My First Day Working on Wall Street

There are moments in your life that profoundly impact your career trajectory.

The weeks leading up to - and including - my very first day on Wall Street ultimately defined my existence for over two decades.

Please allow me to give you some background so you can fully appreciate my journey.

After being bullied at a private high school in Dallas, I matriculated at the University of Texas at Austin as a Psychology major at the age of 18, naively intending to leverage my success as a high school musician into a career in the music business.

Very early on in my freshman year, I remember grappling with existential thoughts such as: "What the heck am I doing?"

Sure, I loved the theory of psychology, but was I really going to attend medical school and become a doctor?

The answer was ABSOLUTELY NOT.

After a seminal moment on the balcony of my freshman dorm, I quickly transferred into the business school for the start of my sophomore year, studying Finance, believing this to be the area where hard work correlated highly with financial success.

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During my junior year, still riding a 4.0 grade point average, I applied for several prestigious investment banking internships, including with Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan, the two most sought-after New York firms.

Everyone who was anyone knew that "Goldman" and "Morgan" - as they were referenced with reverence - was where you wanted to be.

The UPPER ECHELON of the UPPER ECHELON.

Of course you would be honored to be accepted into another investment bank's internship program - Credit Suisse, DLJ, Merrill Lynch, to name a few of the top firms that were very desirable.

However, leading up to resume drops at The University of Texas at Austin, I found my nights dominated by the dreams of the opportunity to work for the legendary Goldman or Morgan.

It became an obsession.

Why shouldn't I be good enough for the best? was the thought that keep going through my mind.

Favorably enough, I secured one of the ten coveted on-campus internship interview slots offered by Goldman Sachs due to my 4.0 GPA.

When I saw my name on the list of those selected, I almost LOST CONSCIOUSNESS.

For the first time in my life, my wishes had actually come true.

As I recovered my emotions, I tried to rationally assess the situation: I was one of the top 10 business students on campus interviewing for ONE available Dream Job.

I knew THE STAKES WERE HIGH, and now it was down to a 10% chance that I would get the job I so desperately wanted.

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The Goldman Sachs interview was on campus, so I had some time to prepare.

In the days leading up to the interview, I scoured numerous horror stories about Goldman's legendary interview process that included brain-stumping math teasers and impossible-to-answer logic questions.

I made it my business to try to anticipate every potential question.

It didn't help.

Despite my best efforts, I physically trembled when I walked into the interview room and saw NOT ONE, BUT TWO stern-faced Goldman investment bankers waiting to interview me.

OH NO.

My mind WENT BLANK when presented with this unanticipated scenario.

I had prepared for every eventuality - except for a 2-on-1 winner-take-all job interview, and now here I was heading to the inquisition with four eyes watching every bead of sweat drip down into my starched collar, suit and tie.

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Surprisingly, the interview started off easy enough; I think this is where they lull you into a false sense of confidence.

To my own personal shame, the only work experience on my resume was working at Abercrombie & Fitch at Barton Creek Mall, which did not exactly give me Wall Street credentials.

Initially undeterred by their lines of questioning, I was feeling heartened about my chances until they asked the stunner:

“What did I like to do for fun?”

UHHHH.

I could feel my face and brain GO NUMB.

I had not prepared for any personal questions, and I had NO IDEA what to share about my personal life.

To be honest, the thoughts going through my head were about hanging out on 6th Street in Austin, and I was not particularly keen to share that information with these two corporate stiffs.

IT SHOWED.

I demurred and mentioned something about liking to listen to live jazz (something I actually did like to do, but which maybe sounded weird to say for someone my age).

They were not impressed with both my hesitation and the half-hearted answer I gave.

Did they think I was a nerd? A liar? Maybe both?

Whatever it was, I did NOT get the Goldman gig.

Looking back now, the Goldman interview was an invaluable experience. Your failures prepare you for eventual SUCCESS.

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My BIG BREAK came shortly after the Goldman debacle.

One of my family’s friends ran the private equity division at J.P.Morgan in New York, and I was extended a special invitation to interview for a coveted Investment Banking Summer Analyst position (which Time magazine had just named as one of its Top 10 Internships of the Year along with positions at NASA and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences).

