
He learned to invest from the best. Eddie is the real actor here.
Sometimes, the little guy does win.
This is very good, Dennis.