Occupy a Job on Wall Street: Recent Episodes
Occupy a Job on Wall Street
We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm
We're willing to state unhesitatingly, that for pure vacillating stupidity, for superb incompetence to command, for ignorance combined with bad judgment - in short, for true talent for catastrophe - this story stands alone.
How were any of us friends? I don't know... friendship gets harder to understand every year of your life.
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and none of us are sure about the universe.
after-hours back then was just such honest fun, it calmed even the most neurotic of us down in no time
I think you’ll agree a Palestinian executing orders for a big Jewish financial institution is an ironic enough situation... and then this happened.
Train wreck. noun.
1) A total fucking disaster... the kind that makes you want to shake your head. 2) Something that is so bad that you don't want to keep watching or following but you just can't look away from it. 3) A person or situation that can't escape an inevitable bad outcome; hence, a trainwreck.
The White Rabbit was understood to be the biggest cocaine user on Wall Street… and as you can imagine, there was some healthy competition for that spot.
“No friction” is the watchword of Wall Street. AI doesn’t go to lunches, it’s just relentlessly efficient. All revolutions eat their own children - eventually all of my peers were replaced by a PC.
Part 3 about our late great friend. And that was Goose - it didn’t make any difference what he was doing that night - if he was the birthday boy or the best man - if he saw someone outside his orbit uncomfortably looking in, he’d invite you over and make you feel like the most important person in the world.
Charles Ponzi once sold the Eiffel Tower in a con. But the best scam I can personally think of was an exploitation of a MeToo issue before there was a MeToo. This is my understanding of what went down.
Big Ships, Little Ships, There’s nothing like Friendships Some Ships sail East. Some Ships sail West. But the best Ships are Friendships. Of which I know best…
After skipping out on the bill at Pastis, Ed and the Jewish JFK make their way over to Spice Market. Both of them are trouble waiting for a place to happen… And then they meet me.
If there’s a better example of how New York City has changed than the fact that the restaurant Pastis was replaced by a Restoration Hardware store… well, I can’t think of one.
I recently heard Pastis reopened at 52 Gansevoort. Now if you didn’t live in New York City back in the early 2000’s, you may think, so what?
But it’s more important than you think.
Let’s start off by picturing two salesmen who arranged to meet at Pastis after the market closed one day. And then throw in some Chuck Norris jokes.
This podcast is the follow up to Episode 38 and deals with a trader we called Goose, because he was the world’s best wingman. Goose also features in Episode 18 when he surprised us rolling out of a fountain in his underwear one morning in Rio de Janeiro.
Walking into today's lifeless, silent trading floors might as well be another planet when I think about the desks I cut my teeth on 20 years ago. And this episode is about why that is.
People still complain about a lack of diversity on Wall Street, but let me tell you it was very unusual to come across someone from Central or South America on a trading desk 15 years ago.
This story is about one of those exceptions to the rule, a trader we’ll call Slayer.
...It suddenly dawns on Paddy that Apple reports earnings after the close… and he’d never even heard of this sales trader’s account before. He has the back office look up the client’s paperwork and best guess they run $100 million or so… but the sales trader has bought a billion dollars of Apple. With a “B”.
Ding-ding-ding.
Anyone in New York back in 2006 will recall it as the winter of snowstorms. The record was broken recently, but before that you have to go back to 1947 to find a comparable snowfall.
So there’s 2 feet of snow on the ground and I’m rolling with a crew that’s coked up to the gills and after mischief...
Living in the year 2010 was like arriving at a party that’s already been broken up by the cops. But then I accidentally got invited to a weekend with three billionaires... guess I’m going dove hunting.
This episode is about an economist named Dwyer...
it’s unclear why hedge funds have in-house economists, since everything a hedge fund manager does is predicated on making asymmetric decisions and if all the economists in the world were laid end to end, they still wouldn’t reach a conclusion. Furthermore, not only are economists a rare breed on Wall Street, the economist in question we are about to talk about was a Jew from Ireland that we used to call “The Leprechaun”.
Who was the Mother Teresa of Wall Street back in 2000? And what happened when The Wizard came to town?
...let’s quickly recap where we left off; I’ve found myself in a herd of clowns out on a Thursday night and we’re on our way to an ASPCA fundraiser at the Interactive offices. We just bailed out of a local bar called “The Park” in the Meatpacking District to get away from the NYPD and begin walking over to the fundraiser...