All the candidates from Ivy League schools had two 30-minute on-campus interviews; since I was not from one of those white shoe schools, my grueling interview schedule contained an entire day of six one-hour interviews with either Vice Presidents or Managing Directors.

My strategy for the day was to assume a Texas twang and just have the attitude of “golly gee, I am just happy to be here”, like a country bumpkin.

Thinking back on this strategy, I am not sure it had the highest chances of success, since later I was teased incessantly for my out-of-place-on-Wall-Street accent. However, my Southern charm and knowledge of the music world seemed to work.

I had a great conversation with the Head of the Consumer/Retail team about Jay Z and P Diddy, and I avoided the pasta at lunch and instead picked at my salad, so I wouldn’t show off my embarrassingly horrendous table manners.

I remember it like yesterday when my cell phone rang a few weeks later.

I was on campus walking to class, and I answered the phone.

It was J.P. Morgan calling, and they had ACCEPTED me into the internship class.

It was a sunny Spring day in Austin, Texas, and I jumped and yelled for joy when I hung up the phone.

People were definitely staring at me. I didn’t care.

I was about to live out my college dream of working on Wall Street.

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The internship was to run for ten weeks during the summer before my senior year of college, and the program began with a three-day crash course in Excel financial modeling before you got your assignment and “hit the desk” as your official first day was called.

OK, time for an earth-shaking admission, I had NEVER used Excel before in my life.

I did not have my own computer at college; I used the computer lab for basic tasks, so I was definitely hiding the fact that I was COMPLETELY lost when it came to spreadsheets.

My first day after training was a Friday. J.P. Morgan’s offices were at 60 Wall Street at that time, and I recall walking down Wall Street at the tender age of 20 years old, thinking pretty highly of myself.

To start the day, the senior executives hosted a breakfast reception on the top floor of the building, with sweeping views to the East of the river and of the World Trade Center to the West.

During the reception, we hobnobbed with our fellow intern classmates, which included the sons and daughters of political and business heavyweights.

All was going smoothly until about 5pm, which is the hour of death for an investment banking analyst’s weekend.

Somehow your work plate can be empty, meaning you get the weekend off, until your hopes are bitterly crushed when your Vice President boss comes over and tells you what needs to be done by Monday morning. I mean, seriously, are they just waiting until the end of the day to come over and dump all over you or what?

I think this is exactly how they test your mettle.

Like clockwork, the phone at my desk rang, and I was summoned into the boss’ office.

J.P. Morgan was working on a $2 billion equity offering, and they wanted me to build several financial models over the weekend; the results were to be used in the pitchbook for the client at the start of the week.

When the senior bankers left and it was just me all alone on the floor at 9pm, I had a nervous breakdown.

I am not kidding. Like major IMPOSTER SYNDROME.

I had somehow managed to fake my way through Excel training, but now there was no way to fake this.

If I happened to be successful in this exercise, I would have to spend every waking hour at the office trying to figure out how to accomplish what they had just tasked me to do.

I called my father and started crying. I can’t do this, I said. He tried to soothe me, but I was inconsolable.

At the end of our call, he told me to think of it as a game, almost like pledging a fraternity.

He said they are just testing you, and that you are getting paid and getting great experience, so just do the best you can do.

I managed to pull myself together and left the office around 2am, only to return to work from 8am until midnight both Saturday and Sunday (which was a regular occurrence for me in investment banking in the late 90s and early 2000s. Apparently, working conditions have somewhat improved since then).

Monday morning arrived, and my superiors reviewed my work.

Miraculously, I had figured it out, and ultimately I got the full time job offer to return to Wall Street as an Investment Banking Analyst after I graduated.

My career was off to the races.

Note to readers - this story is now immortalized in Fabien Toulme's new graphic novel, "Les Reflets Du Monde: Et Travailler Et Vivre," available for pre-order on Amazon here.

For more of my Wall Street stories, click here to read the story that has over one million Google impressions: "The Investment Banking Deal That Finally Broke Me."