Post BB Summer Thoughts - Unwritten Above/Beyond Quirks

Hi all - just wrapped up a (soph) summer at a BB & will be summering at a GS/MS/JPM for junior year, so wanted to share some quirky tidbits that I picked up and thought other/future interns could benefit from.

The idea here is the smallest social/personal things that can change your entire mood for a day. Went for small details that haven't been said before on this forum (and away from the obvious advice like formal emails, show up on time, etc). Curious to hear others' thoughts/comments as well:

1. Have a damn sweetgreen order - why is the banking world so obsessed with this place?? I swear everyone's addicted, from the diversity hire intern to the jacked associate to the withering MD - definitely good to know what you like here so you don't look out of place. Can stretch this to an extent for cava too

2. Learn to appreciate black coffee - it's just weird to be the guy holding the creamers + sugar, it's better for your body, and just makes you more comfortable hitting the industrial Nespresso machine with your team. Pro tip is to start with an extra watery americano and slowly work your way up. It just rubs elders the wrong way when they see one of those cotton candy energy drinks at your desk too. And if you think you can survive without caffeine, good luck

3. Figure out a productive time-waster - often times having nothing to do is harder than having too much to do - as counterintuitive as it seems. As an intern you don't want to be the guy that's seen with ESPN or YouTube pulled up on the monitor slacking off. That inherent need to look productive makes the lull periods often harder, moreso as you don't especially want to be caught goofing off on your phone. Things that worked for me were occasional deep dive into WSJ/Economist articles, playing around with Bloomberg Terminal, learning new cool Excel shortcuts. Key is to look/be semi-productive - having good intern class/being friends with people helps the time pass by a ton here too.

4. Learn to tie a good/upscale tie knot - it pays dividends and earns unseen respect better than you can imagine. Makes for fun small talk on occasion + earns respect in eyes of adults who see a kid in front of them. Nothing absolutely ridiculous tho, the idea as an intern is never to bring too much attention to yourself.

5. Stay relevant with local sports teams - doesn't matter if you're a guy/girl there will always, always be chatter about the local teams. Key sports are football, basketball, baseball (esp for summer), hockey, soccer, golf, tennis. I'm not saying to become an ESPN analyst and know all the ins and outs - but follow along with team success/key players/big news because there WILL be times in the summer where there is small talk going on about it and you don't want to feel awkward or say something stupid in front of your seniors