Back in Provo

Well, the summer is officially over. I have my computer set up back home, which I guess means I'm here for good. At least for the next couple of weeks.

Here is the wrap up on the last week of the internship. My wife left, so I ate bento's every day. It's not that I can't cook, I just didn't want to.

I interviewed for a couple of different desks. It was pretty good. I think that I may get something out of it. On an interesting note, one of the people I spoke with, Tamio Honma who works in Sales said that he goes to Alta every year around Christmas time to ski. He has not prior connections with Utah but simply loves the skiing. Well, people told me that there are those that come from all over the world to ski here. I finally met such a person.

Also, just a couple of days ago, a person from Goldman Sachs email for an interview. I didn't think I had really impressed the guy at Goldman, but he did call for an interview. So that's good.

Other than that, the last week was not a whole lot different than previous weeks. I spent most of my last two days making sure all the work I did was transfered to the correct people and saved on the correct drives. I imagine that a lot of stuff could potentially get lost.

Anyway, the flight home was okay. I rode the train out to the airport. Not the NEX, but the regular train, the Yokosuka-sen. It was not so great. It took a long time, and it was rough luggin my suitcases and things around Tokyo station. Anyway, I would definately say that the 15 dollars extra to take the limosine bus is a lot better. The flight was okay, but security has been so tough lately, that things that didn't matter on the way over were now a big deal. Like water bottles, carry-ons, and the like. I guess it's the price to pay to feel safer, but something tells me that if someone was determined to get something bad on the plan, there is not much that the security on the plan is going to do to stop them.

Well, being home is good. I now have the duty to sort through and tag all the pictures we took. I think we have over 2 gig worth of media just from this trip. That, and I'm downloading the torrent for kekkon dekinai otoko. Well, good times.

Desk Hopping

Kimi gets back from a trip to Nagoya tonight. I guess she just has a strong love for that part of the country. She is even turning into a big Chunichi Dragons Fan.

I spent most of the day today sitting at other desks. I sat for a while at the Credit Derivatives Desk. Ren Kuroda, who was working with Landon last year gave me a great overview of what his area does. We talked for almost an hour and a half. It was pretty fun. I am set up to sit with a couple of other people in his section. I’m looking forward to it.

Friday!!!!

August 4th 2006

Friday’s are great. After the 3:00 call to Singapore, Brad is pretty much ready to wrap up the week. He is going to take off at 6:00 to meet some friends. I’ll probably stay a bit later, which marks perhaps the second or so time when I have stayed later that him. Really, not that bad of a job eh?

We had a call about the dashboard. I love conference calls. I have sat in a couple now. We have the regular one with Singapore, but I have been in on calls where there were callers in from all around the world. I sat in on a training call one where the presenter was in London, and there were people in all the major hubs, NY, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Frankfurt. Great stuff. This call was good too. I think it may have been one of the first times I offered information in a meeting without having to be prompt for it. That was nice.

Brad will be out of town again on Monday. He has given me a couple of things to do before I finish in ORM, then other than that, he says that he wants me to get opportunities to sit with other desks. I am looking forward to that opportunity as well.

Bubbles

August 3rd 2006

I got the bubbles software today. It is software designed by a company called FractalEdge. They make a reporting software that turns everything into a dot, and the color represents it’s relationship with other dots. You have to see it to really get what I’m talking about. Google their website. Because of the arrangement it has been dubbed “The Bubbles.” I agree with Brad though when he says that the design is really genius and ahead of it’s time. “There will be a day when the acceptable method of communicating information will be the bubbles, but people will probably have to go through a few phases of evolution before that happens” says Brad. It is an interesting program. I feel like downloading the trial version for use on my home computer. Could be fun.

Other than playing with the bubbles, I also looked for other outside software developers that could work on our automation issues. Overall, a pretty easy day.

