48. Open Bars

48. Open Bars

Since bankers are grinding 24/7 at work they’re always looking to take advantage of any free time they have at night. With that in mind, the idea of an open bar, let alone a FREE open bar, is Christmas come early for a banking analyst. An open bar lets analysts act like they are back in college again, which isn’t too far in the past. The only issue? That they are in fact well paid employees of a top global company and represent the company in all of their actions….yeaaaaaa F that. Definitely not the first, second or fifth thing going through an analyst’s mind.

Soooo naturally one or a few people are going to enjoy their freedom a bit too much and think they are back in college. Simply drinking too much to the point of getting sick is no big surprise, since banking hours have made the analyst’s tolerance suffer. What I love is when an analyst not only drinks to the point of getting sick that night, but shows up to work the next day looking like he/she was hit by a truck and proceeds to make sweet love to the toilet bowl all day. Embarrassing? Yes. Big deal in the overall pyramid of drunken mistakes? Not really.

The mistakes can be amplified as you move up the food chain at a bank. I have heard stories of a married VP who couldn’t his alcohol and decided it was a smart idea to get in a cab and ask the cab to find him a hooker. Fortunately this VP had a trusty analyst hop in the car with him and remind him in not so gentle words that he was married with children and should probably go home. The VP agreed and said that he would hop in another cab to head home, thanking the analyst for reminding him. It would be OK if the story ended there. But instead, the VP decided to hop out of the cab and start sprinting away from the analyst. Out of shape VP < style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 10 points for the analyst, -50 points for the VP in the “Good Guy of the Year” award.

Want to know what can amplify any open bar mistakes? Open bar during the summer when young 21 year old interns are in tow. Oh yes, fresh meat. These college kids are ready to party to stay in shape for their senior years, and the analysts on up want to prove that they can still hang in terms of drinking. Disaster ensues. The mistakes can be “innocent” like a VP dancing around like a fool on bar tops, unaware of the fact that analysts have camera phones nowadays. Innocence can go to the wayside when the older folks decide that the interns are grownups, and should be treated as such, so the bankers decide to grope the analysts while dancing. Oh yes, this happens. Groping can lead to….yeah you get the drill. Open Bar + Summer + repressed i-bankers + young, eager interns = recipe for disaster

These are just a few examples of the various events I have been a witness to or heard stories about. You can add on to this drunken open bar bowling event stories, EDs stealing things from bars, fighting with random people in the street and ordering lobsters at 4:30 in the morning. The stories are endless. Feel free to post some of your best to amuse the rest of us. Enjoy saying goodbye to the interns if you haven’t already!

25. Interns

25. Interns

It’s summer time and you know what that means? Great weather, analyst bonuses, sunburns, and, best of all, interns. Ah yes, investment banking interns, the newest low man on the totem pole. No longer are the first year analysts the ones given the mind-numbing tasks like making company profiles or finding the names of the CEOs for the top 100 companies. Nope, no longer will the first year analyst be staying at work until 3am to wait for books to be printed. The interns are here! The interns are here!

These college juniors are willing to work their little butts off for 10 weeks to join the elite class of investment bankers. They all know that interviewing for jobs in the fall is an arduous, time-consuming task, so they would rather lockup a job after the summer. During these times when even first year analysts are being fired, interns surely know how difficult it is to score a sweet gig like being an investment banker. Need someone to hand deliver a presentation to Long Island? Intern boy is your man. Second year analysts are either physically gone or gone in spirit come summer time so there is plenty of work to be had by these interns. It might not be the most exciting work, but if they pretend to enjoy it and try to learn from the wise first year analysts they may find themselves a nice gift under their Christmas tree at the end of their internships.

I avoided this daunted task of being an investment banking intern for fear of hating the job so much and settling for some low paying job. This led to a brutal senior fall interviewing with 50 different firms and kissing a$$ every day for two months just to land a job. My advice is help the analysts with their work and try to soak up some knowledge while doing quite a bit of mindless work. The key is to not get taken advantage of, but at the same time don’t refuse to do something because you think it is beneath you. You may have gone to Wharton and know how to do a financial model like the back of your hand, but being an intern is like being in the minors or being a bench warmer. You have to earn your spot in the big leagues, so be patient and do what you can to position yourself for a top review and a job offer. Good luck young grasshoppers!