Monday, June 13, 2011

The Job Hunt


Senior Field Analyst - Logistical Solutions Incorporated

The Senior Field Analyst is a key contributor to our Delivered Solutions team. You will:
  • Travel Internationally to Ascertain Client Needs
  • Deliver Solutions that Fulfill those Needs
  • Model Free Cash Flows and Bid on Behalf of LSI
  • Disseminate Gathered Intelligence to Relevant Trading Desks
  • Arbitrage Information and Goods for Maximum Profit
  • Extricate and Repatriate Goods of Material Value
  • Detect Counterfeit Bills
  • Counterfeit Bills
  • Avoid Prolonged Attention from Law Enforcement


Requirements:
  • 7+ Years Trading Securities, Derivatives, or other Financial Instruments
  • Expertise in Microsoft Excel
  • Ability to Blend In (no Identifying Marks or Missing Appendages)
  • Proficient with Firearms (USMC Sharpshooter equivalent or better)
  • Familiarity with Foreign Cultures, including Knowledge of Norms around Bribery
  • Pluses include: Pilot’s License, Experience with Windows XP, Scuba Certification, Six Sigma Black Belt


This is what a job posting for my job would look like. Of course, we could never post this. So when my manager stopped by my desk and said, “Don, I think it’s time to hire a junior analyst.”, my response was

“Shit. Wait. What? Really Larry? We’re doing just fine. I think the team is really clicking on all cylinders. If it ain’t broken, don’t--.”

“Did I say it was my idea? I meant it was the Old Man’s.” The Old Man sometimes had funny ideas, but he never had wrong ones. At least if you wanted to stay employed at The Log. (Logistical Solutions Incorporated is a name so maddeningly vague that witnesses rarely remember. But we employees needed a nickname. The Log has the added advantage of making us sound like we’re lumberjacks, which doesn’t hurt with the ladies.) And to the Old Man’s credit, his crazy ideas had built The Log from a low-level Courier Service into the International Operations Firm and Hedge Fund we are today.

“OK, Okay. I’m in. Who’s the kid?”

“Josh Chang. Graduating Yale Summa Cum Laude. History major.”

“Another Ackerlyte?” William Acker was an old school academic. Started teaching in 1959. The Cuban Missile Crisis convinced him our only hope as a country was to make sure our spies were as educated as possible. He picked his favorites, invited them to tea every Friday, dubbed them “Ackerlytes”, and on graduation forwarded them to the CIA. Until he learned that we paid a higher referral bonus than than Langley. “Fine, what conference room?”

Larry threw me a set of keys. “Testarossa.”



When your employer’s greatest asset is not being noticed, you tend not to invite college kids into the office. There are lots of shared office spaces that will rent you conference rooms. But they rarely allow for the breadth of experience a Log interview demands. And they lack The Log flare that we try to convey to candidates. That’s how I ended up driving a Testarossa through the hills around Poughkeepsie talking to a 22 year-old about bond pricing.

“So as I was thinking about the Corn Laws of 1815-1848, I realized you can just view the effect of government regulation as a cost, and then assign it a probability distribution. Then you can find a Beta for it, and price the risk with--” I took a right turn doing 75 and Josh gulped. Apparently he views red lights as more than a suggestion.

“You can price the risk with what?”

“Black-Scholes. Uhh, isn’t it illegal to be going this fast on a two-lane road?”

“Josh, in a car this good, it’d be a crime to be doing any less.” It was time for the technical component. I broke out one of my go-to questions. “Consider this game: I flip a coin until it comes up tails. I give you 2^n dollars, where n is the number of heads I flipped. So if I start and flip tails, you get 1 dollar. If I flip 2 heads and then tails, you get 4 dollars. If I flip 30 heads before the first tails, you’d get how much?”

“Uhh, 1.072 billion dollars?” Not confident, but correct.

“Right. So, how much would you pay me for one chance to play this game?”

“Well, I’d want to pay you the expected value. Now, there’s a half chance that your first flip is tails. In which case I only get a dollar. And then there’s a quarter chance I get 2 dollars. And a 1/8th chance I get 3 dollars. If you keep doing that, you get, umm, infinity? That can’t be right.”

“No, that’s fine.” I smiled to myself. It’s a trick question. The series diverges, and so the normal analysis you learn in school only gets you so far.

Josh spoke again, more meekly than you’d expect from an Honors Student. “So, Mr. Handley, how am I doing?” Ah the Millenials and their need for approbation.

