Liars Poker

This is an excerpt from the book Liars Poker, and how a guy gets into Salomon Brothers and gets trained. The scene is from a classroom filled with trainees.

"Each trainee had to decide for himself. Thus was born the Great Divide.Those who chose to put on a full court grovel from the opening buzzer found seats in the front seats in the front of the classroom, where they sat through the entire 5 month program (lips puckered). Those who treasured their pride,or perhaps thoguht it best to remain aloof, feigned cool indifference by sittin gin the back row, and hurling paper wads at managing directors.

I considered myself an exception, of course. I was accused by some of being a front row person because I liked to sit next to the man from Harvard school and watch him draw organisational charts. I wondered if he would succeed (he didnt). Also, I asked too many questions. It was assumed that I did this to ingratiate myself with the speakers, like a front row person. This was untrue. But try telling that to the back row seaters. I lamely compensated for my curiosity by hurling a few paper wads at important traders. And my stock rose dramatically when I got thrown out of class while reading the newspaper while a trader spoke.

Of all exceptions, however, the Japanese were the greatest. The Japanese undermined any analysis of our classroom culture. All six of them sat in the front row and slept. Their heads rocked back and forth, and on occasion fell over to one side, so that their cheeks ran parallel to the floor. So it was hard to argue that they were just listening with their eyes shut, as Japanese businessmen are inclined to do. The most charitable explanation for their apathy was that they couldnt understand english. They kept to themselves, however,and you could never be sure of their language skills or their motives. Their leader was a man named Yoshi. Each morning and afternoon the back row boys made bets on how many minutes it would take Yoshi to fall asleep. They liked to think Yoshi was a calculating troublemaker. Yoshi was their hero. A small cheer would go up in the back row when Yoshi crashed, partly because someone had just won a pile of money, but also in appreciation of any man who had the balls to fall asleep in the front row."

The last paragraph was my fav!

Woken

I woke to the sound of my cat's incessant mewing. She was hungry and we had run outta cat food. Tough luck. Not for my cat, but for me. My day usually begins at 1, but now cuz I gotta feed the poor thing, it starts at 11.

Man, Im gonna hate being a father lol