“There’s a typo on page 2.”

“To drop the ball,” to be guilty of a major oversight, to make a significant mistake.  Usage note:  This expression, used often in the investment banking world, is similar in meaning to “fall asleep at the wheel (or switch),” which will be the subject of a future FEotD post.  However, today’s phrase is more effective because bankers respond so passionately to that good jock talk.  It must be noted that one risks career suicide by using this expression about someone higher than you in the investment banking hierarchy.  An associate, chagrined after a tongue-lashing from a senior VP on the “deal team” (another future FEotD) and in a moment of weakness, might confess to his office-mates (occupying a tiny, three-person internal closet with no windows), “Yeah, I really dropped the ball on that one, the global map of company operations in the pitchbook shades a little bit too much of Rhode Island.”

After the ‘swing by’

When working as a junior banker, one of the most dreaded questions directed at you is “Could you swing by?”  This seemingly innocuous request nearly always carries in its wake negative outcomes of greater or lesser degree.  Coming from an associate above you, it will typically mean “I’m going to ask you to do something so ridiculous, you won’t believe it”.  Of course, he will never say that exactly, but will insist that the frivolous task is critical to complete.

Take the case of George D., an associate who asked me this question one fateful night years ago.  Upon “swinging by” at about 9 PM, George instructed me to take a book of probably a thousand pages (an industry trade reference manual of some sort) down to the copy center to have it copied by morning- the whole thing.  When I reported back that they wouldn’t do it due to copyright law, he exploded hurling profanities at me then demanded I stand at the copy machine and do it myself.  When I kindly told George to “GFY- I won’t be standing at the copier all night”, another explosion ensued which was sure to quickly devolve into a melee had not a nearby MD stepped out of his office to query the cause of consternation.  When I explained what I was asked to do, the MD flatly told Georgie boy that “we pay these analysts too much to stand at a copy machine all night”.  George hated me ever after. Continue reading →