The Power of the Printer

You might have read the title and thought I was referring to your standard desktop printer, a scene from Office Space maybe, but no. In my world, the printer is an enormous room downstairs where 24/7 these enormous machines eat half the Amazon daily. You see in banking, we print a lot of things. In fact, we even print extra copies of everything just to make sure we've got enough. I'm talking 500 page documents here people. Anyway, the room of presses which I have decided to collectively call "the printer," and those who run them, have a lot of power.

Take this past week for instance, one-hundred hours in the office. Had the printers not been overbooked and had gotten things right the first time, it'd have been 90. However, any worse than they were and it'd have been 120. At first, I decided to go the nice guy route, go down and check-in, say please and thank you, it got me nowhere. I got my document late and messed up (table of contents exist for a reason). Anyway, the nice guy approach doesn't work, dog eat dog, if you want things done around here you better let people know what exactly you want and when you want it. If they don't deliver, go down there and start tapping you're foot until served. I sugggest bringing work because it may take awhile, but if these people get there shit together, you may actually make it to bed, so focus up.

Models and Bottles (Except for RBS Interns)

I had to share this. There is always one intern story every summer, here is this year's for those who missed it....


Subject: Friday 22nd RBS Interns

Hi everyone

Hope you had a good night on Friday

This is a message for everyone who went to Fabric

Basically, I agreed to put a deposit of £1000 on my card to reserve the VIP area and to also sort out the extra discounted entry of £11 each (around £250 altogether) at the end. I did this because it would have worked out to around £45 each which everyone agreed was a great deal for a Friday night VIP area in Fabric with drinks and entry (entry usually £16). I then waited for some friends outside and everyone went down and, without me knowing, started a tab with the bar instead of paying for their own drinks to get up to the £1000. That was ok but people got drunk and left without paying or payed far too little and I've been left around £900 down!!

Only £250 was collected on the night out of the £1200 for VIP area, drinks and entry.

I accept that people were very drunk and also that, because of the tab, people didn't know how much the drinks actually are on a Friday night in Fabric. The prices are below

Bottles of Champagne - £70
Bottles of Vodka - £80 (or £6 a double)
Pitchers of Cocktail - £40 (or £5 a glass)
Bottles of Stella - £4.50
Cans of red bull - £3

I didn't order any of the drinks, but from what I saw, there was one bottle of champagne, around 6 bottles of vodka, 5 pitchers of cocktail, 6 cans of red bull, 20 bottles of Stella...and that was what I saw, I wasn't there the whole time.

Fabric are threatening to get the police involved and apparently have contacts in RBS from previous parties so I can't see any way out of this.

Please help me out guys I cant afford £900 on my own and I think you'll agree that this isn't fair. Try to remember what you drank and please be honest and get in touch with any questions.

Enjoy your last week,

XXXX


....good luck buddy

Fuck Accountants

I know it sounds harsh right? I work with numbers, they work with numbers; we’re all the same, no? NO! Fuck you for even thinking that is even remotely the case.

Let me tell what they do, they ruin everything, the world would be a better place without them. Give accountants three pieces of fruit and they will find a way to tell you there are six. They’ll say that two are buried in goodwill and other intangibles while the other has been deferred. These people are so full of shit.

Let me tell you why I care. Europe, the Middle East, and Africa is a big region, as such, it has a lot of companies operating within it. When you work in M&A (Mergers & Acquisitions) your job is to value businesses and advise your client on buying or selling the asset. How do you value a business? There are a number of ways but a popular one is comparables, base the value on the value of other similar businesses. Easy enough right? If you sell X and collect thirty percent of it as profit and I sell double X and collect thirty percent of it as profit, I’m worth twice as much as you (not me personally I assure you, I’m a poor analyst).

Wrong! The accounts have ruined this. Those fuckers find a way to hide everything. Ever seen a headline of some company reporting their profits for the year? Yea, that is a lie, the accounts made that shit up. They put in what they wanted to and then buried everything else in the “notes,” we’ll get to the notes in another post but let me tell you it is hell on Earth. So back to comparables, all accountants aren’t the same in how they fuck shit up, each as their own personal style. This makes comparables a ridiculously daunting task that in the end is really just an educated guess because you can never make a perfect comparison. The accounts have fucked shit up so bad it is impossible to fix, it would be like dropping a vase off the Eiffel Tower, strolling down the stairs with some Elmer’s and trying to glue that shit back together. So when you are in charge of the thirty-six construction comps and they need to be done for a deal, just remember, fuck the accountants.

If that has any of you fired up about accountants, enjoy this clip that was sent to me compliments of a fine young lady from Chicago, IL in the good ‘ole USA. Thanks C. Darl!

PS: She’s a consultant