Wall Street Financial Truth

Chapter 27 What Chinese Can Get on Wall Street (3)
After graduation, everyone thought that it would be difficult to find a job with Sister Hu's programming skills.But unexpectedly, not only did she find a job, but she also broke into Wall Street and got an HR position in the HR department of a medium-sized investment bank.It turned out that the investment bank bought new personnel management software and needed to add some specific Features. The head of the personnel department did not understand computers. During the interview, Ms. Hu was pleasing to the eye, and she was a computer student, so she was hired as an assistant. period of three months.

Sister Hu went to work in earnest.The matter of data files is not a problem for her, and she will understand when the boss talks a little bit.If you encounter programming, take the program home the same way, and then bring the code (code) written by your husband the night before to the company and enter it into the computer the next day.After the three-month probationary period, the boss hoped that she would become a full-time employee immediately, and promised to send her to take a few HR courses.Right on target!Don't mention how happy Sister Hu is.

On Wall Street, employees' 'Turnover Rate' (mobility) is the highest among all industries, with an average of three years in and out.Although Sister Hu's salary is not high, she does it very well, and 15 years have passed without her knowing it.During this period, her boss, and even her boss's boss, have changed several times.Sister Hu's friends also persuaded her to change jobs. At that time, those who knew a little about computers on Wall Street would get at least a $5000 salary increase every time they jumped, and it was not uncommon for them to add another [-] to [-].But Ms. Hu has concerns about job-hopping, she is better off than a proficient worker, and she can't lose a good job just to add a few thousand yuan.Therefore, when everyone gets together, she often jokes: "Wall Street is an 'iron camp, a flowing soldier', and only I am an 'iron soldier'." This is truly a miracle.

Seeing that I can retire after five or six years of work.Unfortunately, the financial tsunami came, and the crisis made the company's situation go from bad to worse. Over the past year, Ms. Hu has been very busy. 2000 employees have been laid off by 30%, sending off two or three colleagues every day. She has to prepare documents and face the mournful The staff had to do a good job of appeasement, and she was so busy that she couldn't take a vacation for a whole year.

One day, her boss arranged an assistant for her, a new graduate, and asked her to train her well.Three weeks have passed.Early that morning, she went to the company excitedly, but was told by the novice she trained: "I'm sorry, you have been laid off!" She used to say this sentence to others, and she never thought that she would have this day!I really don't have a feeling in my heart.

Fortunately, at that time, Sister Hu's husband always wanted to go back to China to develop, because his in-laws were old and unable to move around, and he really wanted his son to be by their side.Sister Hu's children also graduated from college and are independent in New York, so they don't need their care.Coincidentally, his husband just got a letter of appointment in China to work as a professor in a university, but due to the job of Sister Hu, he is in a dilemma when considering whether to return from overseas.It's all right now, since I don't have a job anyway, I might as well go home with my husband.

Wait, when she opened the resignation package, she noticed that her severance package was equivalent to 4 and a half years' salary!After working in HR for so many years, she knows best that severance pay should be three weeks' salary for every year of work, plus one week for more than three years of service, two weeks for six years, and so on.Based on Sister Hu's 3 years of service, it should have been: 1 x 6 + 2 = 15 weeks, which is almost a year's salary.She thought, probably the company was kind enough to give her a special favor because of her hard work for 15 years.

After returning home, Sister Hu told her husband in this way, they danced the tango, and immediately prepared to pack up and go home.

But early the next morning, Sister Hu received a call from her former boss saying that due to a computer failure, the calculation of the severance pay was wrong.Hearing this, Sister Hu's heart skipped a beat. Could it be that the company is going to "collect debts"?I only heard the boss explain that since both parties have signed, the company will never go back on its word.However, if she chooses to go back to work, the layoff decision will be voided, and it is guaranteed that as long as the company does not go bankrupt, she can retire at the age of 65.

Based on Sister Hu's past work experience, she knows that the reason for laying her off is entirely because her salary is higher than that of new graduates.If she promises to go back to work, the new grad will definitely be laid off.Now that she and her husband have made a decision, she can still give others the opportunity to work, and she has nothing to lose, so she politely declines her boss, saying that the whole family is going back to China.Sister Hu's boss had nothing to do, and finally made a request, asking her to go back to the company to eliminate the bug (loophole) in the computer program.That's fine.

On the third day, Sister Hu went to the original company to turn on the computer and check it carefully. My God, this bug was "created" by herself 15 years ago, more precisely, she copied her husband's.However, unexpectedly copied a symbol wrongly.There is a line in the program that calculates severance pay for employees who have worked for more than 15 years. She wrote the addition symbol into multiplication: 15×3×5=225 (weeks)!
And in these years, among the employees laid off by the company, only Sister Hu has worked for more than 15 years, which is really a blessing in disguise!

