The Shoe Shiner

January 10th, 2006

January 10th was the second Tuesday of the month. But at 8:15am as I closed the door to my midtown apartment and began my pilgrimage to work, Tuesday January 10th felt like little more than one day closer to Friday than Monday, January 9th. And Monday, January 9th marked the beginning of my fourth week at Lockwood. I walked to work that morning thinking about two things: 1) how excited I was for drinks, dinner, and work gossip that night with Caroline and Margaux and 2) how not excited I was to have to finish up a project for Tim that morning.

It had not taken me long to realize that the big perk to working on projects for Tim was that - like clockwork - his time at the office expired everyday at 5pm. Tim had started a family a bit later in life and when he made the switch from the floor of the stock exchange to Lockwood in his mid 40s, he somehow managed to explicitly or implicitly negotiate that he required quality time with the kiddies, and would therefore only make himself available at Lockwood for market hours +1 on each end of the day. He arrived every morning around 8am (ie 1 hour before the market opened) and left one hour after the closing bell rang at 4. As an analyst supporting him, this meant that if a project for Tim wasn't presented to you until later in the afternoon and/or wasn't finished by the time he left, it would carry over until the next day. This was far better from a lifestyle standpoint than the Elizabeth school of project management, where everything had to be finished, approved, printed, bound, and placed neatly on her desk before you could even dream of stepping out the door.

The other big perk to Tim was that because he had spent his entire career pre-Lockwood buying and selling face to face with brokers on the floor of the stock exchange, he was - how shall I say - "technologically challenged". The story told around the office was that on Tim's first day at Lockwood in 2002, he asked the IT guy setting up his computer "so what exactly is email?" This naivete meant that Tim didn't always have the best sense of how long anything "complicated" (ie in Excel or PowerPoint) should take, and this gave the analysts a bit more cushion for turning things around. In other words, with Tim you didn't have to hold going to the bathroom for hours at a time to avoid the chance of getting burned for dawdling.

Tim never needed to learn the ins and outs of analytics primarily because what he lacked in technical and computer savvy he made up for with his ability to execute cold, hard sales. Projects for him weren't about calculating annualized performance or graphically displaying trends in sector exposure over time, his approach was driven by psychology. Tim kept lengthy files on every dollar that came in the door - who pulled the trigger on sending that money to Lockwood, who that person fraternized with at other firms, what the biggest catalyst was to get them to make an investment and probably even what private school their kids attended. Before a given meeting, he spent as much time as he could afford trying to think like the clients with whom he was meeting. More often than not this process required a lengthy list of information, so projects for him felt almost like scavenger hunts - pulling together all the little bits of information that made someone tick.

That morning I needed to finish up a Tim project for a meeting at 10am with a large client who had made multiple investments in various Lockwood funds. I had only been at the firm a month, but I had been told repeatedly that the performance of some of our funds as of late had been a bit lackluster, so Tim wanted to know if the timing of the client's allocations had been such that overall the investments were still outperforming their benchmarks. In other words, had we held up our end of the tacit agreement and made the client more money than if they had simply invested in a mutual fund or index. If the answer was yes, we could easily present to them a few charts and graphs showing that - despite the recent performance - the decision to invest at Lockwood was still leading to outperformance since inception. If the answer was no, Tim would shelve the graphs and perhaps walk through the investment themes of the previous quarter's letter to investors or pull in a research analyst to share with the client a few investment ideas. Something "big picture" to avoid spending too much time on the recent poor performance.

As I walked through the doors of 325 Park Avenue, I saw that 30 feet in front of me was the firm President, Eric Silverman. I had not met him - only seen him speak at the holiday party last month - and I wondered if he knew who I was. I debated about slowing my pace to ensure that I missed riding up in the same elevator as him, but that plan became next to impossible when I saw him fumbling in his pocket for his id card at the turnstiles. I then opted to double my pace in an attempt to outrun him, but as I flew through the gates of the turnstile I saw that the timing of the elevators was against me. A door closed just as I approached one of the four elevators to our section of the building, and I knew Eric and I would be riding together. At the pace of things, we would probably be the only people in the car as well.

