Project Circus

So I don't think I've made a posting for nearly five months, both my life and physical appearance have changed immensely since that last post.

My life will never be the same again, welcome to Project Circus:

All nighters: ~15
Nights sleeping on the couch in conference room 2: ~5 (excluding naps)
Weekends off: Huh, what are those?
Delirious moments with senior people: Countless
Canceled vacations: 2 personally, 5 team wide
4AM coffee trips: 7,842 (Yes, they open at four)
Pens chewed through: 36


It all started when I was asked to assist on a project while two people were on holiday, naturally being at the bottom of the totem pole like I am, this was only phrased as a question and was never intended to be one. So the project kicked off, I didn't mind, it was a live deal which means that rather working on a marketing project, I was working on a transaction for a client. In this case, we were advising a client on buying a waste business, yes, a business that deals with trash. It turns out that trash is actually ridiculously profitable, maybe not for the guy hanging off the truck whizzing through traffic, but for the fat cats in suits it sure is.

There are two key internal players on the transaction, The One and The Half: The One didn't get his nickname for being the nicest guy around, he is in charge of all of the juniors at the bank and is known for being a complete pric. The Half goes through seven pairs of knee pads a quarter servicing The One's every need, he makes Monica Lewinsky look like a nun.

So essentially this deal was all about two things, The One always demanding far more than can be delivered in a 24 hour day, even an Investment Banker's 24 hour day and The Half always freaking out because despite how senior he is, he is scared shitless of The One and gets flustered by the most insignificant things. We produced over fifty presentations for this project, we produced a financial model that is more than 20 Excel sheets with each consisting of more than 500-1000 lines that are linking into each other, and some of us even had to go a landfill and walk through trash. Nothing was ever good enough for The One, and if it was, he would use his catchline phrase "let's do some further analysis," in other words great work guys now that this is done, despite the fact that you just worked 30 straight hours to do it, here is another 10 hours of work to do. Ever been up for 30 hours straight working and had your boss come up to you in front of everyone on the floor and say "Why hasn't this been done, did you just not feel like doing it?" Yea let me know how that goes, how about fuck you. If The One weren't a 6'2" boxer looking fella I think someone'd have beat him senseless, shit I thought about giving it a try and I'm like a toothpick these days. Then it's 6AM and you're about to send a document to the client and just as you go to hit send, The Half scrambles downstairs and is worried The One won't be happy with one of the numbers, what are we going to do, oh my, what are we going to do. Turns out The One gets up at 8AM, is fine with the numbers but heck, let's show some more, and offers up that we make more slides, it's 8AM and he's fresh out of bed that fucking pric.

Yea, so those of you thinking about joinng a bank, think twice. The books are hysterical, Bank is a great book, tons of laughs, problem is that once you are actually a banker, you realise the book is true! It's not so funny anymore, instead, go enjoy your 9-5 and complain that bankers don't deserve bonuses.

The Blizzard of 2009

So I am sitting on the couch in my apartment right now wearing only a towel eating cheerios. No, despite your wind fantasies ladies, I am not setting the scene for Breakfast Boys Gone Wild II. Anyway, I was about to get in the shower when my teammate called me randomly to ask whether I was going into the office. Naturally I said yes, it is after all a Monday, then he asks "have you looked outside?" So I stroll over to the window and there is literally three inches of snow outside, the most I've ever seen in London but to the guy on the other end of the phone (from South East Asia), this was a blizzard. He explains him and the rest of the team are staying home this morning, a two-hour delay of sorts.


I joke and open up this computer to check the tube....CLOSED! The entire transport system is closed, tubes, buses, cabs, everything is shut because there is three inches of snow on the ground. Heathrow apparently has massive delays to inbound flights. There are no plows so the roads are completely fucked and once there is snow in the tube tunnels, bedlam ensues. I feel like I'm in kindergarten, I think I'll go make Mickey Mouse pancakes and build a snowman, this is hilarious.

........Update

It's 5Pm and I'm home. This blizzard of, all four inches of it, have shut down the city. The building's emergency coordinator at the office informed all no-essential personnel to leave and those of us who couldn't make it home were offered pillows and sleeping bags, room was made available in the restaurants for us to sleep. I'm not shitting you, this announcement was made to the entire building. See my team works through the night fairly often so spending the night there is nothing new, we know all the spots, but apparently some people were flipping out. The whole thing is pathetic and is supposed to go on all week, another 1-2" are coming tomorrow, oh no, run for the hills!

Desolate

It’s desolate here. It is 4:30 in the morning on a Wednesday night and I am pretty sure I may be the only person in the office building besides the guy downstairs printing my presentations which need to be at my Director’s house by 8AM so they can go with him on the plane. Speaking of that guy, Andy I think, he is a little too nice. See generally the print room messes things up, generally at the worst possible times. Well not Andy, tonight I was (notice the past tense) on a deadline and Andy made it happen. Small problem though, I made an error, nothing new really but generally someone will catch it before we go to print. So after Andy printed out and bound these masterful fifty slide presentations, I villainously asked him to rip them apart and re-insert a page because I had put someone junior on top of someone senior on the team listing page, a big no-no in Europe. Andy was Johnny on the spot with this, all over it, made the change for me and is redoing the work as I write. I almost wanted to fight with him just to keep my rep up with the other (inept) print room guys who were there. Can’t have Andy telling everyone I was nice, I eat people.


Anyway, to be honest, part of me wonders who is watching. Who knows what I am doing at the moment, if I were to take off all my clothes and run in circles, would I make YouTube? The cleaners don’t care if they’re on camera; they are far too busy taking siestas to come empty my trash barrel. I have decided I’ll stack the trash and let them play Jenga with it later. Rude? Maybe. I’m off to chat with Andy, he just called to tell me my printing is done, what a guy.


PS: I’m barefoot, hope my MD doesn’t stroll in anytime soon….