PROFESSIONAL ADVICE
This was originally written for the sole purpose of entertaining frivolous Cornell party girls (nine of whom were my senior year housemates). We successfully 'published' exactly one issue of makeup tips, artwork, and what I had intended to be an ongoing column providing useful (or at least entertaining) 'advice' to fresh-faced female graduates (i.e. all of us) navigating the teeming sea of Ivy League 'finance bros' with which New York City is awash.
I call dibs on the middle guy
As I write this, I’m putting off studying for my AEM 2300: International Trade and Finance exam tomorrow because 1) I refuse to take an AEM class comprised of sophomore football players seriously, and 2) I’m a second-semester senior who signed a two-year full-time contract back in November.
However, reading about exchange rates, futures contracts, and options trading reminded me of how after we leave the sparsely populated dating pool that is the bar crowd at Cornell, we get to enter the next stage of life known as Dating in Manhattan, where the frat boys at annex parties and college bars become fixed income security traders at Turtle Bay (or Bridge and Tunnels at Tenjune, if that’s your thing).
One of the pros is that we get to be the freshman girls again, and I don’t mean it that in the sense of gaining weight from dining hall food and getting caught with a bottle of Bartons in your dorm room. I use the term in the sense that everything will seem wonderful and new, and that the men of New York City are eagerly awaiting the arrival of a fresh crop of 22-year old women for whom to buy drinks, dinners, and cab rides. When I say “buy”, I of course mean “put on the company card”.
I guess that even though I did attempt a somewhat serious minor in Real Estate Finance at Cornell, entering the post-college sorority that is the Manhattan fashion industry means that I’ll spend the next two years essentially being paid to go shopping for Saks Fifth Avenue, gossiping with my gay male coworkers, and judging the outfits of my female coworkers. I refuse to believe that it’s by mere accident that the Saks corporate office is surrounded by the following company headquarters (within a 1-block radius): J.P. Morgan, BlackRock, UBS, Merill Lynch, and, just in case there wasn’t enough testosterone, Major League Baseball.
I don’t know whether it was simply because I never ventured into Brooklyn (or past 59th Street, for that matter), but whenever, wherever, I went out in New York, every single guy I met was inevitably “in finance”. It grew so common that it became sort of weird – even suspicious – if he claimed to have any other kind of career. It must be like a safety net for a guy in Manhattan to tell a girl he works in finance – as if it automatically means he has a decent education, a working bank account, and, um, whatever else is important to women these days.
When you tell one of these men that you “work in fashion” (as I presume about half of this house will, [Katie, Abercrombie does not count]), they will immediately act interested, buy you drinks, and ask to meet your friends. This is because just as you ladies see Mr. Goldman Sachs as your ticket to drinks at Bull & Bear and dinner at Maialino, he sees you as arm candy who knows Louboutin from Lanvin (not that they’re even particularly comparable) and YSL from DVF (duh, cage heels from printed wrap dresses), oh, and is easy to get into bed.
You may have an Ivy League degree, and you may speak four different languages, and you might have at one point in your life prepared a senior thesis or taken a grueling semester course in commercial mortgage-backed securities, but don’t be that girl still impressed by – and taking seriously – the guy who vaguely says he “works in finance”.
Next week – or the next time I decide I have enough time to put off to write again – I’ll help you out, pointing out the major differences between the many financial services firms (bulge bracket i-banks, trading desks, hedge funds and venture capital firms, private equity, and boutique shops) littering Manhattan and the men who work 14-hour days there. Stay tuned and keep perusing my week-old Wall Street Journals in the meantime!