Smile And Dial!

I spent the month of May and the first two weeks of June 1987 hanging out in Montreal and taking one summer-school finance class at McGill.

The finance class didn't take up that much time so I took a part-time job at the Montreal Gazette selling subscriptions over the phone. I knew going in that it would be an absolutely brutal job. However, I was only planning to do it for four weeks and I figured that learning to cold call people might be a handy skill to have later in life.

As I expected, the job was agonizing. I thought that the Montreal Gazette might provide some sort of training. It didn't. When we arrived in the morning, a scrawny assistant manager with feathered hair and a cheesy, wispy little moustache would hand us a list of names and telephone numbers. Once we were seated, the manager, a grossly overweight bald guy in his early forties, would stand among the bank of phones to report on the prior day's results. Of course, they were never good enough. After beating us down, the manager would offer us some words of encouragement. He'd end each speech the same way--bellowing: "SMILE AND DIAL!"

Although I detested the job, I was right about the experience teaching me not to fear the phone. Any time I find myself hesitating to call a prospective client, I just think of the fat manager at the Montreal Gazette, laugh a little and then yell: "SMILE AND DIAL!" It works every time.

FREEEEEE-DOMMMMMM!

It's hard to believe that an entire month has passed since my last post. However, I've been busy trying to get my new law practice up and running. I was in Toronto last week on a business development junket and had a very good meeting with one of the largest pension funds in Canada.

You're no doubt thinking, "What kind of an idiot starts a business in THIS economic climate?" Well, my business model is to provide pension funds, private equity firms and corporate legal departments with cost-effective, senior level U.S. transactional counsel on an interim or project basis. My hourly billing rate is less than 40% of what it would be if I were still with a major New York firm. That should sell very, very, very well provided that clients are actually DOING transactional work....

To be honest, I'm not sure how this is going to work out. On the one hand, I could end up making a lot more money, working far fewer hour and doing it all on my own terms. In other words, I could rightly cry "FREEEEEE-DOMMMMMM!" like this guy:

On the other hand, maybe the kind of transactional work in which I specialize will be going into a prolonged funk. What if things have changed forever? My big fear is that I've geared up to fight a war that's no longer being waged. Maybe I'm the corporate lawyer version of this guy:

--one of those World War II Japanese soldiers who fought on oblivious to the fact that the war was over (the photo above is of Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier who continued to fight on until 1974--you can check out the whole story here http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=253).

Wish me luck!

"Pilot To Bombardier...."

My next flight to Toronto will be on board an Air Canada Jazz Dash-8 sort of like this one:

I've flown on Dash-8s before and it's definitely a different experience from flying on jets. The dull roar of the propellers is omnipresent--it doesn't seem to fade into the "white noise" background like the sound of jet engines does. Also, the cruising altitude is a lot lower. You can see down to the ground most of the time.

Flying on a Dash-8 always summons up my "inner Walter Mitty." I feel like I'm on a bombing run over WW II Germany in a B-24 bomber like this one:

Isn't that an awesome looking plane? If you blow up the photo, you'll see that there's a skull and cross bones painted on the tail. Cool!

I'm totally psyched about my flight to Toronto. The Niagara Escarpment region sort of looks like Eastern Germany. Hamilton will make a fine stand-in for Dresden and as we approach you just know I'll be saying, "Pilot to bombardier. Pilot to bombardier," in my head. And yes, in my mind, the tail of my plane will be adorned with a skull and cross bones....

The Christmas Nymph

Well, another Christmas has come and gone. And I couldn't be happier. I've hated Christmas most of my life. I thought it was great when I was a little kid--I mean what small child doesn't love being bombarded with gifts--but, once I got a bit older, I started to wonder about the whole thing.

I think the thing that bugs me most about Christmas is how a sombre Christian holiday has been transmogrified into an orgy of empty commercialism and pressure to spend, spend, spend. I'm also confused by some of the imagery associated with Christmas. Wisemen, mangers and camels I can understand. But Santa Claus? What does he have to do with the birth of the Christ child? And Christmas trees? Haven't those been co-opted from pagan winter rituals? Isn't having a living coniferous tree in your house something that might appeal more to Wiccans than Christians? Just asking....

Maybe part of the reason that I'm such a Grinch is that there really isn't a part of Christmas focused on adult guys. The kids have Santa Claus, the women have the decorating and baking and all that other crap. Adult men? We get nothing. I propose the introduction of the Christmas Nymph, a comely young woman who will do a seductive dance around the Christmas tree while kids open their gifts and women watch them do it. Imagine, if you a will, a hottie like this:

Whoa-HO-HO, talk about a Merry Christmas! Forget about my two-year old son, I'd be the first one downstairs Christmas morning if I knew she was waiting for me!

Gentlemen, let's all band together. The time for the Christmas Nymph has come!

Lawyers Gone Bad....Yet Again

The most successful guy in my law school class never practiced law. Not one day. A math major and actuary prior to law school, he returned to finance as soon as we graduated. After several years creating sophisticated financial products for some of the largest insurance companies in the world, my classmate chucked it all to start a hedge fund based upon an algorithm that he had created that generated consistent gains through currency arbitrage trading. Over the course of ten years, all the trappings of extraordinary success--the monster house, a collection of classic cars, personal jet travel and eye-popping philanthropic giving--ensued.

And then my classmate was indicted for running what the U.S. Attorney called "a classic Ponzi scheme." According to the indictment, there had never been a trading algorithm. My classmate was simply taking money from people, generating fictitious trading records and using funds from later investors to pay "returns" to earlier investors.

My former colleague and friend, Philip Slayton, is the author of Lawyers Gone Bad--Money. Sex and Madness In Canada's Legal Profession. Here's Philip looking considerable more relaxed than when we practiced together back in the day:

Philip's book generated a lot of buzz in the Canadian media when it came out in the summer of 2007. Things really took off when Macleans did a cover story on Philip's book using the headline: "Lawyers Are Rats!"

Philip, if you ever want to do a second edition of your book, have I ever got a story for you!

US Thanksgiving Musings

Well, another U.S. Thanksgiving has come and gone. I've really grown to enjoy Thanksgiving and some of its traditions. I get a particular kick out of the Presidential turkey pardon. I'm not sure why I like it so much, but I think it's because there's always the possibility that the turkey will go berserk and embark upon an all out claw scratching, beak pecking assault on the leader of the Free World. Here's a photo of President Bush taken last Wednesday pardoning 2008's lucky gobbler:

No outrageous turkey behavior this year. But, there's always next year!

My parents came from B.C. to join the festivities this year. I was a little concerned about how my mother and my mother-in-law would get along. I joked with my wife and sister about getting a pair of those semi-circlular blade-tipped thingies that Kirk and Spock fought with in that classic episode of Star Trek. You know, the things in the following photo:

Nothing as dramatic as the fight between Kirk and Spock (which you can catch here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyhhFzE5O5U) broke out. Just a lot of wary eyeballing. Once again, there's always next year!