“So far, Josh, you’re acing it.” His field may have been history, but his thesis results were still relevant: governments were annoying 200 years ago and they’ll be annoying 200 years from now. To be honest, this kid had more analytical skills than I did. But did he have what it takes to be a Log Messenger?

“Really? Wow. Thanks. I’m glad. Y’know, on most interviews, they won’t tell you how you’re doing. I guess they’re afraid you’ll sue or something.”

“Well, we here at Logistical Solution Incorporated are different than most jobs. For instance, most interviews don’t start with committing a felony.”

“Heh. No. I guess they don’t. Wait, what?”

I pulled the Ferrari to the shoulder and rolled down my window. “Do you hear anything, Mr. Chang?”

“Look, what’s this about a felony? I didn’t do anything. I’ve been talking to you. I’m a good kid.”

“I’m sure you are. And yet, what do you hear?” He wasn’t letting my flourish for the dramatic have its moment.

“A cow mooing.” The cow wasn’t part of the plan.

“Right, but, other than that?”

“Uhh, a helicopter?” He was right; a helicopter had come over the horizon and was hovering down in the field next to us.

“That’s right. And if you’ll listen carefully, sirens of the Walkill Police Department, who I’m sure will be happy to recover the $500,000 car that I reported stolen this morning. If, on the other hand, you can evade their detection, then I’ll know you have what it takes. Good luck, Josh.“

I stepped into the helicopter’s cabin as it lifted off. We’d installed a nanny cam in the glovebox, and I could watch it on a monitor and listen over a headset I put on. Let’s see how he deals under pressure. Josh hopped out of the car. Was he making his break on foot? No; he got in the driver’s side. He sat down, and... kept... sitting.

Larry was in the back of the helicopter, and said over the intercom. “Did he just freeze up?”

“Faster than eskimo semen.” I replied.

“Ew.”

“Yeah, they can’t all be gems. The police should be here soon.” We flew down the Hudson and watched a nonplussed patrolman appear out the driver’s side window. Josh rolled the window down.

“License and Registration.” Wait a second, that’s Josh’s voice.

“Excuse me?” said the officer.

“I got word of a stolen Chevy Caprice Police Cruiser. That seems to be what you’re driving, sir?”

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you--”

“Hey, don’t try any of this reverse psychology bullshit on me. I’ve got you dead to rights on Grand Theft Auto. I don’t think you want to make this any harder on yourself.” The undergrad said to the uniformed officer.

“Are you on something?” He reached to his radio and clicked onto the air. “Rodgers requesting backup and a psych consult.”

“That’s a pretty serious acquisition. This is going to go a lot easier--”

“Look kid, do you even know how to drive stick?”

You could see the relief on Josh’s face. “No sir. No I do not.”

A phone call to the police station cleared up the misunderstanding, and Josh was given his walking papers in half an hour. Larry had a new favorite story that he told at the next three office happy hours. But I was back where I started, trying to find a new Junior Field Analyst for Logistical Solutions Incorporated.




“I got a new candidate for you,” Larry said as he dropped a slip of paper on my desk. This sounded important enough for me to stop what I was doing, leaving scores of mines unswept. I picked up the piece of paper.

“D’Antoine Walker. This is only a name; where’s the resume?”

“You don’t need a resume when you come straight from the Old Man.”

“Oh geez. Let me guess, another overprivileged progeny of a patriarch from his country club?”

“Well, yes Don, they met at the country club, but--”

“And little D’Antoine’s a daddy’s boy who just needs an entry-level job until he can go back and take over the shit factory and help daddy make his little shit sandwiches to get sent out to the shit supermarkets--”

“What are you saying Don?”

“Look, not every rant can be a gem.”

“Are you done?”

“For now. Just tell me about the celebutante Richie Rich and I’ll go interview him.”

“The Old Man met D’Antoine Walker when the latter made fraudulent transactions on the former’s credit card.”

“That’s an odd way to network. Daddy’s credit card wasn’t enough?”

“He wasn’t networking, Don. He’s a waiter in the dining room.”

“OK, so he’s not a trustafarian. You say he was lifting credit card numbers, so he’s got intitiative. Good. But we need smart people, and how intelligent can he be if he got caught?”

“You’re not giving the kid enough credit. He made sure to only take numbers during a shift that his coworker Kevin was working. Mr. Walker even snuck in and took some on nights he wasn’t working but Kevin was to establish the fall guy.”

“So how’d he get caught?”