Eric was focused on replacing his card in his wallet when another door dinged its availability in front of us. I walked in and he followed, only looking up when he realized someone (me) had already hit the button for the 17th floor .

He looked at his watch - probably as a means of assessing whether or not I was a client. 8:30 was a bit of a grey zone though, as we hosted a breakfast meeting for clients or peers in the field probably at least once a week. But then logic found him - what 23 year old in Puma sneakers came to a meeting at Lockwood alone.

"Hi, you must be new to Lockwood - are you the hire in Elizabeth's group or in HR?"

I turned and looked surprised, "Eric - yes, hi I'm Audrey Parker. I work for Elizabeth. I just started a few weeks ago so I have to admit, I wasn't fully sure you were, well... you." I capped my cheesy statement with a smile. Luckily he smiled back.

"Right, yes, I don't think we've officially met. I was out the week you started, otherwise I would have tried to stop by and introduce yourself. But has Elizabeth told you about the dinner series I'm starting? I want to take each team out once a quarter to discuss what they are working on, what I can do to help, that type of thing. I think I meet with Marketing later this month."

Eric had started at Lockwood only about two months before me. The way I heard it pitched to investors was that Charles wanted to focus his time on portfolio management, and leave firm management to someone else. Eric had apparently retired just over a year ago from an executive role at a large bank, but he and Charles played golf together on a regular basis, and the story was that over a game last summer, Charles convinced Eric to come out of retirement to lead Lockwood. For a quite a pretty paycheck no doubt.

Eric was looking for an enthusiastic response to his dinner series, so I gave it to him. "That's a great idea. It will be good for me as a new employee as well."

The elevator slowed at that point as we neared the 17th floor. Eric adjusted his bag and as the doors opened he gestured to show that I should exit first, but when the doors opened he looked up startled. "Oh damn", he said.

"Is everything ok?", I asked as I stepped out onto the marble floor of our floor.

"Yes, you know, this sounds crazy, but I'm kind of superstitious. In the mornings, I like to try and ride the elevators up on that side rather than this side. It seems silly but I kind of believe in that stuff, you know? I guess that's what 35 years in this business will do to you."

I laughed politely, as that was the best I could do. I really wanted to ask him how, given the ups and downs of a 35 year career in finance, he managed to actually believe in something like the power of an elevator bank. At a firm that touted its fundamental, data-driven research process to its investors, here was the man who headed up the whole thing, and this morning he felt he had cursed the firm for the day by taking car #3 rather than #2 or #4. I had never really thought about it professionally, but I realized at that point that it probably wouldn't hurt to keep to myself the fact that I was born on a Friday the 13th.

Eric lingered in the elevator just long enough that I think if I had not been there he would have ridden the car down to the lobby and come back up in a car that would put him out on the other side of the hall. However, he followed me out of the car and we both walked through the door off the foyer that led to the back section of the office. His office was located in the far corner of the floor, whereas I turned off for the Pod much earlier, so we were spared from making too much additional small talk. My parting comment was about looking forward to the team dinner, his was a joke about the world ending because of his elevator gaff - clearly this was a big deal.

I heard the sound of Caroline typing away at her desk as I approached the Pod. I gave her a "Good morning!" as I put my bag down to take off my jacket and she gave me one back while mid-sentence in typing her email.

But then she stopped at turned to me. "Oooh, hey actually. So Tim sent me an email this morning and I think he copied you on it, but he just wanted to make sure we had that chart showing performance for each separate investment for the client coming in at 10am. I told him I saw you working on it last night and that I'd check in with you - are you all set on that?"

"I think so - I just want to double check a few things and would you mind taking a look before I show him?"

"Absolutely - let me know when you are ready."

I had learned the week before that checking, double checking, and then getting someone else to check things was the way to go at Lockwood. I had pulled a report out of our client database the week prior and reformatted it in a hurry for Elizabeth only to have her look at it and say "no staple, no page numbers, no alphabetization, no way" and send me back to my desk. The data was completely accurate, but Elizabeth's first line of defense when reviewing something addressed appearance. So for today, even though I had simply copied from our client database the basic information about the performance of this client's accounts and corresponding benchmark performance, I definitely didn't want to make the same mistake again with Tim. I printed the report, confirmed all the performance figures, the page numbers, the chronological sort, and the correct angle of the staple, and then asked Caroline to take a look.

