Anatomy of Evil by Brian Pinkerton

excellent analytical and quantitative skills. I love to tell the story behind the numbers. I’ve been following InvestOne and all of your successes and I really believe I can be an asset to the firm.”
    â€œAt InvestOne, we put people first,” said Carol, recalling language from a recent employee engagement campaign. “We’re not a factory producing widgets. What we sell is the talent of our people, so we strive to be the very best. InvestOne is one big extended family helping each other to succeed so we can all rise together.”
    â€œI’m excited to hear more about the job,” said Amy. “It sounds perfect.”
    â€œInvestOne is united behind a single mission,” recited Carol. “Client solutions. For your role, that means deep research and analysis with an excellent attention to detail. You’ll help build financial models that analyze the impact of different capital structures, potential M&A deals, market activity, credit and risk analysis. Your assessments will help guide the investment decisions of major institutions and billions of dollars…”
    The dizzy sparks returned, dancing in front of Carol like fireflies. She continued to speak the company line without effort, unspooling a stream of words already programmed into her head.
    Carol rattled off a half-dozen responsibilities of an investment analyst at InvestOne, rolling through a well-known bullet list and concluding her speech with one additional requisite:
    â€œAlso, most importantly, you will need to eat shit.”
    Silence.
    Amy’s little mouth popped open. Several seconds later, words fell out. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you correctly…”
    â€œYou will need to eat shit,” Carol repeated with perfect annunciation.
    â€œI… What?” Clearly Amy had not rehearsed a response for this moment.
    â€œI said you will eat shit,” said Carol. “Every day you will eat shit with a great big smile on your face like it’s the tastiest delight you’ve ever rolled across your tongue and swallowed into your gullet.”
    â€œI’m sorry, I don’t…”
    â€œIt’s big business, Amy. This isn’t your fun little sorority house pajama party anymore. This is bending over and taking one for the team until you rupture and begin internal bleeding.”
    â€œI still don’t…”
    â€œHappy to elaborate,” said Carol, slamming her hand on the table. “In your job here as an investment analyst you will have no interaction with clients, no ownership of your work, no big trips or fancy events. Just a desk and a computer and if you’re lucky, a few spare hours a week for a social life because every other minute will be spent at the service of redundant layers of management scrabbling for relevance. You will do the working, they will take the credit and you will thank them for it. You will laugh loud at their jokes, applaud their half-assed ideas and feed their fragile egos on a daily basis like you would feed a pet dog.”
    Carol leaned across the table, staring at Amy’s face. Amy’s eager smile was disintegrating.
    â€œYou will submerse yourself in arbitrary busywork that serves no function other than preserving the jobs of others,” said Carol. “You will waste countless hours trying to untangle the demands of a leadership team that lacks any integration, coordination or clarity. There will be so many chefs in the kitchen that what you produce will be inedible and vomited back on your shoes. You will have no control. You will be a puppet pulled apart by a dozen squabbling puppeteers. Forget everything you learned in school. You are not paid for your brain. You are paid to indulge stupidity. You are paid to say yes to bad ideas. You are paid to make other people feel good about themselves. You are paid to follow orders without deviation or original thought. Everybody here is pushing a