Stuart Gregory - The Goodbye Islands: Tongan Redux

The Goodbye Islands: Tongan Redux

Published by Gatekeeper Press

2167 Stringtown Rd, Suite 109

Columbus, OH 43123-2989

www.GatekeeperPress.com

Copyright 2020 by Stuart Gregory

All rights reserved. Neither this book, nor any parts within it, may be sold or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

Developmental Editor: Vivien Cooper

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020941655

ISBN (hardcover): 9781662902765

eISBN: 9781662902772

CONTENTS

This book is dedicated to
Kingsley, my gorgeous bride.

C oming up as a young New Yorker, I formed my impressions of Wall Street from various sourceslocal lore, film depictions, and my fathers Wall Street job. So, I expected to find an environment that was professional, elegant, and larger than life. And why wouldnt I? All outward appearances were arranged to give that impressionthe attire of the workers, the location of our Manhattan offices, the behemoth clients we served, and the huge sums of money involved.

I envisioned arriving at work each day in a beautiful suit, crisp shirt, fine shoes, and tasteful tie, and greeting colleagues who were intellectual, well read and sophisticated. I expected to find class. What I found instead was the old lipstick-on-the-pig situation.

The Wall Street I discovered inside my office was a betrayal and an affront. On the municipal bonds side of the business where I worked, every day was the samemonotonous and one-dimensional. It was a spectacular failure when it came to living up to my expectations of it, or even its own glamorous reputation.

It was an affront to my sense of decency and respectability. I felt like I had been hoodwinked. Betrayed. Sure, I was working in a financial firm, but the daily realities of work had much more in common with locker-room culture. It wasnt the clients that were the problem. They were pretty straightforward. They told you what kind of bonds they were looking for and counted on you to locate them.

It was my colleagues who ruined the workday experience. The firm troublemakers made life miserable. They started in on you the second you walked into the office at seven-thirty or eight. Before your morning coffee had even kicked in, you were getting an earful from them.

Look at that tie! Way too preppy! And those shoes! Tassel loafers? Seriously?

Or, You went to boarding school? Come on, Stuart. Really?

There were always two or three instigators who kicked off the mockery. Once they got that ball in the air, they passed it back and forth endlessly. They were relentless, and they spared no onenot even the women. (It would be decades before society took a second look at the treatment of women in the workplace and elsewhere.)

They would focus on the womens eating habits. Youre eating salad again? Have you ever tasted meat? Or, Whats with all the avocadoes?

One of the two women on our desk had a Southern name, and there was no end to the grief she took over it. Cricket? Seriously? What the hell kind of a name is Cricket?

Cricket was older than I and quite competent. In fact, she understood our business better than I did and was always there to help me navigate difficult issues.

Adding to my annoyance was the fact that these guys constantly butchered the English language when insulting you. I would say to myself, These smug, impudent, brassy, disrespectful gadflies! Im so sick of their malaprops.

My daily dose of their sophomoric malaprops took its toll. After a while, I began to think of these guys as malaprops themselves. After all, they seemed like props in a strange play in which I was a reluctant participant. And they were certainly malcontented, if not downright malicious. Mal-a-props.

All the senior guys who could have put a stop to the nonsense were segregated on the senior side of the office. They did not oversee us and were not there to witness the shenanigans. Even if there had been someone to complain to about the daily idiocy, I knew better than to speak up. The troublemakers would have labeled me a goody-goody, and the harassment would have ramped up even more.

The constant grating of my colleagues taunts and teases was accompanied by the low simmering hiss of envy and desperation. There were only so many big fish to be caught, and of course, the bigger the fish, the bigger the paycheck. So, the scramble was on.

Fidelity. Capital. Trust Company of the West. These were the clients everyone wanted to reel in. In pursuit of the best clients, guys on our floor were willing and ready to shove each other out of the way and knock each other down. If you tried to maintain some sense of decorum, you could find yourself trampled by those more unscrupulous and bloodthirsty than you.

I would tell myself, Im smarter than these guys, and Im the one who should be covering that client!

I didnt want to be a snob, but the truth of the matter was, I truly was operating on a different level than this cast of rough characters.

Not all the guys were obnoxious and mean-spirited. Some of the traders were hilarious, with their harmless jokes about their wives and families. Getting a chance to laugh from time to time provided much-needed comic relief.

There was a handful of Italian Catholic guys in our office who had great stories about the things they used to say to the nuns while growing up and attending Catholic school.

Listening to their stories, I would say, You guys would never have made it in boarding school!

One of the guys told a story about being in a sex ed class taught by a lovely nun. When she finished presenting the lesson to the class, the nun asked, Does anyone have any questions? Or anything you dont understand?

My colleagues hand shot up. Yes, sister. I have a question! And he proceeded to ask the nun to explain the most forbidden sexual act that came to his mind. The nun was mortified.

We all had a good laugh over this. Unfortunately, the presence of a few humorous traders was not enough to offset the fingernails-on-a-chalkboard effect of the toxic harassers. Somehow, I had to find a way to land and cultivate clients, sell municipal bonds, and thrive in this environment. I used my own running dialogue (which I kept to myself) to combat the verbal onslaughtnot that it did much good. We were jammed in together like players on a basketball court, so it was impossible to get away from it.

I couldnt even escape into a cubicle. By necessity, the office was set up in an open trading-pit arrangement. It was one huge room filled with trading turrets, desks, and phones attached to long extension cords. Everywhere you looked, there were dashboards with blinking lights, multiple buttons (many of which were never used), and squawk boxes, which were constantly howling offerings. It was like working in a sports venue.

With the phones constantly ringing off the hook, we had to be able to make eye contact with fellow traders across the floor, cover the phone receiver, and ask about their availability to take an incoming call from a client.

A lunch break would have provided a much-needed respite from the cacophony of snickering and snide remarks. Unfortunately, lunchtime was treated as part of the workday, and food was ordered in every single day. Unless you could muster up an ailment that required leaving the building for a doctors appointment, you were stuck there from early morning until you left, sometime between four oclock in the afternoon and six.