Back to the grind

Well Memorial Day was nice. I spent it inside studying for the CFA exam and cleaning the apartment. I have a lot to learn still for the CFA, but I'm feeling good about it. Things are starting to warm up here and it's starting to get humid. I've heard that this isn't even close to what it will be in a month.

Today at work I got staffed on a project again. This time it involved working through a presentation for a client that is looking to purchase some assets and wants our firm to both provide the financing and find buyers for the debt it will incur. It's a cool project and I'm happy to have work! They gave us some accounting homework to do but working on a live deal is a LOT more exciting than more accounting worksheets.

Today I was really glad that I have done a lot of work in Excel before I started this internship. I was blowing through these spreadsheets and I got a lot done in a short amount of time. I've never done credit comps before, but today I was working through some income statements for a few companies and looking at their credit metrics. A lot of the work that I've done involves pulling 10Ks and 10Qs and checking/updating models and making sure they still flow correctly. Probably 70% of my time is spent going through company filings.

One thing that I had to learn the hard way is that when you look up information, it's really important to have a hard copy to back up any numbers you put into a model. You have to actually print out the 10K and then highlight all the stuff you are inputting so when your associate comes up and says, "Where did you get this 2007 Letters of Credit number?" you can pull out your copy and show him. Otherwise you look really stupid and then you go find the number.

Tonight I was also put in charge of ordering dinner for everybody. It sounds simple, but freakin SeamlessWeb logged me off after I had put in the first 10 orders so I had to start all over. It was the first time I've really experienced the wrath of bankers. More than a few people came by and said, "What's the status?? When will you be done with this??" It's funny that when it comes to food, the deadline was last Friday and you're already late when you start. I finally got the food ordered and then went down to pick it up. When I came back, I realized that they only delivered half of the order! Everybody gave me a hard time, but they all laughed because it wasn't my fault. It turns out the restaurant ran out of paper and only the first page of our order got printed. The other analysts went on and on about "doing your diligence" and "attention to detail" and how I should have known to ask about the restaurant's paper status. It was funny.

I was about to leave at about 9:15 tonight when another analyst that I've worked with called me and asked if I could help him scrub a deck. That phrase sounds like something a pirate would do. That's funny. Anyway, he had me go through a 70-page deck with red pen all over it from an MD. It was crazy how bad this guy's handwriting is. Seriously - I could write better with my feet than this guy. It's like he knew that some poor analyst or intern would have to stay up half the night trying to decipher his scribble. We got through it and made the changes. I felt bad because I ended up leaving before the analyst. I probably shouldn't do that again, but I didn't really have anything else to do and my group is really big on NOT getting more face time. They always say, "If you're done, go home!!!" I like it.

Well I'm off to bed. I have to be the first one in the office tomorrow.