Evaluation Day

August 2nd 2006

Today was good. Brad and I spent a lot of time talking when we were doing the intern review for HR. He gave me really good marks, and seemed to think that I have a shot in Investment Banking. We talked about his career, wow, he has experienced quite a few interesting things. We talked about my plans. We talked about why he never went into the banking side. We talked about his career plans. It was cool. There was good connection. One thing was kind of funny, we couldn’t come up with a negative characteristic for the review. I wanted to find one, mostly because I know that there are plenty of things that I can work on. I also wanted to find one because I know when you can’t find one, people think that you aren’t self aware. Brad wasn’t that concerned about it though, and when I gave a couple of suggestions, he said that he didn’t think that they were really weaknesses. We talked about writing down one of the weaknesses that are actually strengths, like they teach you to do in interview classes. But I think we both thought that was ridiculous. Anyway, I have learned a lot from Brad. Quite a few things about OR and risk management, but more things about working in a corporation, working in a system and trying to find ways to value add in that system.

August...Wow

August 1st 2006

Wow, August already. Well last year at this time, I was hanging out, working a little, playing a lot. I haven’t golfed in a while, and I miss that. I have loved being in Japan and doing all these cool things on weekends, and working in a sweet office, and learning a lot of things, but I also miss some things about being home for the Summer. i.e. Road trips with mine and Kimi’s families, BBQ’s and sitting out on the grass, golfing and eating hotdogs, going for walks around the temple grounds, and things like that. I have still gotten to do some of the things that I love to do on summer holidays: go to baseball games (I’ve been to two), watch movies (does J-dorama and Napoleon in Japanese count?) and travel. I guess there are more summers working a head and I have a precious few summer holiday’s left. I’m glad though, we spent this one the way we have.

Work today was good. I finished a couple more things for the Risk Dashboard, I worked on the KOP and a couple of other things. I also scheduled a couple of meetings with other people. Brad seems to think that I have a shot at other departments. I want to see what I can do, and at least get a couple of interviews. I don’t know if I have the kind of in-your-face attitude that seems to be what people are looking for, but Brad doesn’t think that is necessary.

Lunch at Lawry's on Warnick Sensei

July 31st 2006

Well, Today was lunch with Warnick Sensei. He is traveling around doing kaisha-kankei stuff. What a restaurant. The grill was called Lawry’s. I had a giant piece of prime rib that about put me to sleep when I got back. It was a good lunch. Mitch talked for a while about what it is that they are looking for in the interns. Dr. Warnick talked for a while about what the interns are looking for. Rebecca and I talked for a while about our experiences in Japan. It was good. I felt bad a bit though when it was done as I forgot to really thank Dr. Warnick for providing the experience.

Anyway, things have been good at work. I finished another month. Averaged about 65 work hours this time, so a bit of an increase, but I didn’t really notice. I guess it was a bit easier to stay a bit later now that the Lewis’s have gone. I was trying to get home earlier to see if I could be out doing things with them. But now, I just work till I’m done. Crazy that it is already August. I can hardly believe that I have two weeks left.

Also, next week, Brad has encouraged me to visit other areas while he is in Taiwan for the rescheduled workshop. I have already set up a couple of appointments, so I hope that I can use the time well.

Week of July 24th

July 24th 2006

It is weird to be on the downslope. I feel comfortable in my job and responsibilities, I feel like I have learned a lot.

I really love Japan. Working in Japan and Dendoing in Japan are of course very different, but both provide similar experiences. In both you have an opportunity to really get into the none-tourist Japan. You have opportunities to get behind the tatemae. You see the parts of Japan that doesn’t show up in Lonely Planet. I have loved getting to know my co-workers. Brad, as I sit next to him every day has been an excellent mentor. Armin and Thomas, two of the Germans in this German Bank have been very good at teaching me new skills. Among the Japanese, Kohei is an a typical salaryman, but a good example of what I think the modern Japanese businessman will be like. Ken is a really typical salaryman (I think he stays at least an hour later than anyone else) has been a great resource to discuss the company and working in Japan. The three OL’s have been a lot of fun. Very helpful always with a lot of stories, and they all keep on telling me to come back again. Very good people.