While she was comparing the information on the sheet to the figures in the client database (ie the triple confirmation) I got up to get breakfast. I had never really been a breakfast person in college, but once I got into the habit at Lockwood, I found myself absolutely famished come 9am. I tried to steer clear of the sausage, egg, and cheese combo unless I was facing a real emergency (read: hangover) and my new thing was a pack of the organic oatmeal, and a handful of blueberries and raspberries.

This morning, however, I walked into the kitchen to find a massive tray of pastries. Croissants, danishes, biscotti, cinnamon buns, bagels - you name it, it was there. I barely knew what to take first - the novelty of large quantities of good, free food had still not worn off. I abandoned my oatmeal for a chocolate croissant and a cheese danish and... an almond biscotti. I balanced the plate of treats in my left hand and my coffee in my right. I walked out the door of the kitchen hoping no one would see my 1,000 calorie breakfast and thought to myself that this loot at Starbucks would have easily topped $10.

I placed my plate down and Caroline turned to me and said, "The report looks great. I'd get it to Tim right away - the numbers are good but not as strong as he might like so he could want something else for this meeting. This client - as I'm sure you saw - has about $150 million with us, so it's a pretty big deal."

Then she looked at my plate and said, "Ahhh, the pasty tray. I think I gained five pounds when that thing showed up every week for one month. Gotta love those VIP breakfast meetings."

I ignored the five pound comment as well as my plate of breakfast delights to print up a copy of the report for Tim on the "good" paper. Lockwood had 3 different printers in this corner of the office: one for high quality color print outs, one for regular black and white print outs, and one for black and white print outs for clients. The first and the last printers were stocked by IT with "good" paper, which was a bit thicker and about twice as expensive as "regular" paper. Nothing but the best for our clients. Especially since they paid for it.

I stood by the printer waiting for it to warm up for about 30 seconds, and stapled together the 3 copies of the report I had printed - Tim liked to have one for him, one for me, and then one extra for the client assuming he had no edits. If he had edits, all three were trashed.

I walked out of the Pod, and down the hall toward Tim's office. I heard him talking as I approached and I could tell he was on the phone. I knew he wanted the report now though and he had left his door open so I stopped for a minute to decide what to do. Usually I would not interrupt Tim while he was on the phone, but in this situation I felt ok quickly darting in and out, and just leaving the copies on his desk. I took the remaining few steps to his door, thinking about how I would gesture to him to call me if he had edits. I planted one foot on the threshold and turned in to enter his office. I started to make my hand take the shape of a phone receiver that I would raise to my mouth when I mouthed "call me with any questions", when I realized I was on the verge of tripping over something. I put my hand with the reports out to try and catch the edge of the chair in front of his desk in an effort to support myself, but my momentum was carrying me forward. I flipped over the little mound at my feet, slid off the side of the chair, and landed on the floor in front of Tim's large antique desk. I managed to crinkle the reports - and the good paper - in the process.

Tim quickly put whoever he was talking to on hold, and bolted up to look over the front of his desk at me. I was already a shade of red somewhere bordering on "ohmygawdthatwassohorrifying" when I realized someone - and not Tim - was pulling me up to my feet. I finally got upright and stood eye to hairline with a small man dressed in a dingy grey pair of pants and a grey flannel button down. At his feet was a wooden box, a brush, and some rags. It took me a minute to gather myself enough to realize this man was a shoe shiner.

"Wow", said Tim. "First, new girl, are you ok? Second, I mean, WOW. That was really something. Well, I suppose introductions are in order: new girl, this is Guillermo, Guillermo this is Audrey, she just started last month. Audrey, just so you know, Guillermo comes through the second Tuesday of every month to give shoe shines to anyone who needs one in the office. He also fixes shoes - I'm not sure if yours survived that fall or not, but he does good work if you broke a heel or something. I don't think broken bones are part of his contract though - wink, wink. But anyway, right... so yes, as I said - the second Tuesday of every month and the sky is the limit on the shoe magic he can make happen, right Guillermo? Hey, are you ok, buddy? Lucky for both of you - and I guess my chair - you're a lightweight Audrey."