“His coworker Kevin is the Old Man’s nephew. And the Old Man knows Kevin, like his father, isn’t smart enough to remember 16-digit numbers. So he spent more on private investigators than was stolen to begin with, and traced it to D’Antoine.”

“Look, credit or no credit, the kid got caught. He’s unlucky. Sounds like a pass.” I went back to clearing the grey seas of those little red mines.

“Unlucky like a fox. He got caught by the one guy who could guarantee that you’ll be interviewing him at 1:30.” He lobbed a keyring onto my desk. It hit my mouse, and I clicked on a mine. Just perfect.



I’ll be honest. I was a little grumpy when I started interviewing D’Antoine. Gruff, even. He seemed like a good kid. Lives with his grandma and sister in Harlem. Commutes to Long Island to wait and caddy at a country club. I decided to give him a chance to succeed or fail based on his actions, not the side of the bed I woke up on.

“Consider this game:” I described the game. “How much would you pay for a chance to play this game?”

He thought for a moment. His eyes flicking down, not up. “Ten bucks.” Well, that’s pretty close to one of the right answers.

“How’d you figure that out?”

“Twenty’s too much. And I need to give myself some upside.”

“But how do you know twenty’s too much? Did you maybe think about the expected value?”

“That’s a lot of math to do, and my gut’s never really steered me wrong.” But, you’re so close, D’Antoine. Can’t you just-- Look, maybe math just isn’t his strong suit. I took a deep breath in and a hairpin turn at 65.

“You shouldn’t do that,” he says.

“Why’s that? Cause it’s dangeroussssss?!” I imbue the word with a sing-song sarcasm.

“Downshifting when you need to slow down. A car like this, you’d rather wear out 4 brake pads than 12 cylinders.” Has it really been that long since I took my last evasive driving refresher? He was right.

“So you’re a gambling man, Tony?” Wait, is Tony a nickname for D’Antoine? Shit.

“I put money on horses damn near every week. Why?”

“Well, at Logistical Solutions Incorporated, we invest in stocks and bonds. Which is a lot like betting on horses, except instead of how the horse does in the race, it’s how the company does in the marketplace. Does that make sense?”

“Well, kind of,” D’Antoine said, and then paused. Oh geez, how could I make it any simpler? This kid isn’t Log material. He interrupted my thoughts, “Except instead of making a parimutuel wager, you own a share of the corporation. And a company’s share price can stay disconnected from its demonstrated performance for as long as the market remains irrational. Not to mention that racings bets go to zero or the pot very quickly, so the distribution is far more bimodal. Oh, and when a horse collapses, it gets a bullet not a bail-out. I have an e-trade account, Mr. Handley. But it’s a lot easier to make money arbitraging the bets of drunks who can’t even drag themselves to the OTB establishment than trying to daytrade from the projects.”

“Listen D’Antony” Dammit, there’s no way that’s a valid shortening. “So far, you seem like you’re a fit for LSI’s job opening. But to be frank, I need to know. Do you think you could plant false evidence? Smuggle forged documents? Liberate proprietary information? Discharge loaded firearms?”

“What? I knew there was something whack about this whole set-up.”

“You really still say whack?”

“I do when I’m talking to the fuzz. Why don’t you just wear a badge if you’re going to be so obvious about it?”

“You think I’m a cop?” I guffawed in earnest. “What can I do to convince you I’m not a cop?”

“Why don’t you just tell me that I should ask you if you’re a cop, and then you have to tell me the truth or else it’s entrapment. If my only knowledge of finance is from the track, maybe my only knowledge of the law is from reruns of Beverly Hills 90210.”

“So if I want to convince you that I’m not a cop, and am, in fact and deed, an operative who lives min the grey zone of morality who provides liquidity to the global spy system and is trying to offer you a lucrative job to assist me... you’d need a big piece of evidence?”

“Yeah; pretty big.” D’Antoine looked like he was fed up with me and my shtick. I slammed on the handbrake and turned the wheel, leaving rubber on the two-lane road as we did a 180. I jumped out of the car, and he was right behind me. I threw him the keys as I walked around the hood.

“Here’s your evidence. 27 minutes ago, this car was reported stolen, and an APB is out for an African-American Male, early 20s, 5’9”, 130lbs in connection with Grand Theft Auto. Last known whereabouts: Poughkeepsie. Would a cop do that?” For a second, D’Antoine looked through me with incomprehending eyes. I thought he was freezing up, too. And his interview had been so promising.

“Well then I guess this isn’t assaulting an officer after all.” And then his right first connected with my jaw. “What kind of crazy ass job interview takes the one kid on his block who doesn’t have a record and sends him to jail?”