As for work, I was originally planning on being in CRM for the next couple of days, I spent most of today going back and forth between desks working on a couple of things for Brad and for Armin. It was okay. For Brad, I was working on follow-up with Honma-san and the OR-Losses. We don’t want to have to teisei the teisei, so we were triple-checking the numbers today. For Armin, I was finishing a rating review. A very busy day, and I got home pretty late today.

July 26th 2006

I missed yesterday. Not really because I was so busy, but mostly because I just had a late night.

Today was good though. We had another Lunch and Learn. This week it was by a reporter for the Wall Street Journal named Yuka Hayashi. She was very knowledgeable and talked a lot about the history of financial reporting in Japan, what it was like when the bubble burst, what it is like now, and how they compete with everyone but Nikkei (as Nikkei blows everyone out of the water).

Work was pretty quite today, and I am getting home pretty early.

July 27th 2006

Today was a great day. Brad was in a really good mood. Not that he had been in any particularly bad mood the last couple of days, but today he was in a really good mood. He forwarded me some anagrams that he had made up about the people in ORM. I guess Tracy was going to have them published, but she chickened out at the last minute. We talked a while today about his apartment search and working in Japan, and I guess we will be visiting his house this weekend for dinner. Brad is a really good guy. I have been pretty lucky I think to get him as a boss.

We have been revising the KOP or (Key Operating Procedure) for ORM. It is pretty easy work, and I mostly just make charts, but it has been fun. I have been updating the Japanese one as well, and it takes a bit of work to get the translation right.

July 28th 2006

This week has just shot by. It is crazy to think that I have only three weeks left. Kimi is gone in two weeks. Wow, time has flown.

I spent most of the day getting my Risk Dashboard ready for discussion on Monday. We are having a call on Monday to talk about the arrangement of the information. Hopefully it will all pan out and by the time I leave work, I will have a good draft ready.

July 31st 2006

Well, Today was lunch with Warnick Sensei. He is traveling around doing kaisha-kankei stuff. What a restaurant. The grill was called Lawry’s. I had a giant piece of prime rib that about put me to sleep when I got back. It was a good lunch. Mitch talked for a while about what it is that they are looking for in the interns. Dr. Warnick talked for a while about what the interns are looking for. Rebecca and I talked for a while about our experiences in Japan. It was good. I felt bad a bit though when it was done as I forgot to really thank Dr. Warnick for providing the experience.

Anyway, things have been good at work. I finished another month. Averaged about 65 work hours this time, so a bit of an increase, but I didn’t really notice. I guess it was a bit easier to stay a bit later now that the Lewis’s have gone. I was trying to get home earlier to see if I could be out doing things with them. But now, I just work till I’m done. Crazy that it is already August. I can hardly believe that I have two weeks left.

Also, next week, Brad has encouraged me to visit other areas while he is in Taiwan for the rescheduled workshop. I have already set up a couple of appointments, so I hope that I can use the time well.

Week of July 17th

July 18th 2006

Howdy to Josh and Jon, it was good to see you in Gifu this week.

I finished another book this week. It was written by the President of Monitor group, and was about the Japanese financial revival, he called it a renaissance. It was very interesting. He said that we need to be Modern Samurai that are strong with the sword and pen. It was very much a different take that what was written in the “Inside the Kaisha book.” I can’t say which argument I agree with more, and despite their conflicting paths, they actually came to similar conclusions about Japanese business. I would definitely suggest this as a read.

My work in CRM continues much the same as before. I update credit reports, file rating reviews, and spread financials. All good things that I’m glad I had the experience to do. I think that it will help in the future.

We had a great dinner tonight with the Regional head of Credit Risk Stefan Boecker. We went to a really expensive feeling Italian place that Akemi Yamaguchi (the office staff secretary) has connections with. I ordered what I was going to have last Friday.

