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JJ Ingersoll, our head of global focus, can't stop talking about a top rival's global head of sales. I think he wants to hire him. But no, it seems, the police are saying this guy doesn't just sell bonds. He whips. But not clients. Young people who can't even buy fixed-income assets, let alone junk. JJ says he won't rest until he gets to the bottom of this Marquis Michael de la Pain scandal. It involves our bulge bracket enemy, Bare Stern and so I suggest we take a look at its chairman Alan Iceberg's legendary memos.
We'd burned the last copy, it emerged, so JJ calls Missouri, where his call is bounced to Michigan and back to Vancouver and then onto a small bookshop in Greenwich village. Yes, they have the collected memos of Mr Iceberg but in return for a pre-funded short position on the upcoming ReichsTelekom privatization they say they could "pass us" Iceberg's uncut version. It certainly must brim with great management advice, I tell JJ even more so than the published version, which is surely the best book since Who sank all the customers' speedboats?
It arrives 15 minutes later in a brown paper bag, and JJ closes the door. We start reading.
February 1 1982.
To all general and limited partners. During the last few days the newspapers have devoted a lot of space to my golf swing. It certainly is excellent. Halmchinkel Maladroit Analretentive, the wise sage who advises me, recently said in a dream, "He whose woods are strong is strong, and he whose woods are weak is weak." This is I believe to be the central tenet of analrententiveness, the philosophy founded on Halmchinkel's outpourings. Heed them well.
October 6 1983. Bare Stern is moving forward at an accelerated rate and everybody is contributing, even those departments that I was told were illegal in Kansas when I wanted to set them up. But it is absolutely essential that all managers leave word where they can be reached at all times.
I conducted a study of the 200 Wall Street firms that have disappeared over the past few years and I have discovered that 60.34% went out of business because important people were tied up elsewhere and had their mobile phones turned off. This is unforgivable: always leave your phones on.
June 5 1984. Unfortunately the problem of our senior managers being uncontactable and out of the office has been getting worse instead of better. This is affecting the bottom line, and you know how I feel about that. So I have contacted Marlina Brando of the St Louis Zoo and she advises me that the next person who I have trouble tracking down can be fitted with a radio collar. These collars are bulky and metal studded and when I flick a switch they tighten round the wearers neck. Halmchinkel is positive they will have the required effect, and he is rarely wrong.
August 10 1985. I have just been shown the results for our first quarter. They were excellent but that is largely irrelevant. Halmchinkel Maladroit Analretentive always says: "Thou will do well in commerce as long as thou does not believe thine own odour is the perfume of little naked boys from Borneo." Sound advice as always from the little man who lives in my head.
In fact, he has just informed me that I should tell our purchasing department that they should no longer purchase paper clips. All of us receive them every day when we get documents from rivals. With a little effort we can save them up. The arbitrage department tells me if we stick enough of them where the sun don't shine, the stimulation this will incur will mean we shall spend 55.6% less in Madame Fu-fu's emporium of whippy thrills. A sad economy but a necessary one as it will be good for the bottom line. Please comply. Especially those on the sales desk.
April 19 1986. Subject: How to get richer. All of us use blue envelopes for sending written material around the office, and are re-using them, which is good. But our scotch tape expenses are soaring. I have a solution. We shall employ a couple of under-age work-experience lads from Borneo to lick tiny corners of the envelopes so they can be used again and agains sans tape an altogether more efficient process. I would be surprised if it's anything less than 100% good clean fun, and damn fine to watch.
Oct 26 1988.
Electricity is not free. This will come as a surprise to 98% of the people who work at Bare Stern. Why am I so convinced? Halmchinkel took a little walk around the office he was the one dressed like a Victorian kerbcrawler and saw nine or ten violet wands*. All of our computers were left on, seemingly serving no other purpose than to calculate our real-time value-at-risk. Now, do these computers really need to be left on, wasting precious cents that could contribute to our bottom line? Let me warn you: next time Halmchinkel will be less merciful in his choice of punishments and some of you may be permanently marked by the great man and his selection of Scottish school straps.
October 3 1989. Would you pay $72 for something you could buy in Thailand for $5? Our internal auditors have documented 94 instances in the past year where departments purchased a total of 1,356 whips (ranging from cat-o-nine-tails, to heavy floggers, light braided switches, and suede pussys). These were bought from vendors for prices ranging from $65 to $4,500 (with a free drink). The purchases are authorized by 28 different people, including eight smds and one member of the executive committee. You may not be aware, but our purchasing boys and girls would be delighted to gratify you at $25 a whip. Why not call them?
January 12 1994. Our b&d and d&s departments are doing better than ever. The Japanese bondage sales team are also going from strength to strength, their hold on the market is getting tighter and tighter. At times of great success like this however it is as well to remember Halmchinkel Maladroit Analretentive's wise words: "Thou will do well in commerce as long as thou does not believe thine own odour is the perfume of little naked boys from Borneo."
June 24 1995. A word on dress codes. All staff are expected to be a credit to the firm at all times. However, on Fridays the executive committee has decided to iniate a "dress-kinky" day. This might, for example, necessitate the wearing of such items as hobble skirts. I myself may treat high-achievers to afternoons of trading s&p futures contracts from my spandex bodybag perched on the window-ledge of the 50th floor.
August 13 1996. Halmchinkel is driving me crazy. He keeps talking all the time. It's kind of nice to have your own personal friend and it is good for the bottom line. If anyone needs to talk to me I'll be on the driving range, or in Madame Fu-fu's.
*For those of you who don't know what a violet wand is, it resembles a hand-held power tool with little glass bulbs sticking out of one end. When turned on, the bulb glows violet and crackles; touching it will cause static sparks to jump to your skin. Lovely.
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