I had no words at this point. None. I'm pretty sure Guillermo said something to me in Spanglish, and even though I took 9 years of Spanish in high school and college, I ignored the opportunity to show off my language skills and mumbled something about re-printing, and turned and walked out of Tim's office.

With my head down to hide my flushed expression, I double timed it back to the Pod. I sat at my desk and stared at my screen blankly. I then decided I needed my chocolate croissant while I stared, mostly so I was at least doing something. It was too bad my mind was back in Tim's office - I didn't taste a single bite.

What frustrated me the most about the whole incident was Guillermo; not actually anything about him as a person, moreso the simple fact that he existed within Lockwood. A shoe shiner on retainer? The second Tuesday of the month? How on earth was I supposed to expect that? It certainly seemed like an uncommon office procedure based off of my exposure to the working world. But I was learning that Lockwood was most definitely an uncommon place. I just didn't expect to trip over the perks while attempting to do my job.

I was so lost in thought about the whole situation that it wasn't until the third or fourth ring that I noticed someone was calling me. Of course, it was Tim. The last thing I wanted to do right then was talk to anyone, let alone the man who had just seen me tumble across his office. I picked up the phone and tried my hardest to sound relatively emotionally neutral.

"Hi Tim."

"Awww, new girl. I'm really sorry about that. I probably should just give Guillermo my shoes and let him shine away in the hall, but I have to admit that there is just something more enjoyable to getting your shoes shined right on your feet. Next time, I'll try and make sure he's not in the doorway though. I just never really thought what happened could happen. Are you sure you are ok?"

I really didn't want to talk about this. "Yes, I'm fine. I should have looked before I charged in I guess. I just didn't really expect that I have to admit."

"Well, expect the unexpected around here, kiddo. Anyway, no worries. I'm not going to send an office all email or anything with a play by play of the situation, though it was pretty funny. Nor do I really have time to talk about it right now. I'm calling because despite your good efforts, I don't think I ever actually got a copy of the report for the meeting today. Can you print off a quick couple of copies for me and bring them by? I promise zero obstacles along the way."

I was turning red again at my desk. I had a strange feeling I'd be hearing about this one for a while. "Sure, no problem. I'll be right over."

So I once more found myself standing by the black and white printer with the "good" paper waiting for the three copies to emerge. And again, I eyed the danish and biscotti on my plate, this time mostly just wishing I could go back in time to when the chocolate croissant was still on the plate and I could re-do my entrance into Tim's office. I stapled and confirmed the correct order of the pages and walked to Tim's office. He was sitting at his desk with an almost imperceptable smirk on his face. Almost.

"Ok, here are three copies - want to walk through it now together or take a look and call me back if you have any edits?"

"Let's talk a look now, shall we?" I sat down in the same chair that had failed to me catch me earlier. Urgh.

Tim pulled out a pen and scanned down the numbers on the page. I wasn't sure exactly what he was thinking, but it was all part of his psychological analysis. Caroline had mentioned that she didn't know if Tim would be satisfied with the conclusion of the report, so I was nervous that I was about to be dished a fire drill project to complete in 30 minutes or less.

"Hmm. This is interesting. The numbers are good, but not that good. The last thing I want is people thinking that Charles is losing his edge. I'm going to keep a copy of this in case they ask for it, but you can do me a favor and set up a research analyst for this meeting? First choice is the Jeff, second choice is... Maria. Call me back when you know who is available - I want to brief them on what to talk about in this meeting."

I told him no problem and got up and went back to the Pod. This seemed relatively quick so I was relieved. I sat down at my desk and pulled out the phone list and scanned down for Jeff. I picked up the phone and dialed his extension.

"Hello?" the voice said.

"Hi Jeff, this is Audrey - I'm a hire new on the marketing team. Tim Walter has a client meeting today at 10am and he wanted to know if you were available to sit in on it with him."

Silence.

"Who is this?"