I started off with a trio of appetizers. Melon with smoked salmon, a foie gras mousse thing, and a salad with raw ham. It was all very tasty. Then I skipped the wine, but really enjoyed the assorted meats and cheese platter. The meats were amazing, sausages, a bit of meat cut from the smoked leg of a dear, really tasty pepperoni, more raw ham, and a couple of others. Then I had a great pasta, that was a bit small for how much I wanted to eat, and a piece of fish that had bacon on it. Wow, that was an amazing taste. Finally, I had a cr?me brule and a piece of chocolate mouse cake for dessert. Amazing. Amazing that it was only like 40 dollars a person. I guess I would have felt like I was really getting my money’s worth if I drank wine. Some people had four or five glasses. But then some didn’t drink really any as they had to go back to work when it was done.

More interesting than the food was the conversation. Thomas is a great guy and I have had fun working with him. He basically offered me a job in CRM, I don’t know if he was serious, but he said that he thought I would be good in the position if I wanted it. I like the people that I work with. I like the hours and the pay that I would get. But I don’t know if I love the work. It is interesting in some respects, but it just isn’t what I’m looking for.

July 19th 2006

Brad came back today. I think that he was glad about the things that happened with everything, except that the FSA was prematurely contacted. The concern seemed to fade after we talked with Mitch, who although a bit perturbed, didn’t really seem to think that this was a really big deal. We tried to follow up with Tom Kimura (Head of Legal) and Itoh-san (Head of Compliance) I guess we will try to get them on another day.

I guess that Hondo-san is pretty anxious to get everything sent off because she will be taking off for Holidays at the end of the week. Honma-san doesn’t want to make the FSA wait, Brad wishes we had never contacted them, and we are trying to get a hold of the decision makers to find out what we are supposed to do. Good stuff.

Today’s lunch and learn was from Finance by the CFO John Killian. He is the guy that Evan interviewed with when he was in the running for the internship. Really nice guy. He took the last couple of minutes talking about career paths. He said several times that we should fine something that gets us up in the morning, something that we can really get interested it. I’ve never been a real morning person, and ORM/CRM doesn’t really get me up in the morning, but I really agree with him. The times when I was best able to get up in the morning, when I was on the junior high volleyball team and we had practice at 6:30, and when I was a missionary, I think I was really intellectually and physically stimulated by the work that I was doing. Maybe banking, maybe law, maybe engineering will be what gets me up in the future, I don’t know, but I agree with John, that is the job that I will become the most successful doing and also the one that I will enjoy doing the most is the one that gets me up in the morning.

July 20th 2006

Brad is out of town again today. There is a Risk Workshop in Taiwan. I heard on the news this morning that there was a Typhoon headed toward Taiwan, supposedly it will touch down sometime in the morning tomorrow. I guess it will be interesting weather.

Today was full force work on the stuff for CRM. I am getting faster at the data assimilation and it is paying off. So I got quite a bit done. I did a report for Armin as well. Armin and Thomas and Marco are all Germans. It’s good, I was worried there weren’t any Germans in Deutche Bank.

I didn’t mention yesterday as I wrote the entry before I left work, but we had a fun trip on the Sumida River last night. We were on a boat with a big room and a long table. On the table was some amazing sashimi, tai, ika, chutoro, sake, and some other things. We had bowls of soup, a piece of grilled fish, and amazing tempura. I didn’t drink and when one of my coworkers asked, and I refused, another person said “Sake ga nomareru hito mitai noni…” I’m not sure what that really meant. We wandered out into the bay by Odaiba, and then watched the Disney land fireworks. It was a lot of fun. I wish Kimi could have gone. However, it was really expensive, and I don’t think that they would have just let her go for free. I had a lot of good talks with the people at the reception. It was a lot of fun. I talked a lot with Kawashima Yoshitaka-san. He is a really sharp kid going to the Sloan School. Really nice guy too.

