Fresh Meat

The daylight lingers a bit longer and a warm breeze blows down 5th Avenue. At Benevolent Dictators, Inc. that can only mean one thing: the summer intern season is finally here! You see them in the elevators and roaming the halls. Young, fresh faced fraternity robots and sorority chippies who bubble over with enthusiasm and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. New ties and cuff links for the fellas and a smart new Talbots wardrobe for the gals. They’ve spent their entire lives within the protective confines of a classroom (except for an occasional backpacking sojourn across Europe). It’s all they know! Their innocence is equal parts touching and nauseating. Theirs is the unsullied outlook of a people who haven’t been torched by reality yet, bless them.

If you see one approaching your desk to pick your brain, it’s best to hunker down underneath it and pretend you’re away at a meeting. Otherwise, be prepared to get trapped in a dull, time-sucking discussion about which of our investment vehicles are focus products and why.

Not a joke: Yesterday I rode the elevator down with two young, strapping bucks and one said to the other, without the slightest hint of irony or sarcasm, “If I had a rough night I could always just skip a class and sleep in, but this place expects you to be here every day!”

That’s right, junior. Every. Fucking. Day.