Yesterday I met with a book club at a software company. And as I stepped off the elevator to the open office I instantly felt a kinetic vibe. It was alive. At first, second and third glance I noticed a gaggle of twenty-somethings buzzing about way past the five o\u2019clock whistle. Maybe it was 6:15 p.m. \u2013 but that qualifies as \u201cway past\u201d in my book. Go home \u2013 be with your families I thought\u2026 No wait, they were twenty-something New Yorkers \u2013 this was their family and the five o\u2019clock shadows seemed to be running a tad late…
\nBeers had been cracked and work was still getting done.
\nAnd without meeting a single employee I told myself \u201cI like these people.\u201d
\nAlmost immediately I was offered a Diet Coke\u2026 I guess that means they really read the book. But even as I was being led to where our meeting would commence I was still taking the temperature of the office. I\u2019ve worked in a few over the years.
\nAnd I realized that it\u2019s something I always do \u2013 I take the temperature. And why wouldn\u2019t I?
\nOne of my best friends from today and yesterday is a professional blackjack player. He counts cards. I don\u2019t think I have the capacity to count cards. It seems like a lot of work. But one of the very basic elements to playing 21 – that everyone who sits down at a table should know – is that you don\u2019t play your hand \u2013 you play the dealer\u2019s hand. Who gives a shit if you have a 15? It\u2019s a great hand if the dealer is showing a 6. Okay maybe it\u2019s not great, but you know what I\u2019m saying. So when I say I took the temperature of the office \u2013 I just really mean I was checking out what the dealer (the book club) was showing. And from everything I was picking up \u2013 I knew it was going to be a great night.
\nMy plan was to play to my audience, but I say that with hesitation because I\u2019d never tell anyone to be fake. But I think you can still be authentic without being fake. Ugh\u2026 I really dislike fake people\u2026 The word dislike doesn\u2019t really resonate as well as \u201chate\u201d would, but recently I\u2019ve been trying to correct my daughter from using the word hate \u2013 especially when talking about people. You shouldn\u2019t hate anyone \u2013 right? \u2013 Sorry for the PSA \u2013 it won\u2019t happen again\u2026
\nI told myself I was going to keep this under 400 words, but I\u2019m already at 414.
\nAnd just as I predicted I had a fun night. It was very relaxed and felt like I was talking to some old college buddies\u2026 I just happened to graduate twenty years ahead of them.
\nSome of my favorite questions of the night\u2026
\nQ: Were you at all concerned about STDs?
\nA: Um\u2026 No.
\nQ: What\u2019s the most amount of cocaine you\u2019ve ever seen in one place?
\nA: Well, in Atlantic City once I saw several names spelled out in finely cut white powder on a ten foot coffee table. It was a lot\u2026
\nQ: How much money did you spend on cocaine?
\nA: Not a lot\u2026 I was on the Buy Side dude\u2026
\nQ: Would you ever go back to working on Wall Street?
\nA: I\u2019d rather collect recyclables.
\nI\u2019m not taking full credit for the fun and playful night we had because it always takes two. I\u2019ve had plenty of speaking engagements, book clubs or whatever where I stuck to more of the basic topics like Wall Street, insider trading, addiction and the process of writing a book. But when I realized this book club wanted to have fun with it, I let them know I was game. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday I met with a book club at a software company. And as I stepped off the elevator to the open office I instantly felt a kinetic vibe. It was alive. At first, second and third glance I noticed a gaggle of twenty-somethings buzzing about way past the five o\u2019clock whistle. Maybe it was 6:15 … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":851,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}