Dave: I used to get a fairly significant ration of shit from our “producers” (sales force) because I would sit and ask them question after question regarding their deals. Willis had a fairly astute policy that required the CFO to chair sales meetings, which used to drive the sales staff nuts, largely because they couldn’t bullshit the accounting and finance guys with their pie-in-the-sky projections.

I so pissed off one of the senior sales guys when I repeatedly told him a deal didn’t “pencil” that he dumped over a thousand #2 pencils in my office during the weekend following my nixing his deal.

I know a lot of guys that worked accounting and finance for Sachs, Stearns and Merrill and I can tell you that they were under incredible pressure to toe the line when it came to production incentives and bonuses. Due diligence and objectivity go right out the nearest window when your ass is on the line and I can remember having shouting matches with my CEO, who was a sales guy himself and a former Bear Stearns trader, as he tried to jam dogshit deals down my throat. These guys would wheedle and cajole and threaten and beg and the volume went up the closer you got to the end of the quarter or (especially) the end of the year. I was pushed to “play ball” and be a “team player” and not some “stick in the mud” accountant.

It wears on you after a while and the lure of the “dark side” beckons. I can remember sitting in a gentlemen’s club in Orange County (Fritz’s on Katella), smoking a Cuban Cohiba, with some 19yo gyrating in my lap and thinking, “I can get used to this!”. The reason I was there? I had approved a particularly thorny deal, but one that did make sense, profitability-wise, and this was my “reward”.

What did Glenn Frey say in his song “Smuggler’s Blues”? “It’s the lure of easy money, it’s got a very strong appeal”.