July 21st 2006

Well, I came in and sat down and was immediately shocked when Brad stood up. The Taiwan Risk workshop was canceled due to inclement weather, but Brad was unconvinced of the severity. I guess the typhoon swept through the southern half, and on the satellite he showed me, it really wasn’t reaching the Northern half. I guess the regional COO didn’t have a good experience, and he cancelled the workshop. Brad said he favored giving him a glass of scotch and holding the conference as planned. So I guess he gets to go back in a couple of weeks.

We finally resolved the OR-loss thing. In the end, I think it will not be as big of a deal as previously thought, at least not until the next FSA inspection.

Kimura-san was the one who eventually figured everything out. He is a very hands-on guy. It worked out well.

We also had a lunch and learn today that we rescheduled from another day. It was by Guillaume Sakuma-san, from ECM. I liked his style and he candid way of addressing issues. I got in contact with him to sit at someone’s desk in ECM and he was quick to respond. I like the work that they do. It is very interesting.

Week of July 10th

July 10th 2006

Greeting from Tokyo:

Today I was assigned a bit more challenging project. It is a credit report like the others, but it is not necessarily just a standard review. We don’t do a whole lot with the company, so the margins are not that high, the risk is not that high, but I get to assign the rating by myself. Of course before it is submitted my boss, Thomas, will look over the whole thing and make sure it is okay like all the rest, but this time, he said I should find out what the rating I felt was warranted by the company. This feels like a significant increase in responsibility. I feel very grateful that they are very concerned in seeing me progress. Thomas has been particularly helpful, and I think that he hopes just a little bit that I would come back for full time work.

I started by getting all the relevant information. I started with Bloomberg: major news stories over the last year, plots of equity price and other securities issued by the company: information on their credit rating. Next I got the Moody’s/S&P/Fitch rating analysis off the web. I guess a lot of my opinion will probably match what they say on their reports. Normally I guess a credit officer would us the ratings to determine if there was consensus, not as a basis of his report, but I’m not really a credit officer. Finally, I got the annual report and spread their financials. Just getting, and going through all the information took the better part of the day, so I guess I will start my analysis tomorrow.

July 11th 2006

Brad got back today. His brother’s wedding went well, but his grandfather passed away the same weekend, so he is going back the day after tomorrow to see to the funeral things. Not much has changed with the things I was doing with Brad. I am still trying to get a hold of Hondo-san to set-up a time to go over the OR-Loss numbers. Other than that, I am mostly just involved in projects that I have from CRM.

Since Brad is going back so soon, I guess my stay in CRM has been extended another week.

Update on the external receptions. I have been going, but not staying very long. They are interesting, but I don’t think that I will try and break into another firm. I know that my work in the bank, should I pursue a career in banking will only be temporary. I also have an a forming opinion that DB might be the best place to work. So I think that I’m not going to really press very hard to get into another company. I don’t know how hard I will press to get in here either, but that remains a decision to be seen.

July 12th 2006

Today’s lunch and learn was from Bill McIntyre. He is a member that used to be the Bishop of the 3rd ward. He works for Franklin Covey and gave a talk about the 7 Habits. I liked his presentation.

I turned in my credit analysis to Thomas today. He seemed to like it. I think that I did a pretty good job. He didn’t give me feedback by the time I left, but I assume I’ll have it on my desk tomorrow morning. I would have to say that it was with some great pleasure that I turned it in. I felt like I had finished a good report and things were going well. Overall, a good day.

July 13th 2006

Today was more of the same things. The report was accepted by Thomas. I ended up giving the company a AA- rating. Pretty good, it was in line with two of the reporting agencies and not very different from the year before, but it was one that I came up with.

I also met with Hondo-san today. She seemed a little worried that I was going to blame her for some of the problems we found in the numbers. She was also fairly glad to see that someone was actually looking at the numbers that she made. I guess her team is pretty small, and they must feel a bit left out of things. I guess she thought that Brad was ignoring her.

