We
read that a 21 year-old summer intern in the London office of this high-profile
investment bank is thought to have died from overwork, having pulled three
consecutive all-nighters, which would seem to mean he went without sleep for 72 hours straight. Trying to cover their pathetic a$$, some
unidentified hand job claimed that the Crime Family’s Human Resources Department
had recently sent out a memo “saying something along the lines of don’t work
your interns too hard in the final weeks”.
Time
was, our blogger landed a coveted entry-level gig in white-collar racketeering too, this junior security analyst slot over at Fallutin National, and faced the same kind of calamari himself. Nobody in management actually told you to put
in ridiculous hours, but a body couldn’t help noticing that none of the other
bodies left when the little hand got to 5 and the big hand finally hit 12, and this guy, Alan in the next booth,
had horror stories about what happened to previous coveted gigholders who did.
“Don’t
go until he goes,” was Alan in the next booth’s advice, referring to the group
capo way in the back of the room. Capo split at precisely 8 PM most
nights, otherwise up to as late as 11.
Nobody went out the door with him – that would look like you were just
hanging around because he was still %$#&ing there, which you were, but
pretended you weren’t as pretending is the most important part of any
investment banking job description and you need to show the boss that you're good at it – and the assistant group capo made a point
of inviting everybody to join him in the elevator then so we could all be tied
for last person to go home tonight.
Alan
in the next booth quit at the end of the week, and, in time, so did the rest of the
underlings. Our blogger, who turned out
to be Alan in the next booth’s replacement, though nobody had told him that,
got transferred to another capo fairly soon, otherwise he would’ve fled too. New hires who had the unmitigated gall to
head for the elevator when you were supposed to, got pink slipped the very next
payday, and nobody other than the capo and the capo wannabe lasted more than a matter
of months in that beleaguered corner of the office.
Capo
was an inhuman monster. A sociopathic
beast. Wasn’t the only sociopath in the place
either. Monsters beget monsters, and
drive actual human beings away.
Fallutin
hired thousands of overachieving young men and women every year, at least
twenty-fold more than they’d be promoting any time soon, and expensing all
those slots with entry-level wages meant the CEO and them could pull in that
much more dough themselves. Placing new
hires in the hands of monsters raised the employee turnover rate high enough to
keep that system running smoothly.
Vicious
pack of sociopathic beasts marauding in the stench of all the rotting careers
they had lain to waste – and, from time to time, a forsaken young soul or two
as well.
