Office Hazing Stories?

You guys have any good stories? My group doesn't do anything which is probably good in terms of HR but I've heard some decent ones from some of my friends:

  • One group makes all the interns dress like absolute clowns during the last week of their summer. Like tuxedos to the office, cuff-links with off-color collars and suspenders, a bright plaid suit, etc.
  • Another's office has an old typewriter and they make one intern try and write a bunch of random contract stuff on it for a week. If anyone has ever used a typewriter, edits are not the easiest
  • One of my friends was forced by his associate to fake coming out as gay to his really hot female colleague as a joke - that one lowkey crossed a line sorta
  • A bunch of the S&T kids on the credit sales desk had to memorize stupid shit from books and movies and recite it on demand - they got reamed out for getting a single word wrong
  • Those same credit sales kids also were saluting their VPs and saying "sir yes sir" for the first 9 or so months
    • Many of the guys in a 1st-year analyst class at an EB have to choreograph a dance routine for the associates after hours - apparently, they all have to wear some hilarious stuff too and it is videotaped for posterity sake

These are mostly pretty weak though; what do you guys have?

 
mrharveyspecter:
How many did he(or she) eat?

Probably enough to never go near chicken mcnuggets ever ever again.

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 
Big Shot Hopeful:
When my friend was an S&T intern, some of the senior guys bought like 200 chicken mcnuggets then made my friend eat as many as he could because one of the MDs randomly wanted to know how many chicken mcnuggets a person could consume in one sitting without getting violently sick

That's a terrific challenge. As a good intern, I would have devoured all 200 and asked for more just to show them I meant business.

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 
Best Response

Back in the day, our trading desk was on a floor with a massive bank vault where they stored some physical certificates of value of some sort (can't remember what they were). There was this really nice fat guy in an ill fitting suit that had to push them in a cart. Some of the traders asked him if he would do a basement and back run to the 29th floor for 10% of proceeds on the betting for how long it would take. People went crazy and a few hundred thousand were on the line. He sprinted down and tried running back up, but he stalled 10 floors short and had to slowly make his way up. The entire floor was going crazy. He made it in the midst of where a lot of the bets were. Think he personally took home around $40k, which was probably close to his annual salary at the time (2003).

 

Outside of the standard ball busting, when I first started I asked for everyone's cell phone and a couple people gave me each others' phone numbers. I was texting one of the owners of the company like he was my peer for a while before I figured it out. Luckily I didn't say anything stupid, but in hindsight it could have been awful/hilarious.

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 

EDIT: I guess this is more of a prank....anyways.....

When I was an audit intern back in the day a kid on one of the larger clients left his laptop unlocked while at lunch. If any of you guys have ever done audit, it's a huge thing to always lock your computers at the work site because of confidentiality and other audit BS. While out at lunch, the senior of the audit sent an email to * all * associates up to the manager level in the city office (there were several hundred audit employees at the time) asking if anyone found his red stapler and that he couldn't finish his work without his red stapler. I assume that everyone gets the movie quote...

This was week 2 of the internship and busy season hadn't even begun so for the next few rotations every senior knew who he was. Needless to say he got burned pretty bad at the first few happy hours.

 

Had a similar experience during my SA time in banking, we called it "ballsacking" in that office. Went to check in with one team and left my computer open, and two analysts who were total trolls sent an email to easily the most hardcore associate we had reading something like "Hi John, I was wondering if you could explain why people trade stocks to me? I've always heard about it but I never knew you could make money that way! Can't wait to hear back what you think about the stock market!". Cc'd every analyst and associate in the office. Happy hour sucked that week.

 

When I was a summer intern on the corporate fx desk at baml, one of the associates sent me out to pick up a super specific fruit order from one of the fruit carts in Bryant Park. I think the list included an apple, a kiwi, a mango, and "half" a banana. It was my first week so I didn't question him. I ended up cutting the banana in half in the kitchen because I felt uncomfortable asking the fruit cart lady.

I returned sheepishly with this plastic bag full of fruit, handed it to the associate, and he immediately tossed the whole bag in the garbage can under his desk. He just looked up at me and said thanks. I saw another analyst smiling but nobody else reacted so I just said "no problem" and walked back to my desk.

That set the tone for the summer. I was also absolutely terrible at my job.

 

1) In my first week on the job, I had to call the MD of a fund we work with and explain some document to them over the phone. Of course, this person has a gender neutral name - a woman picked up the phone and said hello...I said "May I speak to Mr. X".....

"This is she"...

