Straight to Hell

Windows on
the World

"Excuse me, another round of Bloodys, please?"

It's August 2001, and I'm hanging out at Windows on the World, at the top of Tower One of the World Trade Center, with a few of my fellow new analyst classmates. It's only 9:30 a.m., but we don't really care. Most of my drinking companions are either European or well connected; everyone else is far too cautious to skip out on training. They're all across the street in the auditorium of 7 World Trade, diligently taking notes about financial accounting, bond math, or whatever.

I'm not worried about skipping class; I was there first thing to put my name on the sign-in sheet, and I've got a promise from a friendly classmate that he'll text me if there's any kind of impromptu roll call. So far, that text hasn't come, but I keep a pack of Marlboro Lights in my pocket just in case I need an alibi for the time it takes me to make it down two elevators and back across the street.

Besides, it should be time to celebrate. We've made it. Wall Street, the pinnacle, some might argue, for any ambitious and accomplished college graduate looking to enter the workforce. I don't recall the precise statistics, but we're reminded on a daily basis how fortunate we are-the firm received something like 25,000 applications for roughly 350 spots globally.

Gazing out the window on the 107th floor, I feel confident, even invincible. It wasn't always that way. During my interview with Lazard Frères, a prestigious boutique investment bank and one of the last true partnerships on Wall Street, I almost passed out from vertigo staring out the window from the mere fifty-seventh floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Then, after a final-round interview superday with Bear Stearns, I inadvertently sent a thank-you email to the head of emerging markets, telling him how much I wanted to work for JPMorgan. During a Goldman Sachs interview, some asshole asked me who, living or dead, I would most like to have dinner with. I guess he wasn't particularly impressed that I named Tupac Shakur ahead of Marcus Aurelius or Alexander Hamilton. Still, despite these hiccups, in the end, I wanted to do fixed income, and for that, there was arguably no better place to be than Salomon Brothers, with the recently added platform and balance sheet of Citigroup behind it.

There's only one slight problem: my analyst class is the largest in the history of investment banking. We were hired based on quotas set in mid-2000, before it was evident that the dot-com party was over. Nowhere is this more painfully clear than in the European TMT team (telecom, media, and technology), which hired forty first-year analysts. On the first day of training, those analysts were informed that there were now only seven available spots, leaving them scrambling to find a new team before the end of training or be out of a job.

With the exception on TMT, most analysts aren't assigned or invited to join a specific team until near the end of training. Having received an offer after my internship in debt capital markets the previous summer, I already know I have a bid from that group if I want it. But for most of the analysts, the real competition is just beginning. It turns out that landing a coveted Wall Street job isn't the finish line; it's the starting block. You wouldn't know it looking at the flushed faces around our table at Windows on the World, surrounded by Brooklyn Lager empties and half-chewed celery sticks.

Later that afternoon, we are given the first of many ominous warnings.

"Let this be a reminder to all of you. Not only are you required to attend all training sessions, you are expected to act in a professional manner and take them seriously. Additionally, next Tuesday, we will have our first exam-accounting. In all likelihood, the bottom 10% will be let go."

A posh-sounding British kid, one of my drinking buddies, raises his hand. "But I studied classics at Oxford? This doesn't seem fair." Apparently, it's not all shits and giggles.

"What do you think the training is for? I'm sure you'll do fine."

This doesn't faze me at all; I studied finance and economics. Other than learning how to use Excel without a mouse, I don't really need the training.

It turns out that HR is not bluffing. The day after the first exam, the results are posted on two large bulletin boards in the back of the auditorium. In a lazy attempt at privacy, one board lists each person's name along with a random numerical code next to it. The second board has each person's code listed in numerical order with their exam result next to it.

Obviously, the first thing everybody does is look up their own scores-I passed with flying colors. After that, we all spend the next ten minutes indiscreetly running back and forth between the two boards gossiping and checking the results of our friends and adversaries. HR makes no attempt to provide summary statistics or clarity on the results, leaving those who had not fared well to fester in uncertainty while awaiting formal confirmation of their fate. That night, the bottom 10% is notified with a simple note under the door of their temporary corporate housing apartments. We are all a bit envious of the people who no longer have a roommate.

There's a certain nonchalance and indifference about the firm's approach to this process that we all find both disconcerting and thrilling. The next week, it happens again after the financial math exam. Same drill-the bottom 10% is let go. Again, I have nothing to worry about. There's blood in the water now, and I have to admit, the process is somewhat exhilarating.

I do feel bad for some of these kids. I just hope they saved their Barneys receipts. Pathetically, one kid even tries selling his new watch before he leaves town. But what the fuck am I going to do with a Movado?

With the exams out of the way, and the deadweight gone, everything settles down as the emphasis of training shifts to things like PowerPoint, Excel, financial modeling, and presentation skills. We are each assigned a cubicle on a spare floor in 7 World Trade to work on group projects and individual homework assignments.

The homework assignments are a joke. Five minutes before class, I'll jump on my computer, go to the shared drive, and find a copy of someone else's completed assignment. With a name change and a quick scan of the document to make sure the answers are sensible, I print it out and head off to class. Many of the kids in my class, particularly the ones I associate with, do this as well.

One day, our HR point person steps up in front of us in the auditorium. "I'd just like to inform you that we've had to let go eight of your classmates for copying homework assignments."

A few of my classmates-many of whom wouldn't last-look at each other, appalled that anyone could be capable of cheating, while the rest of us look at each other in relief that we hadn't also been caught, highlighting the age-old battle between the front-of-the-class and the back-of-the-class mentalities.

From that day forward, I am more careful. Instead of five minutes before class, I'll come in ten minutes early. Then I'll add my own personal touch on the formatting, rephrase some of the answers, and even make a couple of intentionally unique mistakes.

Again, within a week, four more people are fired for stealing homework. This time, it turns out that some of our more spiteful classmates had started sabotaging files in the drive, even creating fake files with all incorrect answers. As we see it, if you're dumb enough to get caught cheating, you probably don't belong on Wall Street.

We celebrate by skipping training the following day for a liquid breakfast up in the sky followed by lunch at Peter Luger.

After that, things start to settle down again. HR reassures us that, barring any further disciplinary issues, all the cuts have been made. The rest of training is spent rather uneventfully in the auditorium or, for a select group of us, across the street. Our evenings are spent doing team-building exercises, bowling at Lucky Strike, and getting drunk on Hudson River cruises. I'm not one for name tags and meet and greets, but there is certainly a business case to be made for getting to know all the kids in my class.

For the final day of training, the firm puts on a celebratory pep rally in the auditorium of 388 Greenwich Street. Bigwigs like Mark Simonian (global head of TMT), Sir Deryck Maughan (chairman and former CEO of Salomon Brothers), Michael Klein (head of investment banking), and Tom Maheras (head of fixed income) each deliver rousing speeches about how there's no firm in the world they'd rather work for and no better place for us to start our careers.

Now we feel like we've made it-all 272 of us who remain. Having arrived late, I'm stuck in the back with a middle seat that will make it impossible to slip out unnoticed. Shortly after we begin, a kid I sort of know a few rows in front of me gets up and tries to make an exit. Man, he's got balls. Mid-speech, he's shuffling across, forcing people to stand up in order to make way for him to pass.

"Excuse me. Sorry. Pardon me." It's like being in a movie theater except that the room is fully lit, and he's interrupting a Master of the Universe who is busy onstage talking about his favorite thing-himself.

Ten minutes later, the kid walks back down the aisle of the auditorium. This time, he looks red-faced and teary-eyed. "Excuse. Sorry. Pardon me," he repeats over and over as he makes his way...