I developed a habit of watching YouTube videos while getting ready in the morning. It was sometime in December, just before Christmas, and I stumbled upon the first episode of Kell on Earth online. (I know Kelly isn't a big fan of how the show turned out but it spoke to my professional side.) My company was going through restructuring and we dropped a lot of sector coverage and laid off a lot of employees. En fait, my high school friend and I remained as the "juniors" to support an army of VPs and Managing Directors.
If you've ever watched Suits or Wolf of Wall Street you probably think you've got the finance world all figured out. You don't but neither does anyone stepping into the finance world. Some try to describe it as "work hard, play hard." It's true, except 99% of the emphasis should be on the working hard part, 100 hours per week hard. So hard that one year, for over a week, I would stumble home at 11PM with unwashed hair, head-to-toe in Lululemon and get take-out dinner from a very nice restaurant on the ground floor of my apartment building. On Saturday, I was grabbing my daily dose of tuna tartar and, as the take-out girl was giving me my brown paper bag, she softly said "Um, we're closed tomorrow, are you going to be OK?" For her, I had shattered investment banking stereotypes.
When I started work, fresh out of university with my degree in hand, I got only two pieces of advice:
"Don't Panic." - Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
"Hit 'Save' on your Excel a lot." - My boss
So there I am, laptop open, Kell on Earth loaded, make-up kit laid out before me, watching a dark haired PR maven dissect the most vital lessons of my world in a 45 minute episode. Now I put them in simple word format.
Lessons I learned from the first episode of Kell on Earth
You're going to war - no, seriously, it's actually a war
Once you wrap your head around the amount of money you're dealing with and just how much depends on lowly junior analyst you, you realize it's actually a war. No, for real, people have gone to war over smaller sums of money than I was dealing with on a daily basis. I didn't have time to complain about not being taught something. If I wasn't trained, it's my fault that I didn't create an opportunity to learn. I was surrounded by brilliant, hardworking people. Better yet, I got paid $130K my first year on the job (this figure is the street standard). That's a ton of cash! I was earning this money and I was paid to be perfect. It made me feel like a courageous adult and I acted like one. You don't have to love money, but you do have respect it.
If you have to cry, go outside
It's a cruel notion men in high stress industries have about women and crying. It makes them seem weak and since women are, to these men, weaker and less worthy of their positions, they will ultimately cry. Years later Sheryl Sandberg would write in Lean In that crying in the office made her seem more human and vulnerable. F-that! (I'm going to be someone's mom soon - my husband has asked me to try to control the cursing.) I never want to see anyone cry in the office. Why? I know you're human and female, but what you're getting paid money (see above) for is to be a professional.
Let me give you an example: I don't want my midwife to cry during delivery. It would freak me out if she did. If she loses control, then who's in control? This is my first time doing this so I look to her to be the composed professional and guide me. Is she crying because she f-ed up so bad? Is she crying because she forgot what to do next? This crying isn't making me - her client - feel any better.
When has emotion ever put anything in focus and improved a situation? Are you crying because you can't handle the stress? Then why are you in a fast paced, aggressive industry? So no, no crying. Save your human vulnerable self for after hours and/or your mom.
Rush to be ready
In that first episode, one of Kelly's account executives complains about having to tidy a showroom when the client didn't even go up there. This particularly made me angry. Especially because it was a great learning experience of how to setup the showroom with the critique she received from Robyn afterwards.
Want a much darker parallel? I cannot tell you the hours I spent creating "back pocket" slides for my boss to take to a client presentation just in case the client had additional questions. In my case, in mining investment banking, a back pocket slide could be anything from long-term forecast on tin prices to analysis of Panamanian politics. For every M&A pitch and strategic meeting, we put in at least extra two hours creating these "just in case" slides. Sometimes they were used, sometimes they weren't, but whatever happened, we were ready.
On one hand this sounds like paranoia and a general waste of time. But I respect people with a sense of urgency. In reality, it is much better to be paranoid than to be careless.
Apologize
I believe in the power of the honest "I'm sorry." Taking responsibility for your mistakes can mend broken bridges and uplift your reputation, especially when it doesn't have to be pulled out of you. This includes apologizing to your seniors as well as your juniors at work. Don't expect your boss to apologize, although sometimes you'll be taken by surprise. But it will show respect and humility, both wonderful qualities. Of course you'll have to balance this with not being a doormat, but with the level of entitlement I've encountered among interns in my days days, this doesn't seem to be a huge issue.
