Extremely Robust Growth Projected

bankerella — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 11:56:23 -0500

All right, fellow monkeys. I'm on the tail end of a 132-hour workweek, so just a brief post today.

So there I was, middle of the night, massaging an industry growth chart into an artificially-rosy picture that makes our pitch more attractive (a procedure that many of you will be familiar with). The associate comes over and tells me to add an approximate CAGR arrow. No problem. I calculate the CAGR. Noticing that thin red lines are used for means/medians throughout the rest of the book, I decide to use the PowerPoint draw tool to create a thin red line

Overheard in the elevator

bankerella — Fri, 11 May 2007 10:32:31 -0400

I'm on the elevator this morning, woozy from not enough sleep, headed up to my floor. There are two older women on the elevator with me. They're talking.

"... But you have to watch what he eats. You can't let him have McDonald's for lunch or anything."

"No, I try to give him something lighter. Keep it healthy, right?"

The joys of earnings season

bankerella — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 11:39:03 -0400

Ah, earnings season. Thereâ€™s nothing like it.

Earnings season is the two-week period when, one after another, all the companies youâ€™ve been assigned to cover announce their quarterly results, slamming you with extra work and causing no end of trouble with the summary sheets. Itâ€™s a delightful experience, let me tell you.

Seven guerilla techniques I learned from third-year veterans

bankerella — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 15:39:50 -0400

These are the skills that no one will ever tell you you'll need:

How to field-strip HP9000 laser printers using only a letter opener and a piece of twine... and no ink on the Thomas Pink, natch.

How to ungroup and alter charts in PowerPoint instead of pasting them in from fresh data. Yeah, don't say you don't know what I'm talking about here.

How to FactSet, massage, then Alt-ESV the entire comp summary sheet. It's parallel to a gangster shooting his opponents and burying them in concrete. It's highly unlikely anyone will ever find the evidence, but if they do... run. Just run. No amount of omerta is gonna save you.

Alternative careers

bankerella — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 15:29:23 -0400

There've been a couple of posts on this board about good alternatives to banking. Some of you think consulting is better, or law school, or the Special Forces, or what have you.

Well, I want to put my two cents in. If I could go back in time and make all my choices again, I wouldn't be an analyst. I'd be a career criminal. Just think about it.

The benefits of doing time in jail instead of an analyst's cube:

Analyst to Staffer Translation Handbook

bankerella — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 15:40:00 -0500

I put this together for all you Class of '07 monkeys to help you with your transition. Enjoy.

Recruitment

Work-life balance
Work-drinking balance

Work hard, play hard
Work hard, drink a lot

We have a collegial environment.
We go out drinking every night together.

We like to have our own social lives.
We go out drinking every night alone.