8 ms·

A Colleague Drank My Breast Milk and Other Wall Street Tales

• rrauenza 11y ago
  > I thought of the guy known for dropping Band-Aids on women’s desks when the trading floor was cold because he didn’t “want to be distracted,” ...I don't understand. Can anyone explain?
  • tptacek 11y ago
    It's a dude being fucking creepy. You don't want to know more than that.
  • deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  • blantonl 11y ago
    Nipples
  • amagumori 11y ago
    Nipples. See, the world revolves around creepyfuck, so the girls have to plan their lives around creepyfuck because if he sees nipples he will have no choice but to be a creepy fuck.
  • biot 11y ago
    I'm not sure why everyone is being so elusive with their answers. Nipples (on either sex) can become erect when exposed to cold. The band-aids are meant to imply that the women should apply them to their nipples to hide them from poking through their bra and shirt. If you've ever seen a marathon runner with two red streaks on their shirt running down from each nipple, you'll better understand why. Some runners do, in fact, put band-aids (or duct tape, etc.) over their nipples to protect the tissue from rubbing against their shirt.
  • jedberg 11y ago
    Since all the other comments here seem to be afraid to fully explain... Cold makes the skin hard, especially the nipples. This happens on men and women, but it tends to have a bigger effect on women, in part because their nipples are larger and in part because they tend to wear thinner fabrics. If a woman is going to go out in a thinner fabric and she knows that where she is going might be cold, she'll put band aids on her nipples to help smooth it out under her clothing to prevent them from poking out, which can draw unwanted attention. The implication here is that the man can not control himself and wants them to cover up because he will stare at their breasts if they don't.
    • yarou 11y ago
      This is such a distinctly American(tm) problem that I can't help but chuckle. Why are we so puritanical about sex, gender, etc? I'm not absolving the guy doing this really creepy thing, but I sort of understand it. If you were raised in a society that was very sexually repressed, then it's only natural that you'd develop these strange behaviors around the opposite sex. I can only shudder trying to imagine how warped that individual is.
      • rayiner 11y ago
        It's highly unlikely that someone would leave bandaids because they were uncomfortable around nipples. It's a power play, a way of signaling.
        • yarou 11y ago
          I could understand the power play angle if it was something more mundane, like a slap on the ass. But this whole band-aid jibe requires a certain amount of premeditated thought. It looks more like sexual deviance to me, rather than simple power play.
          • rayiner 11y ago
            Even at a bank a slap on the ass will get you in hot water with HR. Bandaids have plausible deniability.
  • onetwotree 11y ago
    Why oh why did you have to ask! I didn't get it, now I do, and I'm that much angrier this fine morning.
• amagumori 11y ago
  This is what happens when frat boys get jobs. I think one piece of the puzzle is fostering less misogynistic environments in college, before these dudes enter the workforce. But seriously, how fucking disgusting. This article ruined my morning, I'm pissed off now.
  • striking 11y ago
    There are plenty of frat boys that aren't assholes. There are plenty of assholes that are borne of other stimuli. I can agree on "disgusting," though. The wage gap's prevalence at Wall Street is unforgivable and needs to be fixed.
    • amagumori 11y ago
      Frats are like the perfect petri dish for misogynism and racism. You get a bunch of white guys together in a usually racially and always sexually homogeneous club, and these kids, who don't know much about the world yet, suddenly don't have to be accountable for saying racist or sexist things. I have watched friends of mine from high school join a frat in college, and you know what? They mostly turned into douchenozzles. Compare to something like the punk scene where radical politics, antiracism, lgbt rights, antimisogyny are almost prerequisites for membership, the community is diverse, and racism/sexism/homophobia are often called out on the spot...you see ppl go in with hateful attitudes and come out more tolerant people.
      • watty 11y ago
        There are white frats, black frats, party frats, and studious frats. You can justify generalizing all you want but it still reeks of ignorance. I'm sorry that some of your friends from highschool turned into douchenozzles, I'm sure if they didn't join a frat they'd be outstanding citizens.
