Welcome to the financial world. Today I'm writing from you from the trading floor since my project is basically done and I need to at least appear useful and productive. Unfortunately, the truth is, I am the exact opposite in this situation. Everyone around me is well out of puberty and high school's grasp. unsurprisingly enough, investment banking requires a little more than a high school education. So to some up this situation, I'd say it's similar to walking into a test unprepared and the only reasonable response being f*ck (official banking term).

Thankfully the team I'm working with is extremely receptive and welcoming. My official mentor took off on official business half way across the world Tuesday afternoon and left me at the mercy of his team for the next two weeks. Yesterday was my first official day flying solo and I managed not to crash and burn. It consisted of researching and meetings.

Meeting numbero uno I was especially looking forward to since it had so eloquently been compared to toilet cleaning. This meeting was between the front room (traders, sales people and me) and the back room (IT and HR). On the upcoming months, RBS London will be doing a systems test to check response time if thee is any electrical or tech crash. The back room created a ton of flow charts mapping out the workings of all the systems used on a daily basis. The front room people needed to tell them what connection routes needed to go back up ASAP in order for business to continue. From what I was told beforehand, despite the efforts put into this test, it always ends up being a waste of a Sunday- hence the earlier comparison.

the second meeting I went to was a little rough to sit through. It was an initial planning session on the implementation of a website similar to RBSmarketplace site (geared towards traders, treasurers, etc) at Ulster bank(owned by RBS) in Ireland. During this meeting a variety of individuals mixed the cocktail of money, goals and design that would result in the Ulster part mix. Not really, but there's no point in you experiencing the actual events too. Quick run down - logistics.

At the end up of each meeting, I always up being asked if I managed to stay awake. This is proving to be quite a hard question to answer because on of these days I may end up telling the truth...