Urine Trouble
When our boisterous CEO Ace Greenberg declares that all Bear Stearns SMD’s are drug-free, substantiating this claim requires some urine tests. Several fail.
Cokeheads are unreliable. Their rancid breath is predictable. The rest is usually a mess.
Executive addicts go on workday binges. Headline speakers blow off entire conference rooms full of Ritz Carlton attendees, while they bang hookers up the street.
Bear Stearns administers a drug screen for everyone else upon engagement. We also take polygraph tests. They wire us up to ask whether we’ve ever stolen anything worth more than a stapler from the office or come to work drunk.
Our rank-and-file trading and sales personnel are not expected to be totally clean. Personnel Department secretaries at 5 Hanover Square admit, “If we fired people for smoking dope after hours, we’d have no Treasury Department. Half of the high-grade bond desk needs an AA meeting.”
Producers are encouraged to spend money on customers, getting them fed, wasted and laid. Lincoln Towncars whisk everyone back to their naïve wives and suburban lives.
As the sales assistant, I process travel and entertainment receipts from all over Manhattan.
Downtown clients meet at the colonial landmark Fraunces Tavern. The 19th Century steakhouse Delmonico’s is nearby, around the corner from Harry’s at Hanover Square.
The younger crowd likes Nick & Eddie’s in SoHo. The Odeon was featured in Michael J. Fox’s flick Bright Lights Big City.
Il Mulino overcharges for Italian food in The Village. And El Teddy’s on West Broadway boasts a giant Statue of Liberty crown on the roof and margaritas downstairs.
The former speakeasy Chumley’s hides on Bedford Street. Framed book covers (signed by famous patrons) cover the walls. Sawdust covers the floors. The golden retrievers are trained not to beg. Chumley would be a great name for a dog some day.
Hipster’s favorite haunt The Acme hosts live music and hot sauces. The Coffee Shop was started by some Wilhelmina models. It lies across the street from The Union Square Café.
Meanwhile, the rest of us eat in the 2nd floor cafeteria. It’s pretty good and well priced. It keeps workers of all ranks inside the building for efficiency reasons.
Schadenfreude
I often see things that others somehow miss. As a trader in training, I practice the skill of retaining critical information for later. Careful timing can cause maximum effect.
Trading is knowing how to react to the unexpected. Leave it up to the Germans. They actually have a word for the joy derived from the misery of others: Schadenfreude.
Today’s breakfast companion is Large Marge. She works for Michael Payte, the head of the Fixed Income Syndicate desk. When bonds come to market, they coordinate with other selling group members. Unlike her boss, she is built for roller derby.
Large Marge is fairly dainty for her height and known for her sense of humor. Everyone on a trading desk must be a good sport to survive. Whiners get mocked, shunned and eventually evicted from the trading floor flock, if they cannot take a joke.
She can.
Large Marge slides her plastic breakfast tray on the three support rails, grinning downward towards me and away from the enclosed grill area. She bubbles with proud updates on her newest nephew. Marge pays no attention to Norman, making her daily breakfast order. I watch them both.
No one sees this but me. Norman drools onto Marge’s pancakes. A lot.
Hovering over the hot grill surface, he releases a long, viscous string of clear spittle. Norman looks left then right, in an uncharacteristically shady response to a mistake. He could simply throw the pancakes away and make more.
He doesn’t.
Instead, Norman wipes the spit off with white terrycloth towels, throws a lid over her breakfast and hands the pancakes to her, as if nothing disgusting had just happened.
My jaw drops in awe of the circumstances presented to me. This is a gift.
I will not get Norman in trouble but absolutely must use this to its greatest effect.
Large Marge continues to pile food onto her tray for coworkers, until I inform her about Norm’s special bio-hazard pancake syrup. She screams.
In one swift move, she releases her entire tray full of breakfast in a panic. It drops.
Just like in a cartoon, she grabs her head with both hands. The food flies everywhere. Boston Crème donuts, pancakes, bacon, eggs and funny secrets.
She keeps Norman’s secret.
Norman keeps his job.
With all of the bullshit around this place lately, what’s a little drool on a pancake?
I stop eating in the cafeteria.
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