"Audrey Parker - in marketing." The firm was only 100 people and Tim used research analysts all the time; I wasn't sure why this was so confusing.

"Audrey - this is Jeff Moran, General Counsel. Does Tim want me in the meeting or does he want Jeff Hendrickson - the research analyst who covers the short book?"

The pit in my stomach still felt massive from my trip, but apparently it had room to grow even more. I had called the wrong Jeff.

"Jeff - I'm so sorry. Tim just said call Jeff and I didn't realize there were two. I'm pretty sure he wants the research analyst - sorry!"

"Not a problem, Audrey. Just let me know if he does in fact need legal advice - that's what I'm here for."

I hung up and took a deep breath. It was 9:40am and I was already DONE with this day. I decided to eliminate further error and called over to Caroline for advice.

"Caroline, if Tim wants 'Jeff' in his meeting at 10am, and I uh, I noticed there are two Jeffs on the phone list - which Jeff does that mean?"

"Oh, good catch. Tim means Jeff Hendrickson. Jeff Moran is our General Counsel." She said it in a way that implied, "We don't ever call him. Duh." Damn.

I looked up Jeff Hendrickson's extension and dialed. Thankfully, he was available - I was pretty ready for this project to come to an end. I called Tim to let him know and he said he would take care of things from this point. I decided to wait until the clock hit 10am - just in case something else popped up - before I finished off my breakfast. It had seemed much more exciting an hour ago.

------------

The rest of the day was relatively uneventful. Tim had some follow-up from his meeting that he needed assistance with, and Caroline showed me a few more reports that we ran for the Portfolio Managers at mid-month. Margaux was busy dealing with cleaning up some subscriptions and redemptions from the funds at year end - none of which I really understood, but it didn't seem to concern me. I still wasn't exactly sure what I had been hired to do at Lockwood, but whatever it was it seemed more aligned with Caroline's work than Margaux's.

The day was busy, but every hour or so one of the two of them would express excitement at our dinner plans for the evening. Tuesday wasn't the ideal day for a night of heavy eating and drinking, but Elizabeth and the other Managing Director on our team had dinner plans, and then Tim we knew would leave the office at 5pm. Caroline and Margaux and I had been throwing around the idea of a dinner to talk office gossip since I started, and last week Caroline noticed that today would be the perfect time. She immediately made a 7pm reservation at La Palapa in the East Village.

For me, this was a huge social break. I had hit it off during my interviews and during the holiday party with both Caroline and Margaux, but things had been so busy that I had had not really had the time to get to know them any better. The two of them had worked together for over two years, so they had a great dynamic and as cheesy as it sounded, I wanted "in" on their scene. Having friends at the office I figured would make things a bit more fun.

Elizabeth popped back to the Pod around 6pm - letting us know she was heading out early that evening, and making sure everything was set for meetings and reports for the next day. The three of us sat at our desks like squirmish schoolchildren waiting for our teacher to leave the room so we could cause trouble. We all watched our internal instant message system until she logged off - no more requests would come our way so we all packed our bags and headed out the door.

The dynamic in the cab on the way to the restaurant was already off to a good start. After the chaos of the end of the year, we all needed a good Lockwood detox session.

Margaux began, "Honestly, I am so sick of this crap. Wiring instructions are written to be SO CLEAR and state line by line exactly what people need to do to send money to the Funds, and yet I somehow spent all day today cleaning up after these people. Wrong numbers, wrong account names - this isn't rocket science. These people are managing millions of dollars, you'd think they could fill out a simple form right. I swear, the next person I am just going to chew out for being a complete IDIOT."

Caroline laughed. "Margaux, you are so funny. Can you please put the phone on speaker when you decide to let it loose? I don't want to miss that."

Margaux, "Dude. Don't tempt me. Seriously, I'm really close to flipping my shit. Urgh. I need like 4 margaritas right now. WAIT though. First things first, you guys have to tell me the story about Elizabeth WIGGING out right before Christmas. I so wish I could have seen that. When you called me Caroline, I could not believe it. She can be such a frigging looney toon. What happened?