“No, listen, this car isn’t really stolen. We own it. We use it for testing. If you can bring it back to us without getting caught, the job is yours. But no matter what happens, you won’t get a record. I promise.”

“You use a half million dollar car for testing? That’s enough to buy my apartment and send my sister through college. And enough left over to set up my own business.”

I’d finally gotten through to him the opportunity we were offering. “There’s more where that came from if you work for The Log, D’Antoine. Now I suggest you hit the road, post haste.”

“For once, Don, we agree.” He hopped in the car and disappeared down a dirt track I’d never noticed before.

That was the last time I ever saw D’Antoine Walker. He taught me that maybe there’s such a thing as too much initiative. But I hear that his sister’s enjoying her undergraduate years.




She sat down in the bucket seat of Bentley Continental GT. “Chelsea Brahms”, she said and extended her hand. I met it with my driving-gloved hand. I pulled away from the train station and started onto the back roads.

“Don Handley. Brahms? Like the composer?”

“No relation.”

“Well nice to meet you. How much did Larry explain about the job when you set up the interview?”

“Very little.”

“Ah, well, Logistical Solutions Incorporate, most of the time, is a financial services firm--”

“Well that would explain the overpowered car,” she said dryly.

“Well, yes, and the rest of the time, we’re-- wait, what?”

“This car, it seems like it’s only purpose is to show off. That kind of strutting is pretty financial services. I mean, I’m not complaining. I’m still here, aren’t I?”

“You don’t understand; I need this car.”

“Hey, overcompensate all you like.”

“What? No, not like that. I mean, our deliveries sometimes require speed. It can really be quite exhilarating.” Good, back to talking about the job.

“Then why don’t you get a faster car?”

“Faster than a W12 engine? Do you know what that means? That’s two V6 engines. On the track, I’ve gotten this baby up to--”

“Do you do many deliveries to a banked track?”

“Well, no--”

“In cities, a car like this, you’re going to get enough rubbernecking that you’ll be lucky to do 25. If you really cared about speed, you’d just drop a V8 in a Ford Focus.”

“Well...” Yes, she’s right, but that wouldn’t be as much fun to drive. “Thank you for the suggestion. So, where did you go to college?”

“New Haven.” Oh well that breaks the ice! A fellow Yalie.

“You don’t say! I’m an Eli as well. Davenport. Did you know Professor Acker?” Yes, Acker’s a nutjob. But he’s our nutjob.

“University of New Haven.” Oh.

“Oh.”

“Did that just get awkward? Look, I’m not sensitive about it. I went to University of New Haven, I got a great education. If you feel the need to hobnob with captains of industry, feel free. We’re both going to be field analysts, right?”

“Well, yes. We’ll be on the same job ladder, but you’re interviewing to be a Junior Field Analyst, and I’m a Senior Field Analyst. So, yes, same job, but, I’m four rungs higher.”

“For now.”

“OK, we should get to the technical questions. Consider this game: I flip a coin until it comes up tails. I give you 2^n dollars, where n is the number of heads I flipped. So if I start and flip tails, you get 1 dollar. If I flip 2 heads and then tails--”

“I get 4 dollars. 10 heads, $1024. 32, 4 billion, etc.”

“Right. How much would you pay to play this game.”

“About 15 bucks? 18 if I’m feeling lucky.”

“Ah, but, the expected value of the game is--”

“Yes, it’s infinite. So I should pay you infinity dollars to get a chance to play the game.”

“Exactly. And infinity is more than 18. Well, at least it is at Yale.” That was just joking arrogance, not real arrogance. I swear.

“OK, well then, let’s switch roles, you pay me infinity dollars, then I’ll start flipping.”

“Well, it’s--” That’s not how this question works, Chelsea. Can’t you just answer and get it wrong? “This question isn’t about me.”

“If we’re talking about the market price, then isn’t it about every participant?”

“But how much would you be willing to pay? Infinity? As much as you have? Half as much as you have?”

“Well, the expected value is infinite only because there’s the probability of you giving me a huge sum multiplied by the large sum comes out to 50 cents for each flip. But that analysis only holds up so long as you can give me a huge sum. You work for a hedge fund--”

“Well, you see, we’re not really a hedge fund--”

“You drive a Bentley. You’re a hedge fund. I figure you’re definitely good for at least a billion dollars. If I won more than 100 billion dollars, you’d just declare bankruptcy. The log base 2 of that is somewhere between 30 and 36. So 30 or 36 times 50 cents is 15 to 18 dollars. That’s how much I’d pay.”

