Show me someone who wants to work long hours and I’ll show you…

FirmSpy excerpted a few parts from this year’s AFR (Law) Partnership Survey. The first one caught my eye:

Third year Maquarie University law student Tanja Maley says she hopes to become a partner in a top commercial firm, and everything else – family included – can follow. “I want a fast city life and I want the long hours”, she says. “I don’t think I’d be satisfied if I wasn’t challenged in that respect.”

Uh… “I want the long hours” and “I don’t think I’d be satisfied if I wasn’t challenged in that respect”? Do third year uni students really think that? Scary.

I dunno. These are the people that end up doing doc review for 80 hours a week. Whatever happened to being intellectually challenged but still striving to maintain some semblance of work/life balance? After all, that tax associate who leaves at 6 is getting paid more or less the same as the M&A dude who leaves at 6… am. If you really want to work those hours, then at least do it in a country which pays you more reasonably than Australia.

  7:05pm  •  Law  •  Tweet This  •  Comments (1)  • 

Goldman Sachs bans written profanity

The WSJ reports that GS has banned swearing in written correspondence, ostensibly as a risk management measure.

Goldman’s no-swearing dictate covers instant messages and texts from company-issued cellphones and emails. Verboten emails could get bounced to the compliance department. Others might be blocked completely, depending on the severity of the language.

There are no set disciplinary measures for offenders, but habitual profaners will be summoned by their managers to discuss cleaning up their language.

Good luck with that. I’m sure that profanity is pretty much a part of the culture. You’d think lawyers were more restrained, but they can be pretty bad offenders too (not so much in writing, but orally).

  6:52pm  •  Business & Finance  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

GQ Interviews Bill Murray

GQ has an interview with Bill Murray in their August 2010 issue.

Bill Murray famously does not give interviews—he’s sat down for exactly four prolonged media encounters in the past ten years—and when he does, it’s never clear what you’re going to get. You just have to pray he’s in a good mood.

This is interview number five, then.

  7:29pm  •  Culture  •  Movies  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Interstate highway numbering

I was scanning through Google Maps and I realized that there is a method behind the madness of what seemed like random Interstate highway numbering. Behold:

  11:28pm  •  Opinions & Observations  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

That’s a lot of chocolate

A hedge fund bought $1 billion worth of cocoa beans last week, leading to rumors it was trying to corner the market and drive prices up. But…

Analysts believe Mr. Ward ended up on the wrong side of a private hedging arrangement with Swiss chocolate-maker Barry Callebaut AG. As a result, Mr. Ward’s firm, Armajaro Asset Management LLP, had to buy about 241,000 tonnes of beans last Friday on the NYSE Liffe, or London International Financial Futures Exchange.

The purchase was the second-largest ever on the exchange – and it was enough cocoa to make five billion chocolate bars. On Monday, reports surfaced that roughly half the cocoa had been sent off to Barry Callebaut and it is expected that most of the remainder will head to other candy-makers who had similar deals with Armajaro.

If you don’t cover a commodity futures contract, you end up owning the underlying commodity.

  8:27pm  •  Business & Finance  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  •