32. Trash Talking

32. Trash Talking

The second associate X leaves our bullpen one of my cubemates immediately throws a pen where X was standing and curses him out as if he was still there. Of course my fellow analyst is not stupid enough to talk back to the associate and tell him that he is a useless lowlife. Instead he opts for the safer route of talking sh*t once the associate leaves the area and letting all of us know how dumb and demeaning the X is towards him.

While in sports athletes like Chad Johnson and Sam Cassell will talk trash to your face in the middle of the game, investment bankers are not quite as tough. At every level of the food chain, bankers know better than to talk trash directly to the people above them. Yes, this may be true in every workplace, but investment banks fill themselves with employees who finished at the top of their class in school so think they are smarter and more deserving than the next guy. The egos are huge, the testosterone is at Barry Bonds level, and the trash talking in prevalent in whispers. You can cut the tension with a knife!

With a job like investment banking where more than 50% of the compensation is from the bonus, employees rely on getting good reviews from their bosses and peers. That means taking it in the rear from your bosses and always seeming like you’re working hard and happy to be doing so. The truth is, once the boss turns his head you are flicking him off and mocking his voice to your confidants in your group. Not the ideal environment but investment banking is a dog-eat-dog world where a lot of money hungry people are fighting for an even smaller pie of bonuses. While you are talking smack about your boss or peers, they are probably doing the same thing about you, except their word actually means something. Gotta love a true hierarchy….