6. Wall Street elites traveling all over the world

Wall Street is the leading "sheep" in the world's financial circles.Generally speaking, as long as you have worked on Wall Street for five or six years, you have Hands-on (practical) experience, and you have mastered 'Cutting-edge' (most cutting-edge) and 'State-of-the-art' (most advanced) skills , I can make a living wherever I go.If the experience is more than ten years, it will be even more delicious, and they are welcome to "pass the scriptures and give treasures" everywhere.Those projects can be as short as three months and as long as three to five years, and the employer usually provides round-trip air tickets.If a project is for three months, the employer will book a hotel and wait for it.There are housing allowances for long-term projects, and at least one month of vacation every year. The basic salary is generally higher than that of Wall Street, but most of them do not have bonuses.Doing those overseas projects is like "public travel", which is especially suitable for single nobles, and many people enjoy it.

My old colleague Mario at Bankers Trust (Bankers Trust) is such a master.Mario is a native of Toronto and of Italian descent. He has worked on Wall Street for more than 10 years, specializing in various Exotic (weird) derivative securities, and he can package and sell any securities.He once said that as long as it can be sold, he can pack the old lady into an 18-year-old girl and sell it for a good price.It can be said that turning a stone into gold, turning decay into magic.He once told me mysteriously that he invented the concept of subprime debt, and I don't know whether it is true or not.

With the capital of flickering, Mario traveled around the world while working and working as a consultant for weird financial products.Probably because he is used to weird financial products, he has always dreamed of finding an exotic wife.

Mario applied for a well-known Wall Street consulting company, which is responsible for contracting overseas projects and introducing Wall Street products to other countries.Perhaps influenced by the classic Hollywood love movie "North African Spy", the first project he chose was in Casablanca, where a bank needed to make a futures hedging financial product.

The result disappointed him greatly.

It stands to reason that Casablanca is the political and economic center of North Africa, no matter how you think about it, it will not be so bad.After getting off the plane, a vice president of the bank personally picked him up into the city.The drive from the airport to the city was unbelievably deserted.After entering the city, it was like a dead city, with dilapidated streets and piles of rubbish up to knee height.The vice president of the bank arranged for him to live in a hotel in the city, which was said to be the best, but it didn't even have air conditioning.

Mario is not reconciled.One day after get off work, he went to Rick's cafe, the romantic bar in the movie.The storefront is still there, but the lights inside are dim, and there are only a few movie stills hanging on the wall, which is not what I imagined at all.In the bar, let alone girls, I didn't meet a single woman.Before the contract expired, he fled back after only staying for a month.

Later, Mario took on a six-month project in the Bahamas.He used to go on vacation to the Bahamas and never felt he had enough time, the island was so attractive.Private jets frequently rise and fall, flying in the sky.Countless white yachts on the blue ocean.Mercedes-Benz and BMW are nothing, and luxury sports cars like Alston Martin can be seen everywhere.Of course, Mario is most interested in beautiful women, whether it is bars, seaside beaches, or casinos, all he sees are beautiful women.

Well now, in the Bahamas, you can make money and have fun, and you can also find a beautiful wife. Wouldn’t it be the best of the three worlds?But unfortunately, he had a lot of one-night stands there, and after that, they would break up and go their own way. No one made a private appointment with him for life.

If you can't find a wife, then find money.He went to Dubai, the richest city in the world.A lot of money has been made, but there is no place to spend it.There are many women on the street, but it is hard to tell which one is a girl and which one is a sister-in-law. Every woman is wrapped up so that only the windows of her soul are exposed.What's more frightening is that if you look at them twice more, you will immediately feel vigilant eyes sweeping towards you.Later, colleagues there warned him that girls who seduce Dubai will be hunted down by their families.

So he put away his troubles and concentrated on his work.The colleagues in the company, like New York, all come from all corners of the country.The locals don't seem to need to work, only the boss is a local, but he either falls to the ground three times and kowtows all day, or takes out the Koran to pray; he also Fasting (fasting) for a few weeks from time to time.Once, he was reporting work to several bosses. Suddenly, each of them took out a carpet and lay down in front of Mario. .For the sake of money, Mario has been working in Dubai for six months. After get off work, he can only go to the bar for entertainment, but it feels like in New York. The bars are either his compatriots or gay (comrades), so boring There is only money left.

Two years ago, Mario went to India again. The company was in the suburbs of Mumbai. This time, he really met the girl he liked, who was his assistant. He followed him to learn the "tricks" of Wall Street.The Indian girl also fell in love with Mario at first sight, and both fell in love.When the girl took Mario to meet her parents, she was opposed by her parents, saying that Mario looked like a playboy, and white Westerners would not easily order him for life.But Mario is a master who can turn the dead into a living person. The girl was overwhelmed by his rhetoric, so she resolutely ignored her family's objections and stayed in Mario's hotel.

