Wolf of Wall Street

Prolgue A Babe in the Woods May 1, 1987 You're lower than pond scum," said my new boss, leading me through the boardroom of LF Rothschild for the first time. "You got a problem with that, Jordan?" "No," I replied, "no problem." "Good," snapped my boss, and he kept right on walking. We were walking through a maze of brown mahogany desks and black telephone wire on the twenty-third floor of a glass-andaluminum tower that rose up forty-one stories above Manhattan's fabled Fifth Avenue. The boardroom was a vast space, perhaps fifty by seventy feet. It was an oppressive space, loaded with desks, telephones, computer monitors, and some very obnoxious yuppies, seventy of them in all. They had their suit jackets off, and at this hour of morning9:20 a.m.they were leaning back in their seats, reading theirWall Street Journals, and congratulating themselves on being young Masters of the Universe. Being a Master of the Universe; it seemed like a noble pursuit, and as I walked past the Masters, in my cheap blue suit and clodhopper shoes, I found myself wishing I were one of them. But my new boss was quick to remind me that I wasn't. "Yourjob"he looked at the plastic nametag on my cheap blue lapel"Jordan Belfort, is aconnector,which means you'll be dialing the phone five hundred times a day, trying to get past secretaries. You're not trying to sell anything or recommend anything or create anything. You're just trying to get business owners on the phone." He paused for a brief instant, then spewed out more venom. "And when youdoget one on the phone, all you'll say is: 'Hello, Mr. So and So, I have Scott holding for you,' and then you pass the phone to me and start dialing again. Think you can handle that, or is that too complicated for you?" "No, I can handle it," I said confidently, as a wave of panic overtook me like a killer tsunami. The LF Rothschild training program was six months long. They would be tough months,gruelingmonths, during which I would be at the very mercy of assholes like Scott, the yuppie scumbag who seemed to have bubbled up from the fiery depths of yuppie hell. Sneaking peaks at him out of the corner of my eye, I came to the quick conclusion that Scott looked like a goldfish. He was bald and pale, and what little hair he did have left was a muddy orange. He was in his early thirties, on the tall side, and he had a narrow skull and pink, puffy lips. He wore a bow tie, which made him look ridiculous. Over his bulging brown eyeballs he wore a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles, which made him look fishyin the goldfish sense of the word. "Good," said the scumbag goldfish. "Now, here are the ground rules: There are no breaks, no personal calls, no sick days, no coming in late, and no loafing off. You get thirty minutes for lunch"he paused for effect"and you better be back on time, because there are fifty people waiting to take your desk if you fuck up." He kept walking and talking as I followed one step behind, mesmerized by the thousands of orange diode stock quotes that came skidding across gray-colored computer monitors. At the front of the room, a wall of plate glass looked out over midtown Manhattan. Up ahead I could see the Empire State Building. It towered above everything, seeming to rise up to the heavens and scrape the sky. It was a sight to behold, a sight worthy of a young Master of the Universe. And, right now, that goal seemed further and further away. "To tell you the truth," sBelfort, Jordan is the author of 'Wolf of Wall Street ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780553805468 and ISBN 0553805460.