Being able to utter 'I'm sorry' without angst, an angry sigh or an eye roll and taking responsibility for whatever happened has seriously progressed my career. Not only that, it has helped tremendously in my first year of marriage. I know you need to be a warrior, but sometimes the warrior needs to be the peacemaker.
This was my first Cutrone encounter. My God, could I force interns and new hires to watch episode one of Kell on Earth as a requirement? Most of them wouldn't appreciate it until they had lived in a high energy, high reward, high intensity environment - such great art lost on the masses! But yes, I think these are the basic four that should create a solid foundation for an entry-level employee. Of course, I have my own fifth rule.
Know your boss and know when you have a great one
Everyone assumes that I quit finance because I worked for a man and that was the source of all my problems. The man I worked for was exactly what made it difficult to leave and why I postponed my resignation at least 10 times over a course of two weeks. The one thing I want to make clear was that he never said or did anything remotely inappropriate to me. He paid me as much as my male colleagues and often told collaborators (clients, corp. dev. guys, lawyers) what a great job I was doing. He was 6'6" tall and never raised his voice, at anyone. He took time to explain things and wanted me to, and I quote, "Tell me if you don't think my strategy makes any fucking sense." He took particular pride in the low turnover rate of his group, (Most investment banks will see a full change in junior employees about once per year.)
He was open with his expectations and explicit with his hang ups. During one quarterly review, he told me - as he told everyone else - that he specifically wanted everyone to show up on time. The day started at 9 AM. Not 9:01. 9 AM. At 9 AM, he or one of his right hand men would walk out of their office and casually do a round along the analyst pit on his way for a coffee refill in the kitchen. This registered with me and I made it a point to show up at 8:40 AM. One time he actually asked me why I was coming in that earlier. I took the earlier train just in case there was a delay outside of my control because my job satisfaction mattered to him, so his satisfaction with my arrival time mattered to me. So now he knew that if I was ever late, it was because someone had jumped in front of the train and there was no way I could hasten the coroner.
These were my little mantras that led to a successful career in investment banking. How do I define successful? I never got yelled at, I didn't get fired, I never got taken off a project and I never compared my existence to that of a slave or moped around the office complaining about having no life. (I find this comparison insulting - you are not a slave, Django Unchained.) I knew what I was in for and I knew how to tackle it. When I did quit, it was in a respectful, contained manner that ended with a pleasant "good bye, let me know if you need a reference." I didn't flip the bird or slam a door. And I never, ever cried.
If you've ever watched Suits or Wolf of Wall Street you probably think you've got the finance world all figured out. You don't but neither does anyone stepping into the finance world. Some try to describe it as "work hard, play hard." It's true, except 99% of the emphasis should be on the working hard part, 100 hours per week hard. So hard that one year, for over a week, I would stumble home at 11PM with unwashed hair, head-to-toe in Lululemon and get take-out dinner from a very nice restaurant on the ground floor of my apartment building. On Saturday, I was grabbing my daily dose of tuna tartar and, as the take-out girl was giving me my brown paper bag, she softly said "Um, we're closed tomorrow, are you going to be OK?" For her, I had shattered investment banking stereotypes.
When I started work, fresh out of university with my degree in hand, I got only two pieces of advice:
"Don't Panic." - Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
"Hit 'Save' on your Excel a lot." - My boss
So there I am, laptop open, Kell on Earth loaded, make-up kit laid out before me, watching a dark haired PR maven dissect the most vital lessons of my world in a 45 minute episode. Now I put them in simple word format.
Lessons I learned from the first episode of Kell on Earth
You're going to war - no, seriously, it's actually a war
Once you wrap your head around the amount of money you're dealing with and just how much depends on lowly junior analyst you, you realize it's actually a war. No, for real, people have gone to war over smaller sums of money than I was dealing with on a daily basis. I didn't have time to complain about not being taught something. If I wasn't trained, it's my fault that I didn't create an opportunity to learn. I was surrounded by brilliant, hardworking people. Better yet, I got paid $130K my first year on the job (this figure is the street standard). That's a ton of cash! I was earning this money and I was paid to be perfect. It made me feel like a courageous adult and I acted like one. You don't have to love money, but you do have respect it.
If you have to cry, go outside
It's a cruel notion men in high stress industries have about women and crying. It makes them seem weak and since women are, to these men, weaker and less worthy of their positions, they will ultimately cry. Years later Sheryl Sandberg would write in Lean In that crying in the office made her seem more human and vulnerable. F-that! (I'm going to be someone's mom soon - my husband has asked me to try to control the cursing.) I never want to see anyone cry in the office. Why? I know you're human and female, but what you're getting paid money (see above) for is to be a professional.