So, that was awkward. 5 minutes into the call with her and one of the other kids who started in my class whiffed a ball and hit me square in the face mid-sentence. Continued explaining the minutiae of some contract without missing a beat, but it was a tense/hilarious moment.

  1. We used to shoot rubber bands at each other from across the room to pass the time. Once I swiveled around to ask my buddy a question about something right as he was shooting a band at me. It hit me right in the center of my open eye.

No harm done, but was hilarious convincing him he hand blinded me for a few minutes and watching him squirm.

Etc.

Array
 
Funniest

Our first year we were at the office getting ready to go to one of those impact day things and my buddy forgot so he shows up wearing business clothes but we had to work in the garden all day. He ran to the store near the office and got some casual clothes and while he was out we got the idea to prank him. When he came back we told him he could change in the SVPs office as she was not coming in that day (when in fact she was in the kitchen getting coffee). Before he went in one of the girls, who was super hot, took it up a notch by flirting with him and getting him all riled up. He goes in the office to change and 30 seconds later the SVP walks into her office and there he is in his undies, with an erection... the SVP kicked him out in his underpants while he was apologizing profusely and trying to explain he didn't realize she was there. He didn't live that down for the next year. Even the SVP would jab him once in a while: "JB, this meeting is important so please make sure you wear pants before meeting the clients! And if you don't, for god's sake don't show up in whitey tighties!"

"I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player. Or nothing. " -GG
 

Have a close friend who interned for numerous summers at a solid MM IB in the midwest. He was in S&T, and became very close with the VPs and MDs of the firm. Hes one of those people who is a great guy, but a little.... odd. Essentially, one of the MDs had him drive 45 min into Chicago and hop into a town car as their driver for the day. He wore a full tux, and even one of those little driver hats. The MD and his wife got blacked and went around the city having a fucking blast while my poor friend was stuck as their chauffeur. He also had to bring them hundreds of dollars worth of wine on numerous occasion, and was forced to drive pretty far to get some of the rarer bottles. All that said, he was treated like family, and has an outstanding relationship with the guys at the firm. I am currently doing what I can to work there, sounds like a hell of a culture.

 
sl55amg:
We left a note on one of the interns desk, it said something like "Mike, while you were out you received a call from XXX, please call back Mr. Bear at this number: xxxxxxxx"

It was the number for the zoo and the intern actually called. We told everyone in the row of cubes what we were doing and when the kid asked to talked to Mr. Bear, everyone erupted with laughter.

This one isn't original but I can't recommend it enough.

That was bad. Please do not mention this again for the sake of the well being of the human race.

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

So I heard this story during my internship-

My vp came up through the analyst program and he told me that in his class there was this one dick who always dressed like shit (i.e. stains on tie, bad matching), thought he was literally a fucking genius (they asked him who the smartest person he knows was, and he said himself), and just an all around tool who would roll in late and be a complete fuckboi. So one day he left his computer open and they sent an email to literally everyone saying that he was resigning and at the end of the email they put in a big section where he criticized everyone on the stuff he routinely did - just like a big middle finger on the way out the door. I can only imagine how pissed the guy was when he found out

Dayman?
 

I have a few:

During my summer internship, everyone that sat on the FX desk would have to wear a bright red shirt on the final day of their rotation. This was at a time when the firm in question wasn't going through a great period and ~60% of the floor was empty - meant you were very, very conspicuous across the entire trading floor and ops. To make it worse, you also had to pitch a trade idea, which just added to the unwanted attention and scrutiny.

At a fund I worked for, every new employee - full time or otherwise - would have to do an initiation. This had to be food or drinks orientated. We once had this girl interning who was TINY and, not knowing the consequences, was asked to make a market on the number of chicken nuggets she could eat in one hour. She went WAAAY too high: ended up getting hit for 65 or higher. Had to sit in the middle of the trading floor on a hot summer's day and smash her way through as many as possible while traders gambled on her performance. For her size, she did bloody well, however subsequently spent the rest of the day comatose on the reception sofa.

One full time analyst bet he could get through three pints of Guinness in less than one minute. This was the same day as the firm's summer party, so he'd already been drinking all morning. When the time came, he absolutely DEMOLISHED the first pint - sub 5 seconds - but struggled with the second. Ended up being sick in a champagne cooler in front of the entire firm, CEO included. He ultimately did all three in about 1min 20secs, so not a bad effort, but his effort for falling short (and being sick) was having to do it again.

"Work is the curse of the drinking classes" - Oscar Wilde
 

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