Caroline laughed and looked at me to make sure I was also finding this conversation funny. And I was. "I mean, I almost think there are no words. Audrey, you poor thing - you must have been so horrified. Elizabeth truly lost it on your fifth day in the office. It is just unreal."

They were both looking at me so I decided I should start the story. "It was just so weird. I went up to say goodbye and she seemed fine and then two minutes later she was sprinting down the hallway and started babbling about her kids and stuff. I didn't even realize she had kids."

Margaux laughed. "She has kids - kind of. Elizabeth's has three nannies for three children. I've never once seen her run out of the office to tend to them. She's at all the concerts, school meetings, things like that - but day in and day out they aren't her responsibility. When she talks about them I swear to God it is in the exact same way she talks about the companies that we invest in. It's frigging creepy."

I finished up recapping my version of the Christmas Eve story just as we pulled up to the restaurant. Margaux still couldn't believe Elizabeth had flipped out. She had been at Lockwood for nearly five years and had not seen anything like that. "Damn, I would love to see that. So maybe she's human. Kind of..."

La Palapa was Margaux's favorite Mexican restaurant in the city. Despite the French name, she had spent part of her childhood in Mexico City, and loved a good mole sauce and killer margarita. We walked in the door and she greeted one of the managers at the door. They spoke quickly in Spanish - something about what table she liked - and we were seated. Three little glasses of the smoothest tequilla I've ever had were brought to us soon after we seated. A gift from the manager it seemed. We were starting the evening off right.

Three margaritas each and two appetizers later, we were a pack of giggling sorority sisters. We re-hashed the embarrassing events of the Holiday party, Elizabeth's freak out (again), and a few other good office stories. We moved to non-work conversation, and Margaux asked Caroline about her long distance relationship with her college boyfriend.

"Things are great overall" Caroline said as she shuffled the remaining pieces of a taquito on her plate.

"Bullshit, Caro. 'Great' is a lame word."

"Ok fine. Good? Things are good? No, well, it's weird. Nothing is wrong per se, it's just hard sometimes. We have been apart for so long it's almost like neither one of us wants to talk engagement because we just aren't sure when we'd be together or even what it will be like to be together all the time again. You know?"

She looked at me, and I nodded like I knew even though I'd never had a long distance relationship in my life.

Margaux kept digging. "So what's the plan? Is he moving here? You there? I mean, you can't do this forever right?"

"I'm not really sure. He might be able to get a transfer here, but it also might be faster and easier for me to go there. It's just hard to pick one career over another."

"Caro, wait. Would you stay at Lockwood as a career? Really? I mean, I'm single and not leaving New York, and I'm counting down the days until I'm out of there."

They both looked at me quickly as soon as she said that. "What?" I asked. They were still looking at me and Margaux started to smile. "Wait, WHAT? Was that serious? You are leaving? Are you kidding me?" Caroline signaled to our server that we would take another round of margaritas.

"No, I'm serious. Audrey, I've been there for five years. FIVE YEARS. And I've been Elizabeth's bitch the whole time. And nothing has changed. You guys came in, Tim joined, Erica - this old analyst - left, and, for me, nothing changed. Every year during my review I asked about where I was heading, what new things I could work on, and Elizabeth would talk about big picture things that I could get involved in, but it rarely panned out. She just can't think like that. She gets caught up in micromanaging too much and likes things staying just the way they are. So this year, when I was home in Austin for Thanksgiving and Christmas, I started talking with my family about my options and decided that as soon as my bonus hits, I'm leaving."

I could tell that Margaux was excited about this news, but I felt awful. I had so much fun talking with her during my interview, and the whole time she had been thinking of leaving?

"Aww, Aud - you look sad. I'm sorry. It's nothing against either of you guys - I just had to go."

"No, I'm excited for you - sounds like you're really ready for this. It's just going to be weird without you at the office I think. So when do bonuses hit? When are you leaving?"

"Friday, January 27th. I CANNOT wait. I'll probably tell Elizabeth the following Monday though." She smiled. "I don't think she has any idea."

Caroline replied, "I don't think any of us is ready, Margaux." She stopped talking for a moment while the staff delivered our fourth round of margs and each of our entrees. "Honestly, especially this new girl starting next week."

