The Jet Plane Toilet

Alright so day 1 of being hardcore went well. First analyst in, last one to leave. There wasn't much work to do yesterday, but I set up a bunch more news alerts so I can be on top of things.

It's a gloriously sunny day here, so it's making being inside, and not having a heck of a lot to do a bit tough. But it's okay because I'm hardcore. So in light of all this extra time, I will regale you with the story of the jet place toliet.

Yes, you read that correctly. I moved into a new apartment over the summer, and at first was quite taken with the place, but the toliet seemed to be acting funny, and by funny, I mean it made ridiculously loud noises whenever you flushed it, that sounded entirely similar (including the level of noise) to a jet plane. This was something I was willing to deal with for a medium period of time given that I felt ridiculous (and still do) having to explain to people what that noise was, and trying not to get frightened when using it at 3am after a night of drinking. Eventually however I cracked and decided I had to call The Landlord. The conversation went a bit like this:

"Oh ahem hello... it's Favorite Tenant"

"Hello Favorite, how are you?"

"Oh excellent, I was just calling about a bit of a problem with the toliet"

And on we went with me trying to describe the toliet issue without using the words Jet Plane, because who in their right minds would take me seriously? (I will give you a clue, it's not The Landlord) Well I ended up having to use the words Jet Plane after The Landlord refused to accept that the loud noise was merely the toliet running and that all I needed to do was take the lid off the tank and tighten the chain.

"A jet plane?"

"Yes, a jet plane. I think this has to be a bit of a nuisance to the neighbors as well."

"Really, a jet plane?"

"Yes, really, a jet plane. That loud"

"Like a jet plane?"

"YES!!! a jet plane, can I please get a plumber?"

This ridiculousness and his incredulity continued on for a good 5 minutes until he finally crumbled and agreed to have a plumber call me so I could set up a time for him to come fix the toliet. The saga continued however when the plumber he chose lived in one of the outer boroughs of NNYC, and only came downtown between the hours of 11am and 3pm. Who has time to meet a plumber between 11am and 3pm??? We managed to meet after 3 weeks of phone tag and only after I convinced him to come downtown at the ridiculously early hour of 9am. Then, of course, the toliet wouldn't do it's thing and make the noise. Naturally.

The plumber did have a look though and agreed with me that something or other was worn out, he replaced it and was on his way.

Thus ended The Jet Plane Toliet.

In which I yet again pledge to work harder

Anyone else out there watch Grey's Anatomy? Well I'm obsessed with it (sidebar: Private Practice is so kicking Grey's butt thus far this season, but I still love my Grey's). Anyways last week's episode was all about how hard core you could be with Yang and Little Grey taking it to a new level and doning diapers for surgery so they could go hours without taking breaks.

I have come to the conclusion that I need to be more hardcore about work. I like to think I'm a very efficient worker, getting out of something as much as possible, but I think I need to flip that mentality around and put in as much as possible, and see what the results are. A hunger for work that has been lacking, a need to do more, work longer, try harder.

So, today is day 1. You're probably asking what the heck I'm doing blogging then, instead of working, well there's not much to do right now. I'm waiting for the markets to have been closed for an hour so I can update some daily stuff. But I am hardcore, and will stay late tonight, just to stay late. Seems silly, but I'm hardcore and don't have time for silly.

fice for 2 hours, while I make some head way. He pokes his head into the pit to check up, and it becomes apparent that he has done nothing for the last two hours while I worked. This upsets me more than slightly given that it's Friday night and this isn't my file. I manage to contain my frustration, but only for about another half hour when I declare I have to take off.

If I was more hardcore, I wouldn't have cared, and I could've stayed and ground through that work, but instead I just wanted to go home and make Halloween costumes.

So hardcore it is.

Tuesday Night Adventures

Straight night at the gay bar is evidently quite the popular night in NNYC, so the girls wanted to go at 8:30 get stamps and then come back at a much more civilized 10pm. This sounded good to me, but as I worked late, I was not nearly ready at 8:30 to go to the bar, so while they were dressed to the nines, I was in flip flops and a t-shirt. Evidently the bar on Tuesdays doesn't have in and out privileges until 10:30, so I left the girls at the bar, went home and got dressed.

I figured that since they were probably drinking while waiting for me that I should have a predrink or 2 before I left. The obvious choice was tequila shots, so I called The Significant Other, just so I wouldn't be doing tequila shots alone.

I headed to the bar, managed to talk my way in without standing in line (nor had to grease the bouncer - score!) and got down to business with the girls: $3 highballs. The words "it got messy quick" are an understatement. We met up with a couple guys that one of the girls knew. One of them claimed to be a stock broker and he and I may or may not have gotten in a fight once I discovered that he was infact not a stock broker at all, but a wannabe stock broker that didn't even know about the certifications you need to be a stock broker (he was trying to tell me about CFA - I think not!) One of them was a fire fighter, who I declared the most yummy of the 3 and spent the whole night trying to get my friend Brunnette to hook up with him by shouting out lines like:

"You can slide down his pole"

"He'll let you play with his hose"

"Let him take care of your fire"

You get the jist. I may have self-high-fived yesterday morning over my cleverness.