She also was treating me like I was someone who was in a position of larger influence that my simple intern self. I presented her what I thought was the problem and what the solution should be. I think we had a good understanding of each other. We both agreed that we should move to fix the problem. Although Brad wasn’t there, I think the meeting went well, and the information moved along well.

July 14th 2006

Today’s Lunch and Learn was with a guy from ECM named Guillaume Sakuma. I liked his style of speech, his candor, and the way he thought about things and then delivered good answers to questions that we had. Although he didn’t have anything to present, no slides, no handouts, he provided a very good overview. Two Lunch and Learns in a week. Good stuff.

Well, Hondo-san and her boss have gotten going on the OR-Loss thing. Hondo-san’s boss, Honma-san contacted the FSA and asked them what we should do about it. I hope that Brad is okay with all of this. I’ve been forwarding the emails, but no response really to anything. I know I can’t really expect feedback while he is attending to funeral arrangements, and I won’t call him unless there are troubles, but I am a bit worried. I guess they know what they are doing out there in the controlling, and we just have to trust that.

I guess Brad doesn’t, because he sent a message today saying that we shouldn’t go to the FSA before Mitch and Bret were brought into the loop. I wish this message could have gone to Honma-san yesterday. I hope that it wasn’t my fault they rushed to the FSA. Hondo-san called and asked if I thought that we should find out how to re-submit the information. I had assumed she meant that we should ask someone in the Bank. I didn’t realize she might have meant going to the FSA. Well, this issue just got a little bigger. Not that the issue got bigger, but the internal things going on with this got bigger. I hope it doesn’t turn into a problem for Brad with Bret and Mitch.

Week of July 3rd

July 3rd 2006

Another double positing day!! Howdy to all the other interns out there.

Today I turned in my time sheet. Really not that bad. I averaged 55 hours at my desk, so I guess that means with lunches I had average 60 hour work weeks. 60 hours is a lot longer than I have ever done before, but really not that bad. I was expecting worse. In fact, I was expecting a lot worse.

Today was a full day of number crunching. I don’t know how much I can say but the results have been pretty interesting.

Today was also interesting for other reasons as there have been some things happening with some of the LTFX (Long Term Foreign Exchange) deals. I can’t say much about this as well, other than to say it has been interesting. It was good though, talking with Brad about FX. Although we aren’t required to have in-depth knowledge of the products on the business side (I would like to have more) to do our job, we do need to have a good understanding of the basic concepts of the deals. As Brad says, it needs to make sense. So as some of the issues have come up with LTFX, Brad and I took some time today to read through the deals we have right now to see if they make sense. Why do these companies want these deals? Why does a school, or a jinja, or a small company need to buy dollars or Euros? I guess the LTFX deals are very profitable for DB. The question then is client suitability, do they understand the deals, are they sufficiently sophisticated to deal with the risks involved. These are the types of questions I guess the FSA will ask if anything goes bad with these deals.

Brad explained a lot of things to me about these deals. Overall, he has been very good about my questions. He gives good answers and sometimes sort of asks me questions to see if I have a good understanding of what we were talking about.

GOALS:
Got a bit closer to one of my professional goals this week. I have been talking with one of my supervisors. He seems keen on having me come back. I don’t know about the position, but I guess it is good to have the options.

I have forgotten how hard it was to find my way around to someplace new. When I have just and address, it is really tough to find a place. So far I haven’t really need to find anything that wasn’t a landmark. This weekend trying to find a restaurant just off the address was tough. Props to the missionaries trying to track down referrals. That was fun that I’m glad to forget.