        • solipsism 11y ago
          I get what you're saying, but surely you can meet the OP somewhere closer to the middle? Fraternities seem to have done their part to earn their poor reputation, if one extrapolates from the information most of us are exposed to. When incidents of racism are publicized, they usually have to do with fraternity members. When incidents of the worst kinds of misogeny are publicized, they usually have to do with fraternity members. Those of us who are grossed out by frats aren't making this stuff up. Obviously the apparent trend could be wrong. You could argue that mainstream media is unfairly biased against fraternities. Or that the good (or boring) frats don't do anything sensational. But, in that case, your argument shouldn't be, "You should never generalize!!" The response to that knee-jerk reaction is, "Um... I'm not blind. I read what I read. I see what I see. I have experienced what I have experienced, and it tells me that frat boys are assholes." Instead you could acknowledge that the apparent trend exists and is real, but provide evidence or reasoning for the trend being misleading.
• pearjuice 11y ago
  "..you don't believe what's next, bankers hate him!" would make this title complete. I am absolutely full of clickbait fluff. I really hope someone takes on the content filtering space on the internet. I would happily pay xx dollars per month for a service which can accurately filter all the noise coming in and mark or even completely remove all the shit that content creators feed us just so we click on it. Arguably, the technology needed isn't sexy but at least it is a challenge compared to the 1000th CRUD startup. Why isn't anybody battling this problem? I am sick to the stomach of it.
  • GavinMcG 11y ago
    This is an essay, in the opinion section. It's not journalistic.
  • Wingman4l7 11y ago
    Something that polled trending news in categories like "Entertainment" and pulled key phrases, and then filtered for said phrases might be a good start. Heck, considering how much of news is just re-posted AP wire content, you could block entire redundant chunks by simply filtering by a string long enough to be a unique phrase (surprisingly short, as little as 6 words [ https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2012/07/03/how-long-should-a-statistically-improbably-phrase-be/ https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2012/07/03/how-long-should-a... ] )
  • Kluny 11y ago
    I'm familiar with the type of articles you're complaining about and agree with the complaint, but I don't believe this is one of them. The title was interesting, the article was also, and it contained concrete examples and actionable requests. I thought it was pretty good honestly.
  • onetwotree 11y ago
    You know, with a title like this and the source, you probably could have filtered this out yourself. People on the internet disagree with you. Grow up and deal with it.
• Afton 11y ago
  There was a real suggestion buried in this piece. Ban mandatory arbitration. I'm most interested in knowing what HN thinks about that piece, since I have no informed opinion of working conditions on Wall Street. Mandatory arbitration seems like a generally bad idea that employees should be protected from. Does anyone have a good argument counter?
  • nickff 11y ago
    Mandatory arbitration reduces the cost of resolving disputes (i.e. lawyer's fees). There are many arbitrators available who are comparable to the courts in outcome, but much speedier, more predictable, and cheaper. In cases where the parties are interested in good low cost dispute resolution, they may be willing to choose one of these arbitrators to reduce uncertainty and transaction costs. In other cases, one party may pay the other extra to 'buy' biased arbitration, or a specific arbitrator (or set of rules) may be selected as a way of shifting risk from one party to another, much like buying insurance; I do not see why this should be disallowed. There is also a signalling aspect to this, which we usually do not account for. By allowing the other party to select the arbitrator, you may be showing that you trust them; refusing their pick may be a sign of deeper issues.
    • Afton 11y ago
      Ah, perhaps I should have been more specific. Having mandatory arbitration be a part of an employment contract seems like it is something that should be disallowed as part of employee protections. Or perhaps disallowing the choice of arbitrator by the employer would be sufficient. I don't care (I don't think) if two companies agree to mandatory arbitration as part of their business dealings, in part because it seems more like a meeting of equals. But for vastly unequal negotiations (renters would also be a likely culprit) it seems like a 'works in theory, but not in practice'. I know that in Canada, mandatory arbitration for consumers was disallowed recently in BC. Note that I'm not a lawyer or in the know, this is just a google search result: http://www.duhaimelaw.com/2011/03/18/supreme-court-of-canada-rules-that-private-arbitration-does-not-apply-to-consumer-protection-contracts/ http://www.duhaimelaw.com/2011/03/18/supreme-court-of-canada...