It’s 2010 and a sales trader invited me to an ASPCA charity function at the Interactive offices. He can’t talk up this fundraiser enough... this is part one of a two-part podcast on how we ruined it.
How I missed the Flash Crash getting coffee and then destroyed a Ritz Carlton in Philly.
Wait, you’re telling me you have to keep doing something that you decided was a good idea 15 years ago? Would you trust that guy back then?
www.occupyajobonwallstreet.com
The most interesting thing to me about the television show Billions is not Bobby Axelrod, who is an inherently unrelatable character, but his trader, Dollar Bill. This is because there are probably 20 Bobby Axelrods’ in the city, but twenty thousand Dollar Bill’s.
www.occupyajobonwallstreet.com
Why on earth you’d let a former dictator’s secret policeman have the run of your office overnight while no one else was around, I couldn’t tell you...
I read somewhere that when guys like me talk about how New York “used to be better”, what we really mean is that we used to be younger.
There’s some truth to that. But without a doubt one of the great blows to New York in the aughts was the reduction of the New York Stock Exchange Floor to a shadow of its former self.
https://www.occupyajobonwallstreet.com/
Au Bar was what they used to call the downstairs club of Lavo on 58th Street. Yup, that place.
https://www.occupyajobonwallstreet.com/
We re-recorded this for the 2nd episode of the animated series we are working on. The first episode can be found at www.occupyajobonwallstreet.com although it still needs a lot of work.
Our second podcast series starts next week.
Season 2, which includes stories from the Spotted Pig, details how Iceland blew up the world economy, and includes many more Australian jokes, will be released soon.
The most valuable advice anyone ever gave me about Wall Street... and then my favorite Wall Street firing story.
https://www.occupyajobonwallstreet.com/
What if Jordan Peterson was a sociopath rather than a psychologist? Part one of a two part series with some advice to aspiring traders.
boon·dog·gle /ˈbo͞onˌdäɡəl/ 1. to work or activity that is wasteful or pointless but gives the appearance of having value. 2. to waste money or time on unnecessary or questionable projects
https://www.occupyajobonwallstreet.com/
It’s worth saying this stuff out loud just this once, because trading jobs like this barely exist anymore. But if you were a trader in the aughts you had one of the best seats in the world.
Wall Street is the last bastion of male dominance in an area where there’s no reason women can’t be just as successful as men. Now how on earth did we pull this off? Can it last?
"Simple, you take the waiter aside before dinner - give him $200 cash, your black card, and tell him your important clients may be a little nuts but you'll take care of him if there's a problem. It's much more fun if no one knows the waiter is in on it"... huh, who knew?
https://www.occupyajobonwallstreet.com/
What if Jordan Peterson was a sociopath rather than a psychologist? Part one of a two part episode with some advice to aspiring traders.
https://www.occupyajobonwallstreet.com/
Don't get married. Don't have kids. Do not resuscitate.
https://www.occupyajobonwallstreet.com/
What if one of the biggest fundraisers on Wall Street was conceived by a bunch of idiots in a strip club? That couldn't have happened, right?
https://www.occupyajobonwallstreet.com/
"Account 10 5 W from Hedgistan wants to front-run Crispy's orders before your Dumbfuckistan clients take any offers on this Tracy Lords idea... can your Delta One trader stop me out and put it on the tape?"
Three random stories about Lehman Brothers, Bear Sterns and the Quantum Fund during the Financial Crisis
Think the SEC completely asleep during the credit bubble? GFY!
https://www.occupyajobonwallstreet.com/
How were hedge funds set up and what really happened on trading floors back during the Internet boom? It's worse than you thought.
Did you know there's a Zagats for Rub and Tugs in New York? That's the classiest thing you'll hear about in this episode set in 2001
Paddy is a legend on Wall Street. But what happens when a legend burns out during the financial crisis? Cue things breaking.
https://www.occupyajobonwallstreet.com/
Why has there been no #MeToo movement on Wall Street? We explain this conundrum with two anecdotes and a C-Bomb from 2004 in this episode.
https://www.occupyajobonwallstreet.com/
Bond traders are 10 out of 10 disagreeable people. How disagreeable? Well, there's something insulting for everyone in this episode.
https://www.occupyajobonwallstreet.com/
The greatest Wall Street story never told. Until now.
https://www.occupyajobonwallstreet.com/