My pick up line is way better…“hey, you been watching the kardashians?” girl replies, “yeahhhh omg, Kim is such a bytch”…I reply…“why don’t you come over i got some deleted scenes from the last season…you should see what Scott did behind Kourtney’s back”…
I have a cousin who will not waste more than 2 mins before he lets you know that he works at JP Morgan.
I don’t like to talk about work… Inevitably, the conversation goes one of two ways: 1) What do you think about these new regulations? or 2) What should I invest in? I dislike talking about regulations. Making investment recommendations to non-finance people makes me uncomfortable. So best to avoid either subject.
Well, i suppose it is better than telling someone you are unemployed
.
“I’m a farmer”.
“No really, I am”
Hasn’t gotten me anywhere though.
I generally try to follow Numi’s strategy. Eventually they figure it out. Although in Austin, “figuring it out” means figuring out I don’t work in a bar or bike shop.
Women like to solve the mysteries they create in their heads.
You must not be doing it right. Where I grew up, girls loved the farmers. In Iowa, those guys are making 6-7 figures a year working eight months.
farmers can make a million bucks a year? i’m talking net income…
Hmm. Maybe you are on to something. I think the key is to show subtle hints that you are a BSD, but not explicitly say anything. For instance, wear a token luxury item (like a Rolex or something) but remain elusive about your profession. The token luxury item raises the mean expectation, and the lack of details creates volatility in the distribution of expectations. If there is a wide range of expectations, you can take advantage of the high outliers. It’s science!
I come from family of snake charmers.
Works like a charm
Definitely. We have a several hundred acre plot in North Dakota, guy was paying like $110-140k a year to lease and farm (normal for that area). He has his own machinery, etc, and rents and farms several properties. Making high six figures. That’s what most of them do out there if they have the experience and capital (not as bad of a capital layout as you think if you rent.). If you own several hundred to several thousand acres, you’re making all of that plus the difference the rent. You’d never know it, but since corn took off, the commercial farmers out there have all become quiet hillbillies with bank accounts that’d make most Goldman guys STFU for a second.
“Farm earnings in the state and throughout the U.S. increased at eight times the rate of nonfarm wages from 2008 to 2011”
Grain Millionaires
Booming worldwide demand for grain has showered wealth on farmers by tripling Iowa land values in the past decade and setting them up for record profits this year, even in the face of the nation’s worst drought in more than half a century, the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects.
Land that had long produced boxcars full of corn and soybeans is now yielding a new crop: locally grown millionaires. In doing so, it has brought to the nation’s rural areas the kind of income divide that had long been the province of urban America.
All this because of massive Agricultural Subsidies (rounghly $20 billion) that have the direct effect of transferring income from the general tax payers to farm owners. Not to mention, the impact on farmers from poorer countries that cannot afford the subsidy and cannot compete in the international food market.
Don’t want to sound like Chris Martin or any other Fair Trade activist but their is some truth in the above
Most of the people I know who work at Goldman are actually fairly discreet about it. They’ll tell you, but usually only if they’ve been asked, or they are in a business conversation and it really is a relevant item.
I’d venture that that person is either: 1) in some role like “doorman,” or 2) simply lying.
Like everywhere, I think it depends and also varies on the department where the person works. A GSAM senior analyst or PM who made partner is much more discreet than a first year IB analyst. Just sayin’.
Yeah, except for the Goldman guys that underwrite the ethanol plants. Know a guy that made mint doing that four or five years ago.
Point taken. Perhaps the ones that are too into the name don’t last long enough to be senior, or learn to be more discreet over time.
I think it also varies by how much you actually make. If you are a 25-year-old making $200k, you feel like a BSD. But once you start making $500k or higher… you start to realize that you don’t actually deserve that much money. So you keep quiet due to your feelings of guilt.
Do successful financial types actually have feelings of guilt? I thought that was only Warren Buffet? 
It probably depends on the person and the culture of the company where you work. From my experience, there is a point where you start to feel guilty… I’m not sure if it’s a function of time or compensation. Some people quit and do something else. Other people like me stick around and eat the cake… just because you feel guilty doesn’t mean you stop eating the cake.
It might also depend on who you compare yourself to. Lots of my friends are graduate students (or newly graduated), or struggling startup people. They are as smart or smarter than me, so the income disparity is weird. However, if you come from a true finance background and all your friends are investment bankers, maybe your definition of “normal” is different.