July 4th 2006

Today was sort of a quiet day. I continued my excel analysis. I am grateful I learned how to use the solution solver in Excel, that has come in quite handy. The window closest to my desk faces south. Not that I am ever really well oriented in this city, what with the smog and the lack of visible orientation markers like, well, mountains. I don’t know the skyline quite well enough to recognize all the buildings, but there are a couple, like Shinjuku, Roppongi, and Shiodome that stick out. But the view today was outstanding. Just as I was leaving the office to got the Morgan Stanley thing, the sunset started. As I walked out of the office, I saw the sunset around Mt. Fuji. It was beautiful. That is one of the great thing about being a missionary. If you are out all day, you see a lot of sunsets.

Morgan Stanley was good. They have a nice, but not really spectacular building in Ebisu. I talked to another guy in research for a long time, he asked me all sorts of questions about where I thought the economy was, the real estate market bubble in California, and a couple of other things. I talked about consolidation in industry for the economy question, ripped off all that stuff that Steven told me about the Real Estate bubble in the states, and sort of fended off the other questions. Really nice guy though. I could see I got him at least a bit interested in what I had to say. I promised him a resume as well, but I don’t know if I have the Japanese skills to hack it in a research job. I also talked to a really cool guy that was working in M&A. He was the first guy from the banking side that I had talked to at these things that seemed to have a personality. Very nice, but not my kind of job.

July 5th 2006

Brad took off to Taiwan today, and I started in CRM. I started by having a chat with Marco in his office about the work that CRM does. It was pretty interesting. Marco is a good guy. I was a bit intimidated, as this was the area that I had done most of my preparation for. However, the theoretical knowledge I gained from reading those books about the Basel accords, financial equations, and the like were a little off the practical discussion I had with Marco about everyday credit risk stuff. However, he was really good about my questions, explained the things that I had now clue about, and gave me a couple of things to read.

CRM is a totally different world that ORM. We are much more involved in the day-to-day mitigation of risk. Every morning starts with a call to the exposure management group in Singapore. They discuss the companies we have exposure with, the limits, the new clients, and the new transactions.

My role in CRM is mostly of an accounting nature. I spread the financials, I look over the annual report and report the significant changes year over year. Most of the significant changes happen when companies decide to go global and they change their accounting standards. I didn’t know it, but US-GAAP and Japan-GAAP are quite different. Mostly in the area of valuation of things like derivatives and such.

It took me a while to get used to all the terms, but having had those couple of days in the Japanese Business class helped out. Having a denki-jisho with a lot of senmon-yogo in business helped as well.

July 6th 2006

Today started with more interaction with DB’s horrible internally developed software. I got to request access to another drive, and learned a new program called paragon. Paragon is a horribly bugged piece of software. While using it, the people at the desk would be constantly complaining to Jonathan, about the software’s performance. Jonathan would then have to call up Paragon IT and complain to them. I don’t think any of the problems that I saw were really resolved. Paragon is useful though, as it’s purpose is to facilitate the internal credit reports. I have been updating some of those reports, mainly the ones with really good credit ratings, that haven’t changed much. But it has been fun. I research on Bloomberg, I pull financials and analyze balance sheets. At the end of the day, I mostly just determine that nothing has really changed, and I write in the credit report that nothing has changed and such and such company will maintain their good credit rating, but helping on the annual reviews and the due diligence has been a good experience. I know that the computer is doing all the modeling, and there are a couple of programs that help manage margins, exposures, and things like that, but it has been good to see the information that goes into those programs.

Also, I get to hear about all the cool deals. Just like Brad, Thomas and Kohei have been really good at explaining deals. I look at the term sheets, the ISDA and CSA forms and I then get to explain how I think the deal is going down, where I think the risks are, and some of my thoughts. Thomas usually will then tell me what I got right, and what I missed, and we talk about the deal a bit more. It is good, and I think that I have learned a lot as a result.

July 7th 2006

Last night was the reception for DB. It was held at a really swank restaurant. By far the nicest place yet, and really good food/desserts. I wish I would have seen more of it. I got there terribly late. I was working on some things in CRM and didn’t finish until late. Consequently, I didn’t really get to talk to very many people at the party.

