Bad Job Interview

A guy named Michael Lewis was fresh out of a Master's program at the London School of Economics and landed a job at Salomon Brothers in the early eighties. He wrote a book about his experiences called "Liar's Poker." Part of the training program at Salomon entailed listening to lectures from different traders.

'When [O'Grady] entered the classroom, the first thing he did was to have the video that usually recorded events shut off. Then he closed the door. Then he checked for eavesdroppers on the ledges outside the twenty-third-floor windows. Only then did he sit down.

He began by telling us how he had come to Salomon. He had been one of the firm's lawyers. The firm's lawyers, when they saw how good traders had it, often ended up as traders themselves. The firm had actually invited O'Grady to apply. He interviewed on a Friday afternoon. His first meeting was with a managing director named Lee Kimmell. When O'Grady walked into Kimmell's office, Kimmell was reading his resume. He looked up from the resume and said, "Amherst Phi Beta Kappa, star athlete, Harvard Law School, you must get laid a lot." O'Grady laughed (what else do you do?).

"What's so funny?" asked Kimmell.
"The thought that I get laid a lot," said O'Grady.
"That's not funny," said Kimmell, a viciousness coming into his voice. "How much do you get laid?"
"That's none of your business," said O'Grady.

Kimmell slammed his fist on his desk. "Don't give me that crap. If I want to know, you tell me. Understand?"
Somehow O'Grady squirmed through his interview and others, until, at the end of the day, he found himself facing the same man who had given me my job, Leo Corbett.

"So, Dick," said Corbett, "What would you say if I offered you a job?"
"Well," said O'Grady, "I'd like to work at Salomon, but I'd also like to go home and think it over for a day or two."
"You sound more like a lawyer than a trader," said Corbett.
"Leo, I'm not making a trade; I'm making an investment," said O'Grady.
"I don't want to hear any of that Harvard Law School clever bullsh--," said Corbett. "I'm beginning to think you would be a real mistake. . . . I'm going to walk out of here and come back in ten minutes, and when I come back, I want an answer."

O'Grady's first reaction, he said, was that he had just made a catastrophic error in judgment. Then he thought about it like a human being (what was so refreshing about O'Grady was that unlike the other men from 41, he seemed genuinely human). Salomon had invited him to interview. Where did these butt-heads get off issuing ultimatums? O'Grady worked himself into an Irish rage. Corbett was gone far longer than he promised, making O'Grady even angrier.

"Well. . ." said Corbett, upon his return.
"Well, I wouldn't work here for all the money in the world," said O'Grady. "I've never met more a------s in my entire life. Take your job and stick it up your a--."
"Now I am finally beginning to hear something I like," said Corbett. "That's the first smart thing you've said all day."
O'Grady stormed out of Salomon Brothers and took a job with another Wall Street firm.'


That was only the beginning of the story though. About a year later after O'Grady had become an excellent bond salesman Salomon called him again, apologized for the way it had treated him and amazingly he agreed to listen and was hired.