It was another day in the Wall Street boys club; a term I don't use lightly. The stock world is a testosterone driven arena where men assert their masculinity by driving through deals and collecting commissions. I guess with no more lions to kill or Spartans to battle they've gone from swords to the mobile devices they wave around like old west "shooting irons".
For those of us who were born without "Y" Chromosomes things are different. Men who push hard are deemed "tough businessmen", but when we do it we're called "bitches." We couldn't even expect support from the few women who had made it. They were too busy watching their own backs to worry about some lowly junior stockbroker in a skirt.
I was one of those junior brokers, cold calling potential clients, hoping to pull in enough commissions to make the one-year evaluation standards. Fifty percent of us would be cut loose after the first year. Seventy percent of those cut loose would be women.
I didn't deserve to be doing so much time at the lowest rung. I had graduated at the top of my class, with gleaming endorsements from my professors. But there had been one little slip up that continued to haunt me, I'll go into that later.
***
"Have you considered investing in stocks?" I said, using my best selling voice, "Currently we have a tremendous opportunity available…" but he cut me off in mid-sentence.
"Yeah, you can save that crap. I saw that Leonardo DiCaprio movie and I know all these stock calls are just scams. Don't call me again or I'll report you." And with that my latest potential meal ticket hung up.
I pulled my headset off and sat back. I’d been rejected probably fifty times that morning, and it wasn't even ten o'clock yet. One cold call, however, had stayed on the line. But I realized he was more interested in what I was wearing than in what I was selling. Maybe I should start a side business, a 976 number where you can sexually harass a marketer for ninety-nine cents a minute, I thought to myself. It would have meant a raise.
I glanced up in time to see my supervisor Jeff strutting by.
"What's up Stewart, you taking a coffee break? Come on, time is money," he said and continued on to torment the other junior brokers.
I graduated at the top of my class… and this is what it got me.
At the eight-hour mark I headed home. Some of the juniors would stay on, cold calling during the dreaded "dinner hours" when customers were at their most resentful. I just didn't have it in me tonight.
I stepped out of the building and walked through the now empty financial district. It always amazed me how quickly Wall Street went from a swarming beehive in the morning to post-apocalyptic after six o'clock. Most of the boy's club had adjourned to the districts bars where they'd boast about their deal-making prowess and do bumps of coke in the men's room. Did you know most insider trading is just cocaine induced babbling by brokers? Sad but true.
I was coming up on the Fulton Street station when I spied a limousine cruising behind me. My first guess was a couple of drunken brokers out heckling women. The perfect end to a perfect day. The limo pulled ahead of me and stopped. The driver climbed out and stood waiting as I approached.
"Ms. Stewart?" He asked politely.
I took a moment to appraise the situation. There are two kinds of limo drivers. There are the frumpy rental limo guys struggling to appear classy in cheap ill-fitting suits. They usually have an accent from either Eastern Europe or the depths of Queens. This was the other kind, pressed, well-tailored and immaculate, someone who worked for only one discerning client. This guy stood straight and tall like a US Marine, which he probably had been at some point in the not too distant past.
"Yes I'm Rebecca Stewart. Can I help you?"
"My employer asked me to pick you up. He would like a meeting with you."
"And who is your employer?"
"Mr. Peter Drake, I believe you’re familiar with him."
"Peter Drake?" I replied in disbelief. Drake was probably the most successful businessman in America. He'd made billions, primarily as a "corporate raider", buying up businesses and then gutting them for their assets. Drake had diversified into electronics, aerospace and a myriad of other high-risk sectors, always earning a profit where others failed. I had written my college thesis about Drake, exploring the psychology that drove him to success. It was equal parts clinical analysis and schoolgirl crush. "Why would Peter Drake want to meet with me?"
The driver reached into his jacket and handed me a bound document. I stared at it for a moment in disbelief… it was my college thesis.
Without another word the driver opened the door and politely gestured for me to climb in.