I work in an investment bank in New York City. First off, all the things you have heard are true, most of them I have witnessed first hand or had detailed to me through trusted parties. We are talking about obscene work hours, public floggings, whimsical firings, gluttony, greed, mayhem, sheer stupidity, you name it. That said, it’s not nearly as bad as it was in the glory years (late 80s and late 90s). That’s simply because the more nefarious characters have gone to jail.
One of the joys of working in an investment bank is that you get to observe a species of human called “the analyst”. Generally speaking i-banking analysts are top of their class academically but are otherwise warped (as I will soon demonstrate). Basically analysts make more money then 90% of the population but they live, sleep, eat and breath the business, doing stupid things for their bosses along the way. Typically analysts work 100+ hour weeks, consume all meals on premise, pull at least one all nighter a week, work 360 days a year, and generally walk around in a sleep deprived state propped up by deal frenzy, caffeine and the knowledge that their bonus check will be fat. If they go home it is only to change clothes and shower. When these animals are able to escape the cage they drink to excess. An analyst is not allowed to get sick so generally he/she (and we have female analysts) maintains a blood level toxicity so high that no bacteria or virus could possibly survive in their blood stream. They don’t exercise or go to the gym. All right you get the picture.
Anyway, analysts are prone to one-upmanship and doing idiotic things unprompted. Most of these things start out with some line that translates into “anything you can do I can do better”. Then an overpaid and underworked Vice President (like myself) gets involved to structure the bet and an Associate is assigned to monitor and keep records of true heroic performances.
The case of the “breakfast sandwich consumption challenge" began innocuously – “I can eat more bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches then you in a week” . Not satisfied with that, one of our VPs crafted it into an endurance challenge – race to 100, not more then 2 sandwiches day, sandwich must have AT LEAST one complete egg (no egg whites only), one source of pork fat, cheese and two slices of a bread commodity. This definition was subsequently modified to include the McGriddle, which is the standard ante.
So as you might expect we hit 50 work days with two of analysts tied at 100 so we rolled it to 200, then 300, then 400 and finally 500. I am pleased to announce that our analyst Slovenly Shawn ate 500 breakfast sandwiches in 262 working days to best Jedi-Warrior Josh who was stuck on 230. Truly IM worthy. So if you think posting pictures of your wives, sisters, daughters, etc. is sick – think about cowboying up to nearly a year of McGriddle two-a-days.
