I PUSH PAST a thick group of December sidewalk smokers, to enter a bar full of pool tables and skinny jeans. The women of Feagin Dixon are huddled around a table and an untouched pitcher of beer. In their business suits, they complicate the mood of the room like tourists in a world not their own. Here they look both familiar and strange to me. I pull up a chair and nobody acknowledges me. We don’t instinctively make that high-pitched noise of excitement that women make to greet each other. We’re cut from the same non-fun cloth; none of us grew up with money. We are scroungers who found a way to grow wealthy without a pedigree. We tend to not be girlfriend girls. We just want to do business and go home.
I tune in to the middle of a story that a usually spunky Michele Lane is relaying in an unusually subdued voice. Michele’s a late-twentysomething strawberry blonde who works on the institutional sales desk dealing with large money managers and is barraged with suggestive and even pornographic emails almost every working day. At least that’s what she’s telling the table.
“Propositions, threats that I better attend client dinners, better be peppy . . . stuff like that,” she says with wide, incredulous eyes.
“Do you have copies of them?” asks Alice Harlington, a dour, no-nonsense analyst who always appears to have just tasted something nasty.
“I printed and filed every disgusting email sent to me from the men we work with,” Michele replies. “But they make me second-guess myself each morning when I look in my closet. What can I wear that won’t get noticed? How will this fabric move if I sweat? I like to think I’m tough, but this is so draining, so distracting from work.”
Her voice trails off and heads nod all together. Women at investment banks tend not to make a fuss for very good reasons. On the first day of work, all Wall Street personnel sign their civil rights away with something called a “U4,” which states that if they have a bone to pick, it will be in the privacy of the company’s own legal offices, and not in front of a judge or on the pages of the New York Times. It would be an expensive and life-debilitating move to speak up. The last woman who should ever do such a thing would be one with three kids. What am I doing here?
Michele is still speaking. It turns out that my immediate boss, Simon Greene, wants to get cozy with her, calling her frequently in the evenings to meet for dinner.
“Still, I never feel as though I can turn him down. I mean, he’s my boss!” she finishes quietly, without her usual flag twirler enthusiasm.
I know exactly what Michele means; but what Michele doesn’t know about her boss is worse. Several weeks ago, I got a call from Edward Howe, a guy who used to be my client, but was now Michele’s since he had switched firms. He was her first institutional account—her first step into the big leagues. She set up a dinner to meet Edward until Simon got wind of her ambition and invited himself along to “give her pointers.” As Edward later explained to me, she was proposing investment ideas while Simon kept quiet and respectful at the table. That is, until Michele went to use the restroom.
While she was away, Simon leaned over to Edward and asked, “So, are you doing Michele yet?”
Edward was so bothered, he called me the next day.
“I can’t believe you have to work for an ass like that.” And then asked me to report his dinner to our human resources manager.
“Are you serious?” I had laughed.
“Doesn’t that bother you?” he asked.
“Bother me? Who cares if it bothers me? Any report filed just goes right back to Simon. Michele would be unemployed by Monday.”
Michele now tells the table, “He gave me a pair of diamond earrings with my last bonus. I was gracious, because the instant I turn nasty I’m out of a job, but how do I handle this?”
Then came Violette Hawes. “You accepted diamond earrings from Greene? Are you insane?”
“What should I have done?”
“Are you screwing him?” Amy asks point-blank.
“What? No!” Michele says, but blushes.
“You are,” Amy continues.
“She’s not,” I say. “I have great screwdar and Simon doesn’t even register on it.”
“?‘Screwdar’ meaning?” Alice asks, looking horrified.
“When men get overly joyful, a bell goes off in my head. It usually means they’ve either nailed a trade, or a woman who is not their wife. Simon isn’t happy enough to be getting away with anything. Can we continue, please?”
Michele tosses me a grateful look and the table slips into the silence of some support group waiting for the next person to share. I hate this stuff.
Violette clears her throat and before she speaks I know she’s going to undress me in front of the group.
“I’m uncomfortable having Belle here,” she says.
Everyone turns to stare at me. While it may be true that I was less than forthcoming about every detail of her future job, I knew Violette, standing five foot four and holding her own in a Wharton School conference room, was the person we needed, and that she was tough. There are some facts about people practically tattooed on their forehead and Violette being great at her job is a fact.
“Back when I interviewed in 2004,” Violette continued, “anyone who could read a balance sheet could get a job. The ball was in my court. I had lots of career options but Belle made it sound like FD was full of thriving executive women.”