Let me give you an example: I don't want my midwife to cry during delivery. It would freak me out if she did. If she loses control, then who's in control? This is my first time doing this so I look to her to be the composed professional and guide me. Is she crying because she f-ed up so bad? Is she crying because she forgot what to do next? This crying isn't making me - her client - feel any better.
When has emotion ever put anything in focus and improved a situation? Are you crying because you can't handle the stress? Then why are you in a fast paced, aggressive industry? So no, no crying. Save your human vulnerable self for after hours and/or your mom.
Rush to be ready
In that first episode, one of Kelly's account executives complains about having to tidy a showroom when the client didn't even go up there. This particularly made me angry. Especially because it was a great learning experience of how to setup the showroom with the critique she received from Robyn afterwards.
Want a much darker parallel? I cannot tell you the hours I spent creating "back pocket" slides for my boss to take to a client presentation just in case the client had additional questions. In my case, in mining investment banking, a back pocket slide could be anything from long-term forecast on tin prices to analysis of Panamanian politics. For every M&A pitch and strategic meeting, we put in at least extra two hours creating these "just in case" slides. Sometimes they were used, sometimes they weren't, but whatever happened, we were ready.
On one hand this sounds like paranoia and a general waste of time. But I respect people with a sense of urgency. In reality, it is much better to be paranoid than to be careless.
Apologize
I believe in the power of the honest "I'm sorry." Taking responsibility for your mistakes can mend broken bridges and uplift your reputation, especially when it doesn't have to be pulled out of you. This includes apologizing to your seniors as well as your juniors at work. Don't expect your boss to apologize, although sometimes you'll be taken by surprise. But it will show respect and humility, both wonderful qualities. Of course you'll have to balance this with not being a doormat, but with the level of entitlement I've encountered among interns in my days days, this doesn't seem to be a huge issue.
Being able to utter 'I'm sorry' without angst, an angry sigh or an eye roll and taking responsibility for whatever happened has seriously progressed my career. Not only that, it has helped tremendously in my first year of marriage. I know you need to be a warrior, but sometimes the warrior needs to be the peacemaker.
This was my first Cutrone encounter. My God, could I force interns and new hires to watch episode one of Kell on Earth as a requirement? Most of them wouldn't appreciate it until they had lived in a high energy, high reward, high intensity environment - such great art lost on the masses! But yes, I think these are the basic four that should create a solid foundation for an entry-level employee. Of course, I have my own fifth rule.
Know your boss and know when you have a great one
Everyone assumes that I quit finance because I worked for a man and that was the source of all my problems. The man I worked for was exactly what made it difficult to leave and why I postponed my resignation at least 10 times over a course of two weeks. The one thing I want to make clear was that he never said or did anything remotely inappropriate to me. He paid me as much as my male colleagues and often told collaborators (clients, corp. dev. guys, lawyers) what a great job I was doing. He was 6'6" tall and never raised his voice, at anyone. He took time to explain things and wanted me to, and I quote, "Tell me if you don't think my strategy makes any fucking sense." He took particular pride in the low turnover rate of his group, (Most investment banks will see a full change in junior employees about once per year.)
He was open with his expectations and explicit with his hang ups. During one quarterly review, he told me - as he told everyone else - that he specifically wanted everyone to show up on time. The day started at 9 AM. Not 9:01. 9 AM. At 9 AM, he or one of his right hand men would walk out of their office and casually do a round along the analyst pit on his way for a coffee refill in the kitchen. This registered with me and I made it a point to show up at 8:40 AM. One time he actually asked me why I was coming in that earlier. I took the earlier train just in case there was a delay outside of my control because my job satisfaction mattered to him, so his satisfaction with my arrival time mattered to me. So now he knew that if I was ever late, it was because someone had jumped in front of the train and there was no way I could hasten the coroner.
These were my little mantras that led to a successful career in investment banking. How do I define successful? I never got yelled at, I didn't get fired, I never got taken off a project and I never compared my existence to that of a slave or moped around the office complaining about having no life. (I find this comparison insulting - you are not a slave, Django Unchained.) I knew what I was in for and I knew how to tackle it. When I did quit, it was in a respectful, contained manner that ended with a pleasant "good bye, let me know if you need a reference." I didn't flip the bird or slam a door. And I never, ever cried.
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