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Authors: John Rolfe, Peter Troob
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classmate, Diane. Even then, Diane’s permission slip only gave her
access to a limited number of the Links Club’s rooms.
The dinner was preceded by a cocktail hour during which gloved waiters made the rounds taking drink orders and delivering
trays of mushroom caps and raw oysters. Jenrette made his own rounds to each of us and, in the most gracious manner possible,
listened intently as we stammered out how honored we were to meet him and how we were so incredibly thankful to have been
given the opportunity to spend our summer at DLJ.
The dinner came and went with no significant occurrences. Seating positions at the table had been apportinnedon a musical-chairs basis, with most of us attempting to arrange our seating positions so as to avoid being too close to Jenrette.
Although the man was unusually friendly, most of us felt that it might be somewhat awkward to have to carry on a conversation
with somebody whose station in life was so far removed from our own that he couldn’t possibly give a shit about what we had
to say. With our business school debts, most of us were worth about fifty dollars. Jenrette was worth hundreds of millions.
We were young. He was old. We just had nothing in common. The fact that we knew he would feign interest in our miserable lives
made the specter of conversation that much more unappealing.
Afterward, during dessert and coffee, the informal conversation that had dominated the dinner was replaced by a question-and-answer
session. We’d been warned to expect this ahead of time, and it had been strongly suggested that we prepare at least one intelligent
question each to ask Jenrette. The usual garbage spilled forth from our mouths as we drew upon our business school skills
to formulate meaningless, inane questions about the future of DLJ. Only one of our classmates distinguished himself during
this session, Mike Stevens.
Stevens was one of the Harvard boys. Although he was attending business school at Harvard, he had spent his undergraduate
days at another Ivy League powerhouse—Penn. Stevens was a big man, he’d played football for Penn as an undergraduate. Between
his size and his classic bowl haircut, he bore an uncanny resemblance to Lurch, the butler from
The Munsters
.
Over the course of the summer, most of us had come to the conclusion that Stevens was a manic-depressive.When Stevens was on a high nobody could touch him. A common fixture in all the summer associates’ offices were foam footballs
that were gifts from a foam processing company whose initial public offering DLJ had recently underwritten. Stevens could
frequently be seen in any number of offices in the Bullpen clasping one of the foam footballs to his abdomen and rolling around
on the floor, proclaiming all the while that he was going to impart his football knowledge to the masses by offering each
of our BAs free fumble-recovery lessons there on the office floor.
Prior to returning to business school, Stevens had been an investment banking analyst with me at Kidder Peabody. Stevens was
one of the most focused, motivated, intelligent individuals I’d ever met. During our time at Kidder, I’d once seen Stevens
spend an entire weekend balling up enough wastepaper to fill a colleague’s entire cubicle waist-high. The colleague had been
furious upon returning to his office the following Monday morning, but even he had to admire Stevens’s determination.
Stevens’s focus and determination could just as easily manifest themselves through his dark side, however. His temper was
legendary. Stevens regularly held wicked battles over the phone with his fiancée, with the decibel level generally rising
to a point where it was impossible for anybody in the Bullpen to escape exposure to his invective. In addition, we think that
the facilities personnel at DLJ had taken to stocking an inventory of spare telephone handsets following Stevens’s arrival
for the summer, as
access to a limited number of the Links Club’s rooms.
The dinner was preceded by a cocktail hour during which gloved waiters made the rounds taking drink orders and delivering
trays of mushroom caps and raw oysters. Jenrette made his own rounds to each of us and, in the most gracious manner possible,
listened intently as we stammered out how honored we were to meet him and how we were so incredibly thankful to have been
given the opportunity to spend our summer at DLJ.
The dinner came and went with no significant occurrences. Seating positions at the table had been apportinnedon a musical-chairs basis, with most of us attempting to arrange our seating positions so as to avoid being too close to Jenrette.
Although the man was unusually friendly, most of us felt that it might be somewhat awkward to have to carry on a conversation
with somebody whose station in life was so far removed from our own that he couldn’t possibly give a shit about what we had
to say. With our business school debts, most of us were worth about fifty dollars. Jenrette was worth hundreds of millions.
We were young. He was old. We just had nothing in common. The fact that we knew he would feign interest in our miserable lives
made the specter of conversation that much more unappealing.
Afterward, during dessert and coffee, the informal conversation that had dominated the dinner was replaced by a question-and-answer
session. We’d been warned to expect this ahead of time, and it had been strongly suggested that we prepare at least one intelligent
question each to ask Jenrette. The usual garbage spilled forth from our mouths as we drew upon our business school skills
to formulate meaningless, inane questions about the future of DLJ. Only one of our classmates distinguished himself during
this session, Mike Stevens.
Stevens was one of the Harvard boys. Although he was attending business school at Harvard, he had spent his undergraduate
days at another Ivy League powerhouse—Penn. Stevens was a big man, he’d played football for Penn as an undergraduate. Between
his size and his classic bowl haircut, he bore an uncanny resemblance to Lurch, the butler from
The Munsters
.
Over the course of the summer, most of us had come to the conclusion that Stevens was a manic-depressive.When Stevens was on a high nobody could touch him. A common fixture in all the summer associates’ offices were foam footballs
that were gifts from a foam processing company whose initial public offering DLJ had recently underwritten. Stevens could
frequently be seen in any number of offices in the Bullpen clasping one of the foam footballs to his abdomen and rolling around
on the floor, proclaiming all the while that he was going to impart his football knowledge to the masses by offering each
of our BAs free fumble-recovery lessons there on the office floor.
Prior to returning to business school, Stevens had been an investment banking analyst with me at Kidder Peabody. Stevens was
one of the most focused, motivated, intelligent individuals I’d ever met. During our time at Kidder, I’d once seen Stevens
spend an entire weekend balling up enough wastepaper to fill a colleague’s entire cubicle waist-high. The colleague had been
furious upon returning to his office the following Monday morning, but even he had to admire Stevens’s determination.
Stevens’s focus and determination could just as easily manifest themselves through his dark side, however. His temper was
legendary. Stevens regularly held wicked battles over the phone with his fiancée, with the decibel level generally rising
to a point where it was impossible for anybody in the Bullpen to escape exposure to his invective. In addition, we think that
the facilities personnel at DLJ had taken to stocking an inventory of spare telephone handsets following Stevens’s arrival
for the summer, as
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