Top Producer Read Online Free PDF Page B
Author: Norb Vonnegut
and turned right near Bagwell, who wore a different pair of suspenders every day. I continued straight at Casper, ghoulishly white and known for clipping his nails compulsively. Even at that hour Casper’s semirhythmic plinks were already reverberating across the room and sabotaging the appetites of those eating breakfast at their desks.
Frank Kurtz, our boss, barreled out of his office and caught me in the aisles. “Grove,” he said in a voice already charged from coffee and a cigar, “I want to bounce an idea off you.”
“Sure, Frank. What’s up?” Like every other adviser on the floor, I distrusted Frank, regarded him as another overhead line item from the layers of management. Behind his back, we all called him the “Monthly Nut.”
“Percy intends to re-brand our division,” Frank said. “Goldman, Morgan, Merrill, they all called themselves PCS at one time. The name’s a commodity.”
“Okay,” I said, thinking this conversation could wait until after my first cup of coffee.
“McKinsey recommended we call ourselves Global Wealth Management. Tell me what you think. Gut reaction. What’s the first thing that comes to mind?”
“Bathhouses.”
“Huh?” he asked. With the skinny legs of a ballerina and the bull torso of a weight lifter, Frank teetered slightly. “Where’d that come from?”
“Acronyms, Frank. GWM is the acronym for Global Wealth Management. Tell the knucklehead from McKinsey to read The Village Voice. GWM is how gay white males in search of love identify themselves in classified ads.”
“Shit,” he muttered, and let me go. “I need to call Marketing.”
Axiom number two in action: As long as we generate revenues, ourbosses tolerate our quirks and leave us the hell alone. Top producers can say almost anything and get away with it.
En route to my desk, it was impossible to avoid Patty Gershon. She had short black hair, Ferrari-red lipstick, and an angular but pleasing nose. Patty was an outstanding adviser, a cagey student of the capital markets, but way too aggressive for my taste. She “jammed product,” our vernacular for selling hard and saying anything to turn a buck.
Patty also doubled as a powerful magnet for every woman in the office with something on her mind. She sat at the epicenter of “Estrogen Alley,” my term of endearment for the cluster of women working in her vicinity. Their cubicles were loud and raucous, no topic taboo. Male endowment, feminine hygiene, and the havoc that childbirth wreaks on women—way too much information flowed within earshot of my desk.
“Hey, O’Rourke,” she called, the only person who ever addressed me by my last name. Patty was wearing a sharp Giorgio Armani suit. At forty-three she still flaunted her body, a successful joint venture between her personal trainer and a skilled plastic surgeon.
“Lady Goldfish,” I replied in kind. Goldfish eat their young, and Patty was predatory. She won all her battles, the inevitable ax fights that erupted over wealthy prospects, through a fearsome combination of guile, decibels, and threatening comments about prejudice in the workplace. Fortunately, she never quite grasped the hidden meaning of her nickname. Patty thought it was a character from Finding Nemo .
“What do you call a two-hundred-and-thirty-pound philanthropist?” she asked.
I blinked, never expecting Charlie’s clip to become source material for Wall Street’s dark humor. But every topic was fair game, no matter how unkind or distasteful the material.
“Bait,” she answered. “What do you call a friend that gets eaten by three sharks?” This time she stared at me intensely, in order to build anticipation.
“I give up.”
“Chum.”
I walked. Patty was clueless about my friendship with Charlie. She had no idea about my suffering. Advisers hid clients from colleagues. For all the esprit de corps at SKC, we worked in silos. We never knew when
Frank Kurtz, our boss, barreled out of his office and caught me in the aisles. “Grove,” he said in a voice already charged from coffee and a cigar, “I want to bounce an idea off you.”
“Sure, Frank. What’s up?” Like every other adviser on the floor, I distrusted Frank, regarded him as another overhead line item from the layers of management. Behind his back, we all called him the “Monthly Nut.”
“Percy intends to re-brand our division,” Frank said. “Goldman, Morgan, Merrill, they all called themselves PCS at one time. The name’s a commodity.”
“Okay,” I said, thinking this conversation could wait until after my first cup of coffee.
“McKinsey recommended we call ourselves Global Wealth Management. Tell me what you think. Gut reaction. What’s the first thing that comes to mind?”
“Bathhouses.”
“Huh?” he asked. With the skinny legs of a ballerina and the bull torso of a weight lifter, Frank teetered slightly. “Where’d that come from?”
“Acronyms, Frank. GWM is the acronym for Global Wealth Management. Tell the knucklehead from McKinsey to read The Village Voice. GWM is how gay white males in search of love identify themselves in classified ads.”
“Shit,” he muttered, and let me go. “I need to call Marketing.”
Axiom number two in action: As long as we generate revenues, ourbosses tolerate our quirks and leave us the hell alone. Top producers can say almost anything and get away with it.
En route to my desk, it was impossible to avoid Patty Gershon. She had short black hair, Ferrari-red lipstick, and an angular but pleasing nose. Patty was an outstanding adviser, a cagey student of the capital markets, but way too aggressive for my taste. She “jammed product,” our vernacular for selling hard and saying anything to turn a buck.
Patty also doubled as a powerful magnet for every woman in the office with something on her mind. She sat at the epicenter of “Estrogen Alley,” my term of endearment for the cluster of women working in her vicinity. Their cubicles were loud and raucous, no topic taboo. Male endowment, feminine hygiene, and the havoc that childbirth wreaks on women—way too much information flowed within earshot of my desk.
“Hey, O’Rourke,” she called, the only person who ever addressed me by my last name. Patty was wearing a sharp Giorgio Armani suit. At forty-three she still flaunted her body, a successful joint venture between her personal trainer and a skilled plastic surgeon.
“Lady Goldfish,” I replied in kind. Goldfish eat their young, and Patty was predatory. She won all her battles, the inevitable ax fights that erupted over wealthy prospects, through a fearsome combination of guile, decibels, and threatening comments about prejudice in the workplace. Fortunately, she never quite grasped the hidden meaning of her nickname. Patty thought it was a character from Finding Nemo .
“What do you call a two-hundred-and-thirty-pound philanthropist?” she asked.
I blinked, never expecting Charlie’s clip to become source material for Wall Street’s dark humor. But every topic was fair game, no matter how unkind or distasteful the material.
“Bait,” she answered. “What do you call a friend that gets eaten by three sharks?” This time she stared at me intensely, in order to build anticipation.
“I give up.”
“Chum.”
I walked. Patty was clueless about my friendship with Charlie. She had no idea about my suffering. Advisers hid clients from colleagues. For all the esprit de corps at SKC, we worked in silos. We never knew when
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