Happy Honeymoon!

To a certain AOL employee who is getting married this weekend:

                   Congratulations! 

PS: The medium size bosphorus vase is in the mail.

Two days in Manhattan

This past Monday and Tuesday were pretty grueling. We visited ten banks in two days. The first night ended in an alumni reception at the Universty club where Dean Steve Jones gave a talk and introduced our guest speaker, a Vice President at Krafts Food. The speaker majored in economics at UVA before attending the MBA program at Kenan-Flagler (sound familiar?). In his introduction, Dean Jones jokingly referred UVA as "the finest University in Virginia." I snuck out of the reception to have drinks with a college buddy of mine at a bar down the block called Faces & Names.

The next day was another day of back to back bank visits as we hopped back and forth between locations in midtown and lower Manhattan. Tuesday ended around 7:30 when I met up with a UVA grad from college in Times Square and we had dinner at a Thai restaurant by Grand Central Terminal.

During the two days, I couldn't help comparing this trip to another one almost ten years ago when I visited many of these same banks with other UVA students. One bank hosted us at its location on Wall Street but this time around, the visit took place in its midtown office by Park Avenue. This was probably due to a recent merger it has completed. At one of the banks, we had a run in with our counterparts from Durham. As the presentation came to a close, the caterers began cleaning up the back of the room and replacing the cookies and fruit with food that is of much better and more expensive variety. We were told we had to leave earlier than the scheduled time because another group was coming in. When we exited out of the lobby and into the nearby Times Square area, another group of students walked into the building. The students looked almost exactly like our group except their name tags identify bear the logo of the other business school in North Carolina up the street from us.

Overheard in New York

When I started this blog over the summer, I had a series of posts titled "Overheard at Kenan-Flagler" where I wrote about funny things and witty comments I have heard coming from my classmates. I eventually discontinued it because it was getting too gossippy.

But I saw a story on the local Channel 7 last night about this web site that serves a similar function.

Oh what an upset!

Virginia 26                   Florida State 21

All the memories from that fateful Thursday night during my second year came back as I watched the students rush the field after beating Florida State. It's just too bad that I don't go down (actually, I really meant to say "go up") to games anymore because of school work and had to watch the game on TV from Chapel Hill.

If only I had gotten into Dar .... nevermind. ;) 

A repeat of November 2, 1995?

According to my AOL sports ticker, with a little bit more than a minute in the third quarter, Virginia leads Florida State 26 to 10. Some idiot producer at CC1 must have gotten the scores mixed up again. ;) 

A visit to the other big “Chinese Wall”

Three years ago when I was in Beijing, I had the chance to see the Great Wall of China. In Charlotte yesterday, I saw another “Chinese Wall” of sorts when we visited the two banks headquartered there.

 

The morning visit to the trading room was incredible. The room looked almost exactly like the room from the movie Wall Street, with traders sitting at rows of desks, each desk equipped with multiple flat panel screens, an extremely sophisticated looking telephone, and a squawk box.  The vice president that gave us the tour (Kenan-Flagler graduate) explained that each trader is able to call clients and talk to other colleagues on the trading floor (and in New York City’s trading floor) at the touch of one button. During the tour, he showed us the spot where the firm’s analysts conduct television interviews, a spot with the trading floor and the firm’s logo in the background .

 

The afternoon featured an almost identical presentation and tour. The only difference was that the second firm’s trading floor features a giant, two story tall window overlooking Charlotte and I-277. The director who gave us the tour works for the syndicate, a division within the bank responsible for maintaining compliance with the Glass-Stegall Act. As we walked out the trading room and across the elevator lobby into the area staffed by other bankers, he commented that we had just crossed the “Chinese Wall” that separates the bank’s public and private sides.

 

This blog will originate from New York City (some time) next week as our investment banking career trek continues.

Trekking to Charlotte

Greetings from the biggest city in North Carolina. I, along with about 30 other students, drove to Charlotte earlier today for tomorrow's investment banking career trek. This is a one day event for students interested in working for one of the two firms headquartered in Charlotte.

The program of events began this evening with a happy hour in the office building of one of the firms we will be meeting with tomorrow. We spent two hours on the 40th floor of the building, with a penthouse view of downtown Charlotte, mingling with associates and directors, many of whom are Kenan-Flagler graduates.

As we rode the elevator down to the lobby after the happy hour, I was reminded of the importance of always exercising discretion when speaking in front of an audience. I was standing in the back of a packed elevator when one of my classmates jokingly suggested that we stop on one of the other floors on the way to the lobby. I then announced my plans to stop by (name of the bank's CEO's) office tomorrow to complain about my checking account. More specifically, I am extremely unhappy with having been charged twelve dollars to receive a wire transfer and have gotten no help from the branch manager in Chapel Hill in my quest to get a refund.

Some of the students around me laughed while those standing by the elevator door were strangely silent. Then one of them said "Joey (not the person's real name), can you do something about that?" It was then that we realized one of the associates was in the elevator with us. The associate turned his head, looked at me, and said "I don't have that problem, my checking account is with (name of competitor down the street)." We all got a big laugh out of his quick and witty come back. I, personally, was extremely impressed at how skillful he was at defusing the awkward situation.

When we walked out of the bank's corporate headquarters, my classmates made sure the thick glass doors have completely closed and the associate had disappeared back into the building (probably to do more work) before they started to laugh hysterically at my diplomatic blunder. We then went to some bar where we got something to eat before returning to our hotels.