Wednesday, November 29, 2017
The Safest Space
Dear Women In Tech,
Do you ever get so stressed out at work that you indulge the idea of taking a moderately well-paying job with reasonable hours in a stable industry with men who aren’t going to constantly sexually harass you? Do you dream of a place you can finally settle down and relax?
Have you recently considered Wall Street?
I know it may sound counterintuitive, but our industry is a cozy, welcoming environment now. The combination of the 2008 financial crisis and the rise of tech has all but obliterated the alpha male ego of the average financier. In 2017, Wall Street is full of a bunch of puppies. Do you ever feel an overwhelming need to be around puppies? If so, finance may be a great fit for you. We offer the burned out young professional female a bevy of other therapeutic benefits:
Dominance
Believe it or not, the normal Wall Street analyst and associate now went to a non-target like Purdue University. That’s right – Purdue…the state school…in Indiana. Gone are the days when you’d be working alongside some summa Harvard graduate in Politics who grew up reading Machiavelli’s The Prince and simultaneously wants you to be his best friend (with benefits), drinking buddy (with benefits), and mother (with benefits). Now, you’ll be working alongside Rudy.
Soft Skin
Look – I’m not saying you can’t beat the Harvard guy or that you’re “weaker” than him. Not at all. I imagine you do it daily. But Rudy listens. He yields. He cares. Do you realize how easy it is to outmaneuver a male with those characteristics? Think about all that hassle-free dopamine!
Stability
I know you’re capable of handling the giant emotional swings of the boom-bust Silicon Valley business model, but have you ever stopped to consider why you are exposing yourself to that kind of volatility. It’s Wall Street’s 200th anniversary this year – that’s a lot longer track record than tech. The DOW is about to clear 25,000. Work-life balance is now enforced at every major firm here. And when our bubbles burst, we get bailed out. Can you even remember the last time finance was making headlines for doing something evil? Men here are so terrified of losing the little social capital they have that they’re docile. Now that’s peace of mind.
Zero Pretense
I know what you’re thinking – isn’t it “important” to be a meaningful contributor to society and at least try to fight through the battles to make your industry more progressive and balanced? The answer is: No. In finance, we know we’re not the coolest or richest or doing anything all that special. And we gave up on progress decades ago. In many ways, we’re the most liberated work environment around – is there any safer space than one where there’s no pressure and no one cares…about anything?
So the next time you come home at 1am after a long day of trying to build your own business or battling it out with a bunch of overeducated assholes trying to change the world with artificial intelligence or augmented reality software, ask yourself some deep questions: What is reality, anyway? Does any of this even matter? Am I actually making that big a difference, after all?
Allow yourself to really start spiraling down that rabbit hole until you can feel it destroying you completely. Then remember that Wall Street offers everything you really need. And in giving up on trying to be exceptional, you might gain what you were originally searching for:
Freedom.
Please send resumes to surrender@gs.com.
Cindy Kim
Managing Director
Goldman Sachs
November 29th, 2017 at 3:37 pm
It’s been a minute
November 29th, 2017 at 3:47 pm
Thank god, allah and Buddha that you are still alive!
November 29th, 2017 at 3:55 pm
Superb as usual…
I bet the wannabe entrepreneurs in the valley will now head back to Park Avenue to trade bitcoins…
November 29th, 2017 at 11:43 pm
Oh it looks like the good old days are coming back! Let’s take some time to appreciated the hard work everyone is doing to support the bricks of Wall Street.
November 30th, 2017 at 2:35 am
Finally man, been waitin for the email alert for like a decade
November 30th, 2017 at 11:27 am
Sounds as inviting as a mother’s womb. If your mother is a crack addict, ultimately causing psychological abnormalities and developmental delays under the guise of protection. Cindyyyy
November 30th, 2017 at 11:50 am
You’ve been missed, man! Glad to see you haven’t lost your touch.
November 30th, 2017 at 1:58 pm
What a topsy turvy world we live in. Good to have you back, hope we’ll get more!
December 1st, 2017 at 10:06 am
where can i trade my mba for a comp sci degree
December 4th, 2017 at 5:44 pm
your revival made my day
December 5th, 2017 at 11:49 pm
Good to see you back. It’s only been what nine years. Things are good again where happened to that consultant/big4 scum that infested is he comments section in the heydays of 2008??
December 6th, 2017 at 1:45 am
Friday night.
I’m at the club, grinding on two fine NYU specimens, one is my date and the other told us her name was Chloe. I peer over my shoulder and cringe at the desperate frat boys, raising vodka for the sober women, oblivious to the fact that chicken-legs and chubbies don’t go hand-in-hand. I wondered if desperation had an expiration date, they were crowding my dance floor.
