Bonus Season.

I LOOOOVE bonus season!! At the end of my review, my “number” for the year was handed over to me on a piece of paper. Strange. It was then followed by the following comment “We are paying you this much because we want you to live whatever lifestyle you please without worrying about money.” Umm…I love recessions!!!

I know I know. You’re cursing me. You’re wondering why I have been dormant for 8 months, only to come back alive just to rub this shit in your face. Je suis desole. 2011 has been a work hard and no play year for femme (hence the superb bonus).  It has made blogging an impossible job for me. At least you know I have a legitimate PE job.

The highlight of my 2011 was drinking too much cristal at Cuvee and almost puking on our flight home on the PJ. The captain was not very happy with moi. You would think that if you’re going to spend that much money on champagne, it’d at least cause a milder hangover. Apparently, I got ripped off.

Anyway, I will attempt to make it up to you. 2012 will be a better year for blogging.

Happy holidays my finance dearies.

The Older Gentleman

Ok so he’s not that old, but having only dated men that fall within a very narrow age band, 36 feels very old. Older Gentleman (OG) and I went on a date last night and so far here are my pros and cons:

Pros:
1. Old enough to know to never let a girl walk on the outside of the sidewalk
2. Owns his place
3. Owns a boat
4. Emotionally stable
5. I don’t really care to wonder who makes more money

Cons:
1. I can’t help but wonder if he’s still single at this age, what’s wrong with him?
2. Has never heard of Gossip Girl. Generation gap
3. The idea of bottle service at a club has no appeal whatsoever. Would prefer to watch a movie at home. zzzzZzzzzz
4. Seems too mellow and content with life. Not really looking for an exciting adventure

Conclusion: Moving back to men closer to my age.

Aww hef, you’re such a gentleman.

Superficialicious

Thanks to other stupid PE funds jumping on the early recruiting bandwagon, recruiting season has begun.

I’ve started to notice that finance firms love pretty people. When I look around at our associates, they are tall, athletic and incredibly good looking. I love going out with them because they are like my trophies. My girl friends are constantly asking about our next office happy hour. I really should start a dating service.

Even when I interview new recruits, I can’t help but automatically dismiss the dorky, unattractive guys immediately, while with the good looking ones, I try really really hard to like them. Well he didn’t exactly get the question right, but he tried really hard and his answer was really creative! A for effort.

Why is it that I can’t help but want to hire the tall, athletic, incredibly symmetrical looking guy? I know there’s been tons of experiments done on how society treats attractive and unattractive people.  People just want to be near, help or be friends with beautiful people. And since buy-side finance is the king of the hill, it can attract cream of the crop beautiful people.

So…basically, I am just contributing to my firm’s success by hiring a guy/girl who will have a higher likelihood of being liked by everyone. Thank you for letting me justify my shallowness.

Boy, do I love casual fridays!

The Year of Awesome

I’m sorry for going on hiatus for two years, but 1) some of my fellow bloggers (Casual Dater and Harper) stopped blogging and 2) I got into a relationship. Damnit. I am such a typical girl. Why do girls always drop everything once they get into a relationship and reappear in the social limelight once that relationship is over? We’ll I am 100% guilty of such crime.

Anyhoo. Femme fatale is back. Instead of selling out and going to business school to get my MRS degree, I got myself promoted. Congrats you say? Yes! Congratulations to me for making it that much harder to find a FBF more competent and successful than I am. Congratulations for sealing my destiny to becoming an old maid with 20 cats!

Just kidding. This is not going to be a blog about how depressing it is to be a femme in finance (because it is not). Instead, I am here to remind all of you wonderful femmes why our jetsetting lifestyle is amazing.

2011 is going to be The Year of Awesome and I hope to share the awesomeness with all of you. Stay tuned!

Door #1.

Door #2.

Hm. I think I slightly prefer door #2.

Awake from my slumber

Femme Fatale has been on vacation for way too long. She is finally back.

Many lessons have been learned over the last 2 years, but those stories will be shared over time. But I will share lesson #1 with you, the most important lesson of all:

As a femme fatale in finance, you must avoid dating guys who are less successful than you. Period.

Unless they are a hot fling in a foreign country.

Good night dawlings. Signing off from Buenos Aires.

jet set

summer is nearly over

it’s finally time for this finance femme to jetset

my destination below:

ciao bellas!

Hide your beagle, Vick’s an eagle

One of the things I enjoy the most about being a femme in finance is the new interests you pick up as a result of being surrounded by all dudes.

Fantasy Football.

