Word: shemmer
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Dates: during 1999-1999
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...half an hour the office feels like a dining hall. Cliques form in different corners--secretaries over here, a small group of partners towards the back, and two big tables of analysts and associates. The stock talk continues: "Did you see Zamba? Good call, man." A group gathers around Shemmer, who's animatedly describing the movie he saw last weekend...
...Hanging out around the table, the analysts look like a bunch of fraternity brothers in dress shirts. Of the dozen recent college graduates who work in the New York office, only two are women. With almost all males, the office has a rambunctious feel--Shemmer slaps his friends on the back and calls them "boys"; another recruit is a "stud." Several of the analysts' cubicles sport posters of scantily clad women, advertisements for a Web site called Bikini.com. "You get a bunch of 22, 23-year old alpha males, you're going to get a certain environment," an analyst tells...
...Analysts speculate that most women are turned off by the aggressive, combative nature of investment banking. "The environment can be a little crass, but it's fun," one analyst tells me. "There's a certain type of woman who can work here, and a certain type who can't." Shemmer echoes that sentiment: "In general I-banking is more male-oriented. There's a lot of testosterone, it's considered the old Wall Street--maybe they shy away from that." Broadview has more women than many banks, but it's still jarring...
...lunch tables disperse quickly--everyone's too busy to hang around--and Shemmer heads back to the same Web research he did this morning. I wander around the office to see what the other analysts do. I spend time with one employee who specializes in writing fairness opinions--reports outlining for shareholders whether they're getting a fair deal in a merger. The number crunching and boilerplate legal writing seem dull, but it's still a high-wire act--shareholders who feel cheated can sue Broadview. "It's a pretty amazing responsibility for someone my age," the analyst says...
...cubicle looks identical to Shemmer's--the same L-shaped desk, same chair, same color scheme, even the same boxes scattered on the floor. On the filing cabinet is the same row of tombstones (the Plexiglas trophies awarded when a deal is successfully completed). The uniformity seems depressing, but this analyst says he likes working at Broadview because it's actually more exciting than most jobs. He left a computer programming position at Merrill Lynch because the projects were too long-term and slow-paced. What's more, he thinks the variable nature of his job at Broadview will make...