I asked for my date’s phone number on the subway earlier that day. Tall, thin, tanned, and half-Asian. She informed me she was from Hong-Kong, and is graduating from NYU next spring with a degree in dance. But it wasn’t Lucy Liu who captured my attention that night, it was the blonde who we met 5 minutes ago, she could easily be on the cover of Victoria’s Secret and maybe even under the cover of my sheets.
The masses start to show and the dance floor gets humid. A fat chick grabs my ass and my date starts a confrontation. I whisper in Chloe’s ear that i’d love to leave with her, and inform her we should exit before the exodus, after all it was getting pretty late. We navigate through the masses, dodging awkward fobs, fat Amy dancing on the bar table, Snoop Dog lighting a joint in the corner, and a hurricane of low-tier finance bro’s dressed like Gotti’s crew.
About half an hour later we find ourselves on a random street in Chelsea, we had spent the time chatting about her entire life and I thought it was time I brought my due-diligence to a close. I halt a cab and give him the directions to my apartment, meanwhile Chloe is busy fondling my dice. I manage to contain her excitement till we step inside my bedroom, I promptly excuse myself for a whiz.
I’m yawning over the toilet seat and having a hard time unloading from the ICBM that has taken center stage, i begin taking proper controlled bursts just as I was thought by my dad the ex-marine. My phone vibrates and I pull it out of my pocket, it’s a text from Lucy Liu.. a guilty feeling rushes into my chest.
“Lrts go hpme baby” sent 40 minutes ago
“Wait wtf.. whevre are you guys!?!” sent 15 minutes ago
My sympathy fell off a cliff and I exited messenger, opened up Venmo and paid her for the entrance fees. I added a 20% tip for being a great wing woman and tossed my cellphone into the bathtub.
As I walk toward my bed, I could see Chloe had already made herself comfortable. I let out a chuckle and recited the saying from the movie Slum Dog Millionaire “God is good Jamal.. God is good”, and even better I was about to obliterate his masterpiece. As i’m taking off my dress shirt, the broad mutters something I couldn’t comprehend. “What?” and she mutters it again, “Whaat?” She leans closer to my ear and asks me to take down my poster of the future president of America. I asked her why, but if I could have seen into the future, I would have been able to save my ear that fell off from an overdose of vitamin feminism and NYU privileged malarkey.
Chloe is now yelling at me and telling me to just do her. But instead I toss her off my bed and make her promise that unless she votes for my candidate, then she’s not getting the Don. Her phone vibrates and it’s fucking Lucy Liu who unfortunately did not get the memo.
“id be down for a 3some.. can u ask (insert my name) to reply plz”
A grin blows up on Chloe’s face as she paints the Asian a picture of how terrible a human being I am because I won’t remove a poster from my wall. I’ve had enough and I head towards my drawer, pull out my woodford reserve, and splash some Creapure to add density to the drink and myself. What ensues was fucking beautiful and less an hour later I had my first threesome. A couple months earlier, I was incredibly sad accepting my diploma with this fact, but it’s better late than never.. right?
December 8th, 2017 at 4:39 pm
so glad to see you back bro! would love it if you could put up a crypto hype post for me. include your btc address and i’ll drop you a little something for your efforts ; )
-Your fav bitcoin billionaire
December 18th, 2017 at 7:36 am
Just awoke from a 11 year coma. I’m glad I was able to read this before my long day at Stearns.
December 22nd, 2017 at 3:52 pm
The best website on the internet. There were many late late depressing nights in the office when I’d re-read your posts and chuckle and everything felt just fine again. I grew up on this stuff. Keep rocking, write more.
December 25th, 2017 at 6:01 am
This blog post has me feeling piper jaffrayish. Well done, and warm welcome back!
December 27th, 2017 at 6:13 pm
legends never die.
January 5th, 2018 at 10:37 pm
Ten years removed from the glory days of 2007 and I’m still here in Manhattan finance. Once a quarter (like many others I suspect) I still find myself checking out your site and reading the old posts. You captured the zeitgeist back then just as you have here.
Back then it was “bottles and models” and maladjusted nerds thinking they were society’s big winners and it could last forever. It was all very silly in retrospect but it was all in fun.
Things have since taken a much more sinister turn: stagnation of the entire business and a horrendous overbearing sense of bureaucracy, legalism and left-leaning political correctness.
If I really wanted a big bonus for little work nowadays I wouldn’t go to the most profitable trading desk or the most active M&A coverage area. I would get myself a job as a “diversity consultant” in the HR department or a maybe as a “CCAR compliance officer” or an “LGBT outreach specialist” or as the manager of my firm’s Instagram page.
American capitalism is in a deep, deep funk and gimmicks like “gender equity” are not going to save it. Bring back the bottles and models.
February 15th, 2018 at 12:12 pm
Omg “1st Year Analyst”’s comment! Dude you should write for this website 😭😭😂