I Challenge... Myself

I learned all sorts of charming phrases such as BYL (verb: to blow your load) and woodshed (verb: to discipline someone) when I worked on the trading floor. I also witnessed firsthand the male affinity for any and all types of eating contests: Big Macs, hot sauce, raw onions, milk, etc. Disturbing yet fascinating.

Time and time again, I was shocked at what men would do in the name of a bet.

Example #1: Munchkin contest
The setting: trading desk
The food: Dunkin Donuts Munchkins
The challenger: a clerk looking for a little extra spending money
The motivation: sheer morbid curiosity
The outcome: 84 Munchkins consumed and approximately 82 Munchkins vomited back up

Example #2: McDonald’s ice cream cone contest
The setting: McDonald’s restaurant in Barcelona
The food: vanilla ice cream cones
The challengers: University of Chicago students studying abroad in Spain
The motivation: only 50 centavos per cono!
The outcome: contest called on account of group brain freeze

Apparently traders are not the only professionals who are enticed to enter eating contests. A friend of mine, a lawyer at a prestigious Chicago law firm, fondly recalls the Taco Bell challenge phase of law school:

The signature Taco Bell Challenge lineup included 20 item, ranging from cheesy bean and rice burritos to chicken quesadillas. Several pounds of food were to be consumed, with $100 on the line. The first competitor began the event confident and cheerful, even chasing his fare with Knob Creek bourbon. By the end of that fateful night, three people had pitched in attempting to conquer the Taco Bell Challenge, and all three ended on the ground in both failure and gastrointestinal distress.

I cringed at hearing the details of the Taco Bell challenge. I also laughed myself stupid. And then I had a sobering thought: what would have happened had the participants attempted the challenge after Taco Bell added seafood items to its menu? Can you imagine the outcome of the Pacific Shrimp Taco challenge?

Of course, as soon as this brilliant idea occurred to me, I tried to figure out who I could goad into attempting said Pacific Shrimp Taco challenge. My natural instinct was to approach either my business school friends or lawyer friends, as I have noticed a high positive correlation between advanced degrees and stupid decisions (aka eating contests). It begs the question: could that correlation exist because getting an advanced degree IS a stupid decision?

Bidness Casual

I recently rejoined the ranks of the employed, and one of my first discoveries was that I had virtually nothing in the way of a professional wardrobe. You might think that this issue would occur to me sooner than the night before I was scheduled to start work. You would be wrong.

Trading was useless both in terms of developing transferrable job skills and building a professional wardrobe. My typical trading ensemble consisted of a hoodie, jeans, and flips flops, but apparently Corporate America doesn’t view that as business casual. Well, that is certainly news to me.

Let’s examine the contents of my wardrobe in greater detail:

20% Party dresses
18% Clothing showing inappropriate cleavage
7% Bridesmaid dresses
10% Winter coats
3% Suiting
15% Hoodies
10% Dresses
10% Jeans
2% Button downs
5% Sweaters

Even the numbers are misleading: my suits are all wool and hence entirely inappropriate for sweltering 90 degree summer days. (Plus I’d then be that douchebag wearing a suit in a business casual environment.) The vast majority of my dresses and sweaters are also not warm weather friendly. Come winter, I’ll be looking (professionally) cute, but for the time being I appear to be SOL. I shake my fist at you, summer!

The obvious solution to my wardrobe dilemma? Shopping! Normally I would celebrate the opportunity to shop, but normally I would be shopping for yet more party dresses. Shopping for professional clothing isn’t nearly as fun because most options are of the plain vanilla variety. I’m not a man so I refuse to dress like one. Therefore the slacks and button down uniform is out. Same for the khakis and polo shirt combo.

I am also forced to exclude many fabulous dresses. Mid-thigh hem? Out. Just a bit too clingy? Out. Back zip? Out. (I could write an entire book on how irate I get when I find an amazing dress that zips in the back. Breaking news fashion designers: you render me incapable of dressing myself when you design a dress that zips in the back! While it still works out just fine for the population that is partnered or has roommates, it does not work for me. Either I have to forego your magnificent creations entirely, or I have to sneak into work with my dress halfway zipped and pray that I can get one of my co-workers to zip me the rest of the way up before I run into my boss. I know that Liz Lemon figured out a solution to this vexing problem, but I don’t want my morning routine to include weird contortions on a treadmill. Seriously, I would consider marriage just so I would be guaranteed dressing assistance every morning, infinitely expanding my wardrobe possibilities.)

I was saying? Oh yes, this whole professional wardrobe business is really quite tricky. I can tell you exactly where my first paycheck is going: straight to my good friends J.Crew and Ann Taylor. All of my subsequent paychecks will be routed directly to Sallie Mae.