• jedberg 11y ago
  I never understood why mandatory arbitration is ever allowed. Someone should be able to decide if they want arbitration after the incident has occurred. The default should be court and arbitration should only happen if both parties agree it is a better course of action.
• eigenvector 11y ago
  While I completely agree that the behaviour described by the author is totally unacceptable and must be rooted out from the workplace, I also find the context ironic: Bear Stearns just before the 2008 financial crisis. As we aspire to a better society, is this really the goal we want to reach for? Better female representation in a corrupt enterprise that precipitated a global financial crisis which caused hardship for hundreds of millions of people? I hope the author, a member of senior management, was troubled by more than just sexism at pre-collapse Bear Stearns.
  • Kluny 11y ago
    Sexism may have been one of the problems that contributed to the problem. The collapse originated in that frat boy echo chamber of insanity. Maybe if Wall Street was a place where responsible adults of both genders thrived, it could have been prevented. Just as many men as women feel alienated by that environment.
    • Dr_tldr 11y ago
      I usually find arguments about how "underrepresented group X in upper management will somehow make the company better" unconvincing, but the downfall of Bear Sterns is a great and decisively convincing example of how a monoculture with a lack of multiple perspectives and backgrounds created a really corrupt and toxic environment. At the very least, the sexism towards women in the corporate culture should've been seen as warning indicator for their business practices as well. In this case, I think sexism was as much a symptom as a cause, and the larger cultural problems were very destructive to women, men, and the US economy.
  • RockyMcNuts 11y ago
    Bear Stearns was the naughty upstart. http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/01/why-larry-summers-is-wrong-and-bernie-sanders-is-right-on-glass-steagall.html http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/01/why-larry-summers-is-... http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html Sometimes rules matter. When things are going well, risk takers and rule breakers are heroes. When things start going downhill, they're the first ones with arrows in their backs. (not excusing giving liar loans to strippers... go see The Big Short... splitting hairs but I think in some ways Moody's and MBIA and AIG and were more corrupt because their job was to keep people honest and reduce risk, instead of engaging in regulatory arbitrage, financial shenanigans to let people ramp up risk. Bear Stearns you sort of expected to be riverboat gamblers. They were the guys who took theglobe.com public when Goldman and Morgan Stanley laughed. Unlike Lehman they were in good enough shape to get taken over by a TBTF monstrosity to JPM's ongoing benefit, their takeover didn't bring down the system, and they lost mostly all their own money. left as an exercise, whether behavior towards women, civility etc. are better or worse in startups. )
• rifung 11y ago
  > My candidate took the job, and while she was passionate about her work, she was uncomfortable with the raucous trading floor environment, and lasted only five years. I'm surprised five years is considered short.. I imagine people in the tech industry don't get treated nearly as badly but we seem to switch jobs way more often. Why is that?
  • ksenzee 11y ago
    Sounds to me like she lasted only five years in the entire industry. That's short for tech too.
  • deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
• zekevermillion 11y ago
  Wall Street has a bigger problem, that many financial professionals are able to rationalize doing work that harms others. So let's say we can make the big evil banks a better place for women and other people with real life interests to work. Should we encourage our daughters to go work on Wall St? Or should we discourage them, not b/c they can't do the work, but b/c doing the work is harmful to others? Yes I know banks are necessary, some do good. But I'm talking about the speculative operations at TBTF institutions that continue to add fragility and risk to our economy. These same institutions also tend to be the worst places to work for women (or anyone who has outside interests other than making money). I don't think that is a coincidence, but rather a consequence of the same underlying worldview.