"Hello, I am here to meet Mr. Williams" said Ryan to the pretty receptionist of Williams office. She was wearing a short skirt, high heels, deep neck white shirt and a black blazer to go with it, her cleavage was pretty deep, showing off her perfectly round breasts.
For a moment, he was so engrossed in her cleavage that he totally forgets why he is here.
"Hello, your name please?" asked the receptionist curtly
"I am Ryan, came here for an internship" replied Ryan
She typed in some keys on the laptop in front of her, expressions visibly changed after seeing a note about him.
"Mr. Williams don't meet anyone during trading hours, but I can see that he has scheduled a meeting with you . In the meanwhile, I will set you up with our HR Head Mr. Mark." said Receptionist, picked up the phone and dialed a number.
"Mark will be here in 15 minutes, please have a seat" said Receptionist and showed her the way to guest room.
The guest room looked more like a museum with expensive paintings, antiques and artefacts decorated tastefully. The chairs looked like that of Victorian era, like the one's he had seen in Buckingham Palace in Nicholas Cage's National Treasure.
Riches and their fantasy with arts thought Ryan.
"Hey Ryan, I am Mark" came a confident thick voice, when he was looking at the sheer size of chandelier.
He turned around towards the voice, rose from the seat and said "Hello Sir".
"Mark it is. Williams gave me a heads up about you, he is very impressed with you, that's the only reason we are offering you an internship, else we are very clear about our intern program, it starts once a year and that too for full time and after a number of tests" said Mark
"Thanks Mark, I am really honored" replied Ryan, feeling a bit uncomfortable, Williams is doing this coz I am Charles friend? Or is there really something in me? thought Ryan.
"To start off with you will have a 20 hours week and you will get $3000 as stipend. Here's your offer letter, please go through it and sign it" said Mark, handing over a set of documents to Ryan
A $3000 stipend to learn about his dream career, it was too good to be true, he didn't wanted to waste a single second, he quickly flipped the documents, signed them and handed it back to Mark.
"Great, let me show you around" said Mark and escorted him to the nearest elevator.
"This is our trading floor, the heart of our company, fortunes are made here" said a proud Mark, showing off the Trading Floor, which was at the top floor of this twenty storied building.
There were over two hundred young stock brokers, all dressed in designer suits and expensive boots.
The floor was notably cooler then other floors he has been to, with air conditioners working at top of their capacity.
"Why is it freezing?" asked an amused Ryan
"As per the researches, human body performs best at sixty two degrees fahrenheit and at oxygen concentration of 90%, not only the body feels less tired but the brain functions at its peak as well. So we maintain this temperature and the air conditioning is linked to our oxygen generation plan on terrace." replied Mark
"Whoa, that's awesome" was all Ryan managed to say
Stock Brokers were all jumping, shouting and swearing, some on phone and some seeing the live stock ticker from around the world. "Fuck You Roy, I am unloading that bitch.." came a voice from a young fat stock broker sitting a few desks away from Ryan, he was smoking a cigarette, typing vigorously on keyboard from both of his hands and shouting on pone hanging from his neck.
All of these young brokers were acting like the King of the world, and why shouldn't they, the average salary of a stock broker is over a million dollars annually not covering the fat commissions and bonuses, most of the guys here will be making well over two million dollars in this year.
"Ryan, meet Brian, he is the head of our stock trading department" said Mark introducing him to Brian.
"Hello Brian" said Ryan
Brian was a thirty something olive skinned, blue eyed, tall and well built guy, wearing a designer blue suit, a white shirt and Italian black shoes, he was looking more like a Greek god than a stock broker.
"Hey Buddy, liked our trading floor?" asked Brian
"Yes Sir, totally in awe of it" replied Ryan
"You will have to slog downstairs to make it up here, do good in your internship" said Brian and left as a fist fight broke over between two adrenaline powered junkies.
"Now let me show your desk" said Mark and took him to tenth floor
This floor was so called internship floor, with hundreds of interns busy either in their laptops or in reading Wall Street journal, with neither of them talking to each other. The floor was pretty calm and quiet in contrast to the trading floor. The floor smelled of jealousy, anger and hatred, as only handful of these interns will make up to the top floor.
Ryan's desk was in one corner of the room, Wall Street was visible from the side window and it was quiet a view.
There was a stack of documents on one side of his desk, a dell laptop in the centre and a telephone on the other side, a pretty basic desk setup.
"Ryan, here's the manual for you, it covers the basics of stock trading, some basic trading strategies and other information that you might require. Start slogging, you have an examination coming up in next week" said Mark
"Next Week?? I have just joined today" said a visibly worried Ryan
"I will clarify about this in our meeting with Charles in the evening" said Mark
"Okay" was all Ryan managed to say
"I have a meeting, heading out now, will meet you in the evening" said Mark and left
A dejected Ryan picked up the manual and started mugging.
YOU ARE READING
The Wall Street
General FictionFrom the author of "StartUp - A Story of Money, Betrayal & Revenge" comes the startling rags-to-riches story of an Indian-American undergrad of NYU who takes Wall Street heads on. After learning the basics of wall street from a hedge fund, Ryan ente...
