The 10 Commandments Of Being An Intern On Wall Street Is Going Viral

WSJ - Summer is here and a new wave of interns on Wall Street are polishing their outfits and working on nailing their first impressions. One mischievous young banker at Barclays BCS -1.63% PLC has offered his underlings some specific instructions. A second-year analyst in the bank’s Global Power & Utilities group, Justin Kwan, emailed out some (dubious) pointers for the temporary help coming into his group. His email, titled “Welcome to the Jungle,” is now making the rounds on Wall Street — no doubt to the delight of many of his young counterparts, but not so much to his bosses. Mr. Kwan, who notes in his e-mail that his group is “unique” and the “frattiest,” offers his “10 power commandments” – demanding the interns “Respect them, love them, live them.”

So this email chain is making the rounds on Wall Street. I’m actually hearing the dude who wrote it got fired which would be bananas because I didn’t even think this was bad. Not even a little bit. It was actually exactly what I’d expect to hear from an investment bank intern’s life is like. You live, breath, sleep the internship. Only the strong survive. And then if you make it through you make millions doing a job that takes no real talent and fleecing the rest of America. So yes you need to pay the price to get the highest low talent job in the world.

Anyway it kind of got me thinking to my intern 10 commandments.  Here they are.

Barstool Intern 10 Commandments

1. If you’re a chick you better be blazing hot.

Sexual harassment is gonna happen.  People are gonna ask you to twirl.  Stoolies are gonna say inappropriate stuff.  You know it going in so it doesn’t actually count as sexual harrassment in the workplace.

2. If You’re Boring Guy At Least Have a disability that I can make fun of.

The Blind Mike effect.

3. If you commit the crime do the time

Prime difference between Hank and Pirate Simon. Hank got caught being an internet troll and he took his abuse like a man. Sure he probably bad mouthes me behind my back and shit, but I don’t care. He took his whoopin like a man and now has a full time job for life. The Porn King somehow tried to make it seem like he was a victim. Bro you downloaded pirate porn and lied about it. You ain’t no victim. You don’t dabble in porn. Put on the eye patch and shut up.

4. Don’t Be Late

Duh.

5. Don’t speak unless spoken to

This isn’t Kelly Kapor story hour. If you have something to say it better be good. I’m not looking to just shoot the shit with interns.

6. Come Up With Your Own Ideas

It doesn’t matter how many times I tell our interns this. They seem stunned when I don’t spend all day spoon feeding them Gerbils baby food. I already got enough guys who leech off my brain to survive. Bring something new to the table and I’ll hire you.

7. Everything is Fair Game For content

You’re greatest value to me is I don’t care if your feelings get hurt or you get embarrassed. You walk through this door your life is an open book. You are at my mercy. If I think you do something that people will laugh at it’s fair game. You don’t like it? Go be a twitter egg.

8. Sleeping With Boss Is Cool

Just throwing it out there for any chicks we may or may not hire with names that start with D and end with A.

9. Bring in Dunkin Donuts Munchkins 1 Time

How hard is this? I swear it’s day 1 office stuff. Everybody loves munchkins.

10. Don’t Ask About Money

Grown men would cut off their own fingers and toes for this opportunity. I’ve hired 50% of our interns for full time jobs. If you actually show motivation and don’t totally fuck it up you could land a dream job. You should work for free and with a smile. But whatever you do don’t ask for a raise on the first day.

10B. (Late Entry)  You need cable and internet at your house

Interns never cease to amaze me.  I assigned Intern Casey the job of social media manager at night.  His job was to watch all the big games and TV shows and make sure we tweet all the vines and things going viral blah, blah, blah.   Well last night our Barstool account sucked for the NBA Finals.  When I asked him what happened he casually mentioned he didn’t have TV or internet at his house.  Hmm, think that’s important for this job?

I also asked our new crop of interns to put together their list of what it takes to be a successful intern.  Obviously I had to come up with the idea. Here is what they had to say.  For some reason they couldn’t grasp the concept of 10 commandments.

Barstool Intern 10 Commandments According To Our Interns

1. Don’t ask for a raise on your first day
2. Dress for the job you have, not the job you want
3. If you aren’t a complete maniac it could lead to a job
4. Don’t walk into Dave’s office unless you’re Dana
5. Keep up on Game of Thrones because there’s no such thing as spoilers in the office.
6. “Don’t steal booze from the green room. Just ask”-Hank
7. Be on time, or at least before Dave gets here
8. It’s all about the page views
9. Look busy.  The average workday consists of about 11 minutes of work, so its good to bring some work of your own.  I typically like to work my second job.
10. Expect Dave to act like you’re an idiot if you don’t know something.
11. Expect Dave to know nothing. 
12. If you personally need anything, just tell Dave it’s for work and he’ll give you his credit card.
13. The bathroom is nothing short of barbaric.  Time your meals right and it shouldn’t be an issue.
14. Trust is handed out like candy around here.  My first job here was to make keys to the office for all the interns.  Only a week later and the Barstool credit card is linked to my Amazon account.  Keep this in your back pocket and always be one step ahead.
15. The headquarters is about 2 blocks from the ghetto.  Map your route carefully.
16. All the good sniffs are in fact taken out of the panties nailed to the wall so don’t even bother.