I started my firm 2 years ago, not being able to name more than 5 football teams in the NFL. But as part of our firm’s long tradition, every person had to play in our annual fantasy football league. No exceptions. $200 buy-in. I had to seriously shape up b/c I wasn’t about to lose money!

In 2007 (my first year), I picked Tom Brady because I thought he was super hot. Last year, I was so pissed I didn’t get Brady during the draft. Instead, I picked up Thomas Jones, Brandon Jacobs, Marshawn Lynch and Anquan Boldin, but had no idea who they were. Oh and my QBs were Peyton and Cutler…couldn’t decide which one to bench. If only beginner’s luck could last forever.

Thanks to my firm, Fantasy football has brought out a whole new competitive side of me I never knew I had. I watched my stat tracker like a hawk every sunday morning and read up on Pickup of the Week tuesday night before the waivers hit on Wed morning.

With the exception of my fits and bursts of anger everytime Peyton threw an interception, I could happily and peacefull watch Sunday football all day. My coworkers all told me I was becoming every man’s dream come true. I guess I have my firm to thank for.

Femmes, if you’re anything like me, I highly recommend you take up this new hobby. It’s surprisingly very fun, competitive and badass.

Wish me luck this year!

Boys will always be boys

hi.la.ri.ous

Dealbreaker caption:  I just took this ten minutes ago as I was about to walk into my office…I think it came out pretty well but that’s a kid 100% passed out/maybe dead, on the bull, in his briefs.

Why is it that it’s always so funny for a finance boy to do something like this? Everyone in the office will get a good laugh and he’ll probably get more chicks because of it.  But if this happened to a finance femme…goodbye career. goodbye pride. goodbye prospects of ever finding a FBF.

regardless, this was hilarious.

Selling Out

My dear finance femmes and BSDs,

The last few weeks have been quite tumultuous for me. I made the decision to sell out. Or at least consider selling out.

I am applying to business school. *gasp*

I rocked my gmat last weekend, which means I can no longer use it as an excuse not to apply.

Call me shallow, but I seriously believe that business school is the best place for a finance femme to get her MRS degree. You have EVERYTHING going for you.

1. the ratio is 70:30 or 65:35 at worst.

2. you’re surrounded by marriage material men 24/7.

3. business school social events are 100% catered to hooking up – from weekend trips to buenos aires to crazy theme parties. Has anyone heard of the stoplight party? Red wrist band means married, green means single, yellow means married but available. Now I know why they call it an MBA (Married But Available).

4. The competition is … no comment. Of all the women in a bschool class, 60% are already in relationships (although that doesn’t mean much), 25% are fat, ugly or both, 10% are psycho A-types who are too masculine and crazy, 4% are lesbians. That basically leaves me vs. 1% of the female population. If I fail at this point, I deserve to die alone in a room full of cats.

Soooo. Is it worth paying $150K to find that perfect FBF/FH? Maybe.

Sounds desperate. But what a great investment idea!

Because at the end of the day, it’s all about the ROI baby.

In fact, as I think about it some more. This is one of the best investment ideas I’ve come up with to date. Low risk, high high return.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/returnoninvestment.asp

Why I will never understand (finance) guys

As a tomboy, I always thought I understood guys pretty well. False.

My FG colleague is a rich kid from 90210 and has been “dating” this girl from LA for the past 2 years. He is only “dating” her. They are not BF/GF, they are not exclusive. I don’t know what they are.

He considers himself single, he dates other women and he claims he doesn’t like her that much. In fact, he has even told her that he doesn’t love her. “She said ‘I love you’ to me and I told her ‘I like you, but I don’t love you’” HIS WORDS EXACTLY. Talk about harsh! He says she’s crazy and that he does not see a future with her. And he’s told her that.

In the beginning I would always wonder – WHY is she sooo stupid? Why is she still seeing him? Why is she wasting her time??

And then I realized that he flys her to see him once every 3 weeks, talks on the phone almost everyday and does things like send a bottle of champagne to her room while she’s in hawaii with her girlfriends. I can just picture her girlfriends’ reaction – “Omg he sent you champagne?? that’s like SOOO SWEET. He totally cares about you! He hearts you so much!” He was even going to buy her a kindle as a graduation gift (med school, not undergrad) until I yelled at him and told him he was sending the wrong message. He’s not trying to be devious or conniving. That’s just how he is. He’s a thoughtful guy. He sends flowers to his grandparents for their anniversary.

If I were this girl, I would go crazy. You have a guy who has been upfront in telling you that he doesn’t see a future with you, yet he does everything a good perfect boyfriend does.

Guys are SO confusing.