I was confused. "Wait, aren't I the new girl?"

Margaux and Caroline looked at each other and Margaux said, "Classic. Elizabeth told both of us yesterday and said she'd tell you later in the day but I'm sure she got wrapped up in something. Yeah, apparently this girl has been 'approved' by Charles to join the team, which means she has a job here whether there is one or not. Kind of like you, though we were at least posting that job on our internal website and stuff. I think she's coming in at the end of the week to meet a few more people, but who knows when she'll start. I'm pretty sure she'll end up covering most of the stuff I'm working on once I tell everyone I'm leaving, but who knows."

I felt totally out of the loop. Margaux leaving, one new girl coming - what did I know?

"Wait," Caroline began. "Ha, and one more thing, Audrey. We are also probably bringing on board this guy from Morgan Stanley. He's a senior hire so I think he's coming in as a Managing Director or at least a Senior VP. That one don't feel bad about not hearing anything though, because no one talks about things that high up. Elizabeth only told me because she wanted me to set up a meeting for him with a client as soon as he starts. This whole secrecy thing started about 6 months ago when we had someone lined up for this spot and the day they were supposed to start they pulled out. It was pretty embarrassing for Elizabeth and I think Charles got mad at her for getting lax on this guy once she had assumed the deal was settled, so now she never announces anything big like that to the rest of us until the person is in the office. It's kind of a superstitious thing I guess."

I didn't want to talk about all the things I didn't know about anymore. The tequila was flowing through me at full speed and rather than get fired up about what I wasn't privvy to, I decided to stick to things I had seen with my own eyes.

"Oh my gosh, so speaking of - the funniest thing happened to me this morning." It was then that I realized that more than one funny thing had happened that morning, but I decided I wasn't yet ready to share a story that involved me flipping over a small Latino man. "So, I rode the elevator up with Eric Silverman and he freaked out when he realized he had not ridden up the 'lucky' set of elevators, which is what I guess he takes up to the office every morning. It was so bizarre. He really panicked; I'm pretty sure if I hadn't been there, he would have gone back down and come back up the other side."

Caroline and Margaux both laughed. Margaux took a big sip of her drink, smiled, and stuck her hand out to show she had a story for me. "Oh Audrey. People are so superstitious around here - that's nothing. One week Charles wore the exact same outfit four days in a row because each day his Funds were up big time over the index."

Caroline laughed. "Oh oh, and remember the story of when Guillermo was eating an apple in the elevator up with Charles one morning, and then Apple stock took off just as the market opened? I'm pretty sure Charles almost made him an unofficial member of his research team. We heard that story for WEEKS!"

I had a hard time laughing at that one and it didn't go unnoticed. "Ok," I sighed. "So do you guys want to hear something kind of embarrassing?" Of course the answer was yes. "This morning I was kind of walking fast slash running into Tim's office and... ugh. I tripped over Guillermo."

Caroline spat out a mouthful of margarita and Margaux went into hysterics.

"Yeah, I know. It was pretty horrifying. I just... I had NO idea. I mean, a shoe shiner? Sitting at his feet by the side of his desk? Of all the things to have to think about. It was so unreal. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to look at Guillermo ever again. And Tim clearly is not going to let this one die any time soon."

Caroline had calmed down a bit but was still pretty much openly laughing. "That is hysterical. You seemed kind of out of it at one point this morning, and I was just hoping Tim wasn't being mean to you or anything. I had NO idea it was something so comical." She laughed again. "So, were you ok? I mean, what exactly happened?"

"No I'm totally fine. Nothing really happened, I just kind of fell over him and then turned beet red, and mumbled something and ran out the door. At that point, I just couldn't deal with it; the whole thing was just so dumb. I heard Tim on the phone when I got close to his door, so I figured I could just duck in, drop off the reports, and run out."

"Guillermo is definitely kind of an odd office perk in my opinion", Margaux commented. "I'm sure it costs more to keep him on retainer to polish 15 pairs of shoes over 3 hours than any of us know, but apparently after the first couple years of killer performance, Charles decided it was something he wanted to treat himself to. I can't even begin to guess the number of times I have walked into Tim's office and had lengthy conversations with him while Guillermo is sitting there buffing away like mad at Tim's feet. It is SO awkward. Guillermo of course couldn't care less, but I honestly feel grossed out. If Guillermo was a hot chick, it would be like the start of a bad porn movie or something." She shuddered and stuck out her tongue, "Urrrgh, creepy."

