People want advice from me?

EMAIL
I just got this email today - I guess this means I have arrived.. MBAs actually want to take me out and treat me to drinks and dinner in exchange for a few words of wisdom from my 6.5 years as an investment banker.

"Hi [G],

Trust you are doing well! I am the VP for Alumni Relations at the Haas Finance Club. I am organizing informal drink & dinner events for club members who are interested to interact with alums in the finance industry. The event will be open to not more than 10-12 students and about 2-3 alums so that it provides an intimate setting for students and alums to network with each other.

I am writing to see if you will be interested to attend such a focused drink & dinner event. I am working to fill up the schedule for the April and May and was wondering if any of the below dates in San Francisco between 6pm and 8pm suits your calendar"

Boy will they be disappointed. While I can serve them with the truth of investment banking and how sometimes the hours suck, and how the job makes it hard to stay in a relationship, or how at the end of some days your bosses will make you feel completely worthless, I think I'll be nice. Some of these guys have dreamt of being investment bankers since applying to b-school - who the hell am I to crush their dreams. Instead, I'll focus on the positives and perks of this position. In other words, I will be like Harold in this clip…

IN-N-OUT

This place has so many secret items its ridiculous. I have been eating at this place for the past 10+ years, ever since I discovered the grilled cheese. Then when I was about to start at Cal, my elder sister let me in on the greatness known as "animal style". At first, I told my sister that makes no sense - we are freaking vegetarians, why would we want "animal style" on a grilled cheese. Needless to say, I listened to her (after she offered to pay if I did not like it) and have been hooked on animal style grilled cheese.

So for past couple years, I considered myself and In-n-out snob. I took pride and passing along the knowledge of animal style burger and considered people who were not aware of it as rookies.

However my last trip there with my little brother made me realize I did not know anything. I walked in with my little bro talking about the 4x4, challenging him to eat one. He had never heard of it so I tried describing it. I have obviously never had one, and I got to imagine a grilled cheese 4x4 is disgusting.

A couple of big cholos ahead of me ordered a couple things ahead that I had no idea existed and one thing that rocked my world:

-Animal style fries: Apparently you can get your fries "animal style". This essentially means they put some American cheese and grilled onions on top of your fries. Now I am a fan of cheese fries so in theory this sounds pretty good. But American cheese is not the same as cheddar and it actually is disgusting.

-Secret Sauce: If shitload amount of thousand island/secret sauce is not enough for you, you can actually get packets of the secret sauce on the side for your burger and for your fries. I actually was not a big fan but I saw others throughly enjoying fries and thousand island.

-Hot Peppers: The one complaint I have always had about in-n-out is that there was no spice. The store did not even have any Tabasco to use. I was shocked when the aforementioned cholos asked for cholos and gave them these hot peppers. I of course followed suit and had proceeded to put about 7 in my grilled cheese. It was awesome.

THE MAID

Men have always had a secret love for maids. The idea of a French maid cleaning your pad is a theme played out in a lot of porn (that I of course have only heard about). While yes it would be ideal if my maid was a 6 foot blonde girl who is willing to clean my place wearing a sexy litte outfit, unfortunately that does not happen in the real world.

Instead I have Christina and I love her to death.

Christina is our maid who comes every two weeks and for eighty dollars cleans up our bachelor pad. Not only does she does requisite stuff (clean the bathrooms, vacumn, dust, do the dishes, etc), she also washes our sheets and occasionally will do a load of towels for us. More importantly, Christina is not hot. She is @ 40 years old, weighs a healthy 160 and barely speaks any English. Christina also cannot write in English for the life of her - I have seen 2nd graders who have better spelling than her.

However, I always get excited and happy knowing that she is coming in a couple days. For me, its like the feeling when you were a kid before Christmas waiting for Santa Claus to come. Let me explain. Normally, as adults we try to clean up after ourselves, especially when you have roommates. You try to do the dishes and try to make sure to put shit back from where you got it. Your room always has to be in somewhat decent shape (in case you have a female vistior, etc). I have to conciously think about it, because by nature I am a messy person. I don’t mind clothes on the floor, having my toothpaste cap open or having the occasional pube in my soap. However, I force myself to act more mature and try to be more aware.

In any case, if I know she is coming in the next two days, I let loose. Its like a caged animal returning to the wild. Egg shells are left in the sink, plates pile up in the sink and food hardens on the unwashed plates. Clothes are everywhere and trash is overfilling the can and now laying on the floor. I feel like a kid in the candy shop. I am more messy than normal. I take the time to do a little body grooming not worrying about cleaning up the hair off the ground. All because I know the next day when I return from work the place will be spotless. The place will smell fresh and everything will be put in its place. Its like magic. I love it. Its like Christmas every two weeks.

When we first got her, I was very cautious and concerned that she might jack something from my room without my knowledge. I would strategically leave dollars bills throughtout the pad and change to see if any of it would be missing when I got back. However, to my surprise, she never took a single penny. Fuck me.