That’s not the answer of a Junior Field Analyst. That’s the answer of a Field Analyst II. Maybe even a Field Analyst III.

“OK, so much for the theoretical. Now it’s time for the practical portion of the interview.” Chelsea had answered the question so quickly that we were still short of the helicopter rendezvous point. I needed to filibuster with some idle questions until we reached the field. Maybe I should prepare her for how the field really is.

“So,” I started. “sometimes when working at LSI, I find that the mission doesn’t always go like I want. Sometimes I find that someone else has wronged me. And my first thought used to be to go the local law enforcement. But anything involving LSI tends to... muddy the waters, legally. Do you get what I’m saying?”

“I’m... listening.” Ah, Little Miss Unflappable was a little quieter now. Goody Two Shoes aren’t cut out for the Log.

“For instance,” I continued. “What if you found yourself alone in a field? Like this one here?” I motioned out the window. But I was coming awfully close to telegraphing the rest of the interview. Maybe I shouldn’t give it all away. “And say some laws had just been broken. What would you do? How would you avoid the police?”

“Well, uhh, I guess I’m still not sure why I’d want to avoid the police? If I hadn’t done anything illegal.”

“Oh, well, even if you hadn’t done anything wrong, maybe they wouldn’t believe you.” Had she ever stolen a car? I doubted it.

“Mr. Handley, I think this interview is over.” She spoke like this was hard for her. The poor thing, she was still nervous! But she’d aced the interview so far.

I pulled the car over. “Look, Chelsea, you’ve done a great job so far. There’s only one more thing we need to make sure you can do.” Her face was almost white. I smiled at her, reached over, and patter her knee for reassurance. I felt for the key along the steering column and turned it to to off. I heard the brush of metal against metal, which was weird, as I hadn’t begun taking the key out of the ignition yet. It was then I felt her blade against the front of my neck.

“Turn. The car. Back. On.” The force on my skin increased. Pro tip: skin doesn’t like being cut, and blades only like cutting when they’re moving. Push a knife against skin and you’ll leave a mark, even a nasty bruise. But odds are, you won’t draw blood. I turned the key and the engine purred back to life.

“Is everything alright, Chelsea?”

“I’ve worked too hard. On my classes. On myself as a person. To let some lech take advantage of me as part of a job interview.”

“Did someone try to force themselves on you during an interview? That’s horrib--” Wait a second. Oh. Oh! OH. “I wasn’t trying to denigrate your honor as a lady. I was just about to offer you a job.”

I know we hadn’t technically finished the interview. Could she escape police attention? I’m not sure. But she’d found a way to skip the onerous part, and that’s a skill we look for. She’d Indiana Jonesed this interview. (The part where he brings a gun to a scimitar fight, not the part where he’s afraid of snakes.)

Her eyes narrowed. “You can’t buy my silence. Why should I believe you?”

“The last interview question is to evade police detection. You see...” and I explained the situation.

“That’s an awfully weird interview question.” She seemed apprehensive. But the knife at my throat loosened a smidgen.

“We’re an awfully weird employer. Open the glove compartment.“ While her left hand held the butterfly knife’s handle, her right hand reached to the glove compartment. She opened it and an M1911A1 pistol fell out and clattered to the floor of the car. “Behind that.”

She withdrew a large white envelope. Her name was printed on the front. I said, “In case you did well on the interview, we like to move straight into the hard sell.”

She ripped open the envelope. I’m not sure if she really appreciated the embossed LSI logo. Whatever. Keeping one eye on me, she scanned through the flowery prose. I could tell when she got to the salary (the “sticker number”) because her eyes went wide. I exhaled, as she continued reading.

“Health insurance kicks in after 6 months?” Suddenly the steel was tight under my chin again. She was a tough negotiator.

“For you, 3 months!” The metal began to move. Not left to right, which would slit the skin. But backward to forward. The German edge of her blade dropped my American stubble onto the Italian leather of the steering wheel. “Did I say 3 months? I meant when you start.”

Her hand fell down to her seat. “I accept.”

“Wonderful! We’re so happy to have you on board! Congratulations!” I leaned over to hug her in celebration.

The knived hand came back up. “Why don’t you just drive, for now, and we can have a party in a more neutral location.”

“Right.” I accelerated the Bentley back toward the train station.

“And our vision plan?” I flicked my eyes over to her side of the car. The knife was still in her hand.

“Only the finest.” And that’s how I recruited my new Junior Field Analyst.