Chartered financial banalyst - Distraction ONLY all, lame, presented, anyway, before

anothercfainnyc

Story from the old LSO.....dont lose the fire guys! You prob have all felt (feel) like this. Aplogies for any obscenitites...copied as presented.

For about 2 months before my boy Mark took the CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) Level 3 exam, he didn’t go out at all. He’d go to work, come home, hit up the gym, and then study. That was it. Done.

“Going out is @#$%& lame, anyway,” he’d bark from the couch when I rolled up to his place on a Friday with two Lauren Conrad lookalikes. Sitting there in sweaty mesh shorts and a T-shirt, he’d wave a #2 HB pencil in the air dismissively. “Staying in is the new going out.” Then Lauren #1 would strut over to his fridge, showing off her perfect physique in the process. She’d take an ice cube and press it seductively against her collarbone as she closed her eyes and sighed in relief from the dense heat of New York City summer. I could see the Monte Carlo simulation running in Mark’s brain; Crystal Ball says—“you will get laid.” Then, right after his eyes entered back into his skull, he would look back down begrudgingly at his practice exam and mutter to himself, unconvincingly: “Whatever. That @#$%& is a 6, anyway…”

He’d break down right as we were leaving, his face falling into his hands. We’d hear his sobs all the way from the street, and I’d feel the girls’ hands tighten around my arms as he started clawing away the window screen and shaking the wrought iron bars he had installed during the Level 2, specifically to save him in such situations.

You see, Mark really loved to go out. I mean loved. Obviously, we all like drinking and slaying chicks, but more so than anything, Mark just straight up loved “being out there.” “Gotta get up in the mix,” he’d coach himself if he hadn’t been out in more than two or three nights. He had to scratch that itch. The heat, it gave him clarity. He was the kind of guy who’d buy 4 bottles, not to drink them, but just for that one moment when everyone was surrounding him, cheering him on and taking pictures as he snarled and held all 4 bottles held up to his mouth in triumph. And the only time he was happier was when he was on his computer posting that ridiculous photo up on Facebook as his profile picture, his status set as “absolutely killing it.”

I don’t know very much about the “Chartered Financial Analyst” program. Generally, I’m the one chartering @#$%&, so the concept doesn’t even really make sense. From what I gather, though, it’s a set of exams that you take to get certified to be a money manager out in Ohio and for some reason, Mark, as one of the few non-prop traders I know, also has to take it. They ask you trivial finance questions and tease your brain with provocative ethical scenarios like: “Should you steal your clients’ money? Answer yes or no.”

I do remember, a few months after graduating from college, hearing the news that a girl we knew, Jen, had somehow managed to fail the CFA Level 1 exam. There was such widespread disbelief in the community, on the same order of magnitude as when we heard someone we knew was “making a documentary.” Something like 40% of people pass the exam, and frankly, we just couldn’t wrap our heads around the concept of the 59th percentile. “I’m disgusted,” said a friend who had hooked up with Jen once, quickly making his way into the bathroom to shower and rinse his mouth out with Scope. Jen took the failure as a sign—an opportunity to “follow her dreams” and become an actress. She is now the subject of our other ex-friend’s documentary, the title: Banker Chick Gets Creative: A Riches to Rags Story.

To be fair, though, there is one redeeming aspect of the CFAs—one characteristic that is actually legit, the calculator. One of the two calculators permitted to be used on the CFAs is the HP 12C, and apart from the fact that its name sounds like some highly involved consulting framework, it is the epitome of Banker technology. The 12C embodies everything about us—elegant, bold, somehow clinging on to life in a world that no longer needs it. One look at its brushed plastic exterior and you think: “Damn, this thing is pro.”

Excel Mobile, it speaks a pure, unambiguous language: Reverse Polish, a postfix notation that eliminates non-commutative issues. So instead of having to enter 7 + (5 * 2) - 5, you’d enter: 7 5 2 * + 5 -. Direct and to the point, crisp even—exactly how Bankers think and speak. I met a model from Krak