I laughed, and as I did I couldn't help but think about the fact that in a month, Margaux would probably be gone. And two new people might be joining. And I had no idea. I wondered if Elizabeth deemed all this above my head, or if this rapid fire turnover was common at Lockwood. I was only 23 years old and I'd had about six shots of tequila, but both of those options sounded a little dysfunctional to me.

Caroline and Margaux were mid-conversation about another ridiculous Tim story when I decided to blurt out, "Wait, so Margaux, where are you GOING?"

Margaux went on to describe how she expected an offer from a smaller hedge fund where she would be the third hire on a marketing team and would have a lot more responsibility. She also mentioned that she was also meeting with some people over at the UN later that week to discuss a position there. Margaux had been a political science major at Michigan, and she was fluent in French and Spanish, so the role would allow her to tap into those skills; it would just pay about one third as much as she was making now at Lockwood.

"It's just so hard." she began, "Imagine scaling everything back by a THIRD. This city is so damn expensive and I feel like I barely save anything as it is. But then on the other side, what if I didn't hate 80% of the people I spent the day dealing with? I'm sure there will be some idiots there too, but at least it wouldn't be dealing with these difficult people and their money. Which might be worth a pay cut right there. Plus, maybe more than once a month I could leave work before its pitch black outside. That'd be something, right?"

Listening to all this, while educational, was probably not the best thing for a twenty something on week four of her first job who was drinking rather aggressively. I was starting to question MY decision to come to Lockwood, and I suddenly felt like I needed some air. I stood up, excused myself and made my way toward the ladies room. I was relived that it was a one toilet situation and even more relieved that it was empty. I walked in, took one look at that porcelain bowl, and knew what was coming. Out came taquitos, guacamole, some carne asada, and three and a half margaritas. It wasn't pretty.

I flushed away my dinner, and walked over the the sink to wash my face and hands. I felt better. Maybe.

I returned to the table, pushed the rest of my remaining margarita away from me and when our server came over to check on us, I took the opporunity to ask for an ice water with lemon. Margaux and Caroline both looked at me.

"You calling it a night, slugger?" Margaux asked.

"Not yet, but I am kind of zonked. I worked out this morning before work." That wasn't true but it sounded plausible. "What are you guys thinking?"

Caroline looked at her watch. "Wow. It's only 9 o'clock. I guess this is what happens when you get out of work at 6:30, huh? I'm kind of tempted to keep things going, but I also think less is more for a Tuesday. I guess what I'm saying is that I wouldn't mind putting this buzz to bed early. How do you feel, Margaux?"

"I guess I agree, but you two have to promise me that we are going out big time on my last night!"

We agreed just as the check came, and Caroline quickly slid a credit card under the bill and said that the night was "on Lockwood". I didn't see that one coming but I also wasn't about to complain. It was a bit easier to get over the unexpected "turnaround" of my expensive meal knowing I didn't actually pay for it.

We wrapped up the evening and I was glad to find myself in the fetal position by 10pm, nursing a large glass of ginger ale through one of the neon bendy straws my mother had insisted on buying for me at the grocery store. I eventually nodded off, but because of all the ginger ale I sucked down before bed, I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. It was only my second week in my new apartment, but I was used to the room arrangement so I knew how to feel my way around in the dark. I took care of business but as I re-entered the bedroom on my way back to bed, I heard a strange crunch when I went to put my right foot down. It didn't sound good. I scrambled to find the light switch on the wall, and as my eyes adjusted to the brightness I looked down and saw that I had just stepped on one of my leather boots, which I'd thrown off my feet in a hurry on my way into bed. I bent over to throw it out of the way, when I realized that the boot I stepped on had in fact been stacked over the heel of its mate. I picked up the top boot and discovered that I had cracked the heel right off of the boot that had been underneath. Lovely. Thank goodness for Guillermo.