I left a little after midnight as I was way too drunk for life, and decided that I needed to get something to eat on my way home. Somehow I decided that I needed $25 worth of sushi right then (including dumplings) and then tried to eat it as I walked home.

I managed to COVER myself in all sauces japanese and got a seriously harsh look from the dry cleaner yesterday when I dropped my dress off. Classy, very classy. I then called The Significant other, said naughty things to him, which I have since begged him never to repeat, and passed out.

I think the gods were working against me fairly harshly, as yesterday morning was not pretty and I got stuck working until after 11.

Starting Fresh

Sooooooo I haven’t been doing a great job of writing this, because I’m struggling with silly things like, do I actually have enough ridiculous things to share that people might want to read (yes!) and what level of detail, so I can stay anonymous.

So I’m restarting per say from the beginning, and we’ll go from there.

Me: I’m a freshly minted banker. I didn’t go to a target school, in fact I’m from Canada, so we’ll call school The NT (non-target – we loved acronyms there). I’m banking in a city that is Not New York (NNYC), so the whole NNYC experience hopefully will give a fresh twist to this. This blog is meant to dialogue my trials and tribulations of being a female investment banking with a non-finance (business, but non-finance) back ground.

NT was, as I hope most people’s university experience was, just like summer camp with alcohol. I lived in the residences my first year, and given we went out at least 4 nights a week; it’s a miracle I passed anything. As far as exams were concerned, it was kind of like an obstacle course that spanned many days, and when I got on the airplane on my way home for holidays following exams, I was so absolutely at the end of my rope, I knew I won.

The Cast:

The Student – our co-op student, an immigrant from an Eastern European country is a workhorse and a half, and is not one for over-zealous use of words. Unfortunately he goes back to school in the fall, but he signed an offer to join us next fall, so perhaps he will be a recurring character

The Salad – the 2^nd year analyst, an engineer in a past life with a Masters Degree, eats salad from home everyday without fail, I don’t even make it to the grocery store with regularity; how he manages to make salad everyday is a complete mystery.

The Bottle – no, not an alcohol bottle (sadly) 3^rd year analyst is the epitome of someone who wanted to be an ibanker the first time he drank from a bottle. Also, oddly, seriously enjoys manga (which I learned is some type of old anime)

The Cyclist – the 2^nd year associate. I’m fairly certain lives only a 15 minute walk to the office, yet insists on biking to work everyday, and using an entire office to store his bike. Is approximately 30, which is quite seasoned to only be a 2^nd year associate.

The Parents - my VP, VP&D (VP Director) and MD

The Significant Other – Met last year in a random inter-corporate event, have been dating for about a year, and we’re doing the long distance thing. Makes for some interesting drunk dials on weekends, and wonderful once or twice monthly trips to visit.

What ado the weekend

Well, it's 2pm on a Friday, and I am (as I'm sure most people are) contemplating my weekend.

I am completely short of plans tonight, which I'm hoping will be a blessing in disguise. I'm most definitely longing for the days in Last City (LC) when I could round up myself and my 50 drinking buddies (not actually but sometimes it felt like it) and sneak out of work at 4pm on a Friday to promptly start celebrating the weekend. The Kids at the office, while lovely, (and one of them enjoys coffee as much as I do!!), seem to prefer things like Magic Cards and Magma (evidently some sort of Anime) to Friday beers. One of them doesn't even drink beer!

Ugh. What to do in a new city? Tonight it looks like I will actually have to COOK something (this never goes well) and catch up on some PVR, and pretend I'm terribly busy and important!

Quick update: Walking home, I saw a breed of person that NNYC is some what famous for (at least lately anyway) a man, who possibly had multiple personalities, have a discussion between his multiple personalities about how was going to kill one of them / himself. THEN, my world of random continued, when I saw the same guy about half an hour later, continuing his discussion, this time yelling about how he would never get away with it.

What was I even thinking when I thought Friday night would be boring? It never is.

Broken Rules

So like I said, I seriously believe that rules were made to be broken.

Take corporate blackberries for example: the company gives you one, expects you to carry it everywhere, and then blocks all things fun and useful on it (text messaging, bbm, facebook and the camera). People then just get sick of not being able to USE the blackberry for anything.

So, I'm sorry if this is a horrifically simple work around, that if you're slightly technically proficient (I'm not!) you probably already knew, but if you type:

https://www.

instead of just:

www.

infront of pretty much any website, you seem to be able to get past most corporate firewalls.

I warned you, horrifically simple, but if you're going to be working as many hours as I do, you deserve a little facebook here and there.

Take THAT rules.