As a tribute to long time colleague and royal pain in the ass Josh Feinberg’s recent surprise “voluntary” resignation, I thought I would relaunch this blog originally posted April 2008.
For the most part, my research sales department is harmless and filled with good hard working people that you wouldn’t mind having drinks with after work. But there’s this one guy (there’s always one guy), Josh Feinberg, who just may be the biggest D-bag on the street.
Josh is five feet short, 80 pounds of pure arrogance and has never been exposed to natural sunlight in his pestiferous life. Needless to say, Joshua, who is in his late 30’s has never had sex with a real live woman and instead spends so much of his time basking his puny little body in tanning salons that he often smells like burnt bacon. You got that? An eighty pound arrogant eunuch with white tanning rings around his eyes. It’s such a sweet look.
Thank god I only have one account in common with this jackass. Just like any other firm on Wall Street, my research salesmen get daily runs. They get reports emailed to them individually that show what business their clients did with the trading desk the prior day so they can monitor activity and keep track of commissions. This is not good enough forJosh. Josh would come by my desk every single day at lunch time and ask me if South Shore Capital was writing any tickets. Every Day. It’s wasn’t a big account for the firm, for me and it wasn’t even a meaningful client for Fienberg. It’s just part of this annoying pricks routine and I couldn’t make him stop. Josh Feinberg is that annoying d-bag in the car behind you who lays on the horn before the light even changes.
I finally told him, “You need to stop coming by my desk everyday and asking me the same fucking questions. I promise, I’ll send you an email when the come in.” That lasted for about two days until he cleverly came up with a new tactic. Josh continued to stop by my desk every day and ask me the same questions, only now, he would hide behind food and think he was now in some way camouflaged. Does that make any sense to you? Me neither. I’m still trying to figure out what’s going on in that little head of his. He seems to think that it’s now OK to come over as long as he’s chewing on something like an apple or crunching on some chips. I just don’t get it. Does he think I don’t recognize him with a piece of apple in his mouth. It’s fucking strange. Last week he came over balancing a container of low mein in one hand and trying to maneuver chop sticks with the other. It took everything I had not to grab those sticks and jam them into one of his raccoon rimmed eyes.
It didn’t take long to realize that for a little guy he was loaded with a lot 0f bull shit. Anytime South Shore came in, it’s because they were acting directly on Josh’s advice. If they were buying Microsoft, it’s because Josh just got telling them the should own it. If they were selling General Motors, it was because he was just telling the head portfolio manager how he thought it was time to lower exposure to the auto’s. Enough was enough.
Fuck him. I started lying to him. The best part about lying to Josh, is that he would lie right back. I would tell him South Shore was in buying some size in Pfizer, and he would tell me how he was on the phone for an hour the previous day pushing that very idea. South Shore doesn’t even trade health care… Jerk off. So after about 2 weeks of this and countless calls from Josh to our back office trying to figure out why the trades haven’t hit his run, I got pulled into the back office.
In an Ironic twist of fate, calls were made, work ethics questioned, relationships explored and when the dust settled… Josh was taken off the account. Turns out the client can’t stand him either. Apparently, Josh needs to spend more time on the phone with his clients and less time under the sun lamp. Here we are in June and the only two recommendations this guy gave this client was to buy two small cap regional banks back in January that are down a combined 39%.
Now when ever I think about it, I grab a handful of pretzels or whatever I can find laying around, walk over to Josh’s desk and ask him how things are going over at South Shore. Josh, the egotistical asshole that he is, is unaware of the fact that I know he’s been thrown off the account and won’t acknowledge the fact it’s no longer his. I’ve got him convinced that my college buddy was just hired to run the desk, starts next month and plans on lighting us up.
It’s a people business,
Dopey