However, this Indian girl knows that Mario is not a fuel-efficient lamp. If you want to completely conquer Mario, you must conquer his stomach first, which seems to be the secret summed up by Eileen Chang.Therefore, this Indian girl cooks Indian meals for her beloved every day, and often goes back to her mother's house to learn a few tricks.Seeing that they were a fait accompli, her parents turned a blind eye to them and let them go, only urging them to get married every now and then.

For eating Indian food every day, Mario reluctantly coped with it at the beginning for the sake of politeness, but after a long time, he couldn't bear it anymore.One day when he was walking on the street, a gust of wind blew a piece of paper to his feet. He glanced at it, and it turned out to be a McDonald's advertisement, and his saliva immediately flowed out.Upon closer inspection, the storefront is far away in Mumbai.He called a taxi regardless of 21 and went straight to Mumbai.Turns out even the hamburgers in Mumbai are Indian.Mario couldn't bear the curry and spicy Indian food, so he bid farewell to the girl when the contract expired, but was slapped spicy by the girl's father!

Mario has been struggling for more than ten years, has been to eight or nine countries and regions, and has traveled half the world, and he is still single.He returned to Toronto a few days ago and will be sent to Taiwan by the company.That project will take at least two years.He was in high spirits again, and he guessed that finding a wife this time would be a good time. I don't know how many Taiwanese are thinking about the green card in the United States.

7. Who will be fired first?
For Wall Street, human resources are the largest piece of corporate costs.In other words, a large number of jobs in New York will be transferred to the third world, and any jobs that can be worked from home will be outsourced first.

When I was at Credit Suisse, there was a "front-line support team" in the department, which was responsible for managing the company's global securities trading system.As long as the stock markets around the world are still open, the employees in the group must be on call around the clock.Because this system is used by Credit Suisse's global traders, there can be no mistakes.There was a major power outage in New York, and the system was only down for 10 minutes before the backup system started running.But in just 10 minutes, the company lost thousands of transactions and lost more than 100 million US dollars.

There was a Filipino in that group, who was also of Chinese descent.Probably because he was born in Manila, his parents named him Manila.Manila studied in the United States and entered Credit Suisse right after graduation, which can be described as smooth sailing.At first, like the young people in the TV series "Friends", he rented an apartment in Manhattan and shared it with two classmates.Later, he got married and had two children, a boy and a girl, and "kicked out" those two classmates one by one.A few years later, his income was not low, and he was no longer willing to live in a rented house, and wanted to buy a big house to realize the American dream.But the housing prices in Manhattan are definitely not affordable for working-class people, so they can only trade time for space and buy a big house in Upstate New York (suburbs).Not long after moving into the new house, Manila invited many colleagues from our company to "build a new house". The smiles were full of happiness. With a house, a car, a wife and children, wouldn't the American dream come true?
Yes, his American dream seems to have come true, but the "good old days" are also coming to an end.He has to get up before 5 o'clock every day, drive to the train station near his home to catch the first train into the city, and then change to the subway when he arrives in Manhattan. He uses three kinds of transportation for the two-hour journey. It takes four or five hours, and normal work takes 10 hours.The home that symbolizes the American dream is actually like a hotel.If the computer system crashed in the middle of the night, he would have to drive to Manhattan, and life would be a mess.

Out of desperation, Manila jumped ship.

One day in the company's restaurant, he greeted me with a smile from a long distance, and after sitting down, he told me with great interest that he had found a good job in a hedge fund company, and his salary had skyrocketed by 3 US dollars. You can also work from home, which is a flexible working time, and the bonus is huge if you do it well.

The new job is really suitable for Manila. His wife can go to work with peace of mind, and he can take his two children to and from school.In the past 10 hours of work, hands and feet can be done in 5 hours.Even if there is an accident in the computer system at night, phone calls and emails can be done in more than two hours. After all, there is no need to trade at night.If there is a problem, you only need to solve the problem before Wall Street opens at 9:[-] the next morning, so you don't need to drive out in the middle of the night.Not only enjoying the family happiness, but also making a lot of money, it is simply a lot of fun!I'm so happy for him, and I told him not to forget buddy, if there is a suitable position for me, don't forget to introduce.He readily agreed.

Later, the hedge fund company where he worked in Manila was booming, and he also started global securities trading. Like Credit Suisse, Manila also had to support at night.It's really a feeling that the good times don't last long, and the good times seem to be coming to an end again.Fortunately, there is another village where the willows are dark and the flowers are bright.Soon, the company decided to set up in Asia, in his native Philippines.The boss in Manila knew that he was from the Philippines, so he appointed him as the technical director of the Philippine Department, and let him be responsible for establishing the technical structure of the Philippines, including establishing a complete network system, recruiting new people and training assistants.During those days, my old home in Manila and my new home flew back and forth, and in my hometown in the Philippines, it seemed like half the boss was in charge of the house.Although he is dizzy from work and does not see his wife and children for a few days a month, he knows that this is only temporary, and once the Philippine Department runs smoothly, he will be relieved.So, he was very busy.

(End of this chapter)