Today’s work was more of the same. I completed a couple of companies, and was assigned a couple more. All in all, not bad work. I think they enjoy it as well. I was looking at the schedule, and they weren’t even assigned to do any of these companies until the end of August. So I guess I am helping them get ahead of their reports.

Week of June 26th

June 26th 2006

Starting today, the blogger is set up to post my Monday blog on the other website as well. So here is a couple thoughts about the day, and then some weekly stuff at the end.

If anyone else has a .blogspot blog that they post and want to have one of their posts double posted, I can give you information on how to set it up.

Sorry if the daily stuff seems a bit disjointed. It fits in better with the stuff on my other blog: tokyointern.blogspot.com.

I sent in my confirmation for the Goldman Sachs reception that will be held tomorrow, and for the Morgan Stanley/UBS/Nikko-Citi receptions that will be held in the coming weeks. I don’t know what they will be like. I have never really been one for the smoozing at parties. I guess that will be something that I have to get better at. I really don’t like it when it is really a career fair with finger food and alcohol. But I will go, at least to a few to see what they are like.

Overall, today was a pretty quiet day. I got an invitation to go to a lunch with the Elder’s Quorum. I guess some Elder’s quorums go bowling, some have chili cookoffs, and some have lunches in Nagatacho. Makes sense though, when probably most of the people in the wards work in banks, or the foreign ministry.

GOALS:

I finished one of my books today. This fulfils part of my professional goals and personal goals. The book is called “The wisdom of crowds.” My boss Brad suggested it to me. The book talked about how, under the right circumstances, a crowd can make exceptionally accurate and intelligent decisions. Pretty interesting thought, very good delivery. I’m not sure I believe everything that he has said, but a lot of it makes good sense. The best part of the book are the case studies.

June 27th 2006

I love days of free meals. Breakfast as usual at Jonathan’s, lunch and learn, and Goldman’s reception. Today’s lunch and learn was from Brother Walt Ames. He is a head-hunter at Kearny. He has an impressive pedigree in consulting, having worked for Bain, and then Monitor. Opening the Monitor office in Tokyo and eventually placing President Eyring (soon to be released President of Tokyo North Mission) as CEO of that Office. He also worked for a long time as a sociologist studying the keisatsu and fire department in Japan. Very interesting guy with a very interesting presentation.

Dinner at Goldman’s was less interesting. They have a beautiful office way up in the Mori Tower in roppongi hills. I was very impressed with it. I talked to people in nearly every department they have. I talked for a long time with someone from research. Very nice guy. I talked to a couple of interesting guys from credit derivatives, and one guy from equities. I think that the guy from equities should be someone I should follow-up with. He is a nice guy, and I think I’ll send him my resume. The food was lackluster. I had heard that they were going to have good food, and I certainly expected it from the beauty of the building. However, it was some pasta, sandwiches, and pizza-la. Not that great. At the end a guy from commodities tried to sell the firm a little. He did say something though. He said that I should go to a place and do work that puts a smile on my face. I agree.

June 28th 2006

A good quiet day in the office today. I enjoy the days when I can just sit and focus. I know compared to most of the other interns, and probably most of the people in the office, I have a very low stress, low load kind of job. That is okay with me. I think that I would have liked to have a job in GM, but if not, it gives me more time to hang out with Kimi. I guess I should be keeping a better record of the things that we do and the stuff we are seeing around Tokyo, but I haven’t really do so yet. Maybe I’ll take a day here or there and try to catch up.

Not much else to report. My projects are moving along. The most difficult part is gathering all of the important information.

June 29th 2006

Had lunch with the 2nd ward elder’s quorum. They are made up of mostly people from Banks. It was nice talking to other members about their lives and experiences in Tokyo. I enjoyed meeting with them. I would like to visit the gaijin wards one of these times. I don’t know if I will get the chance though with the schedule that I have. I will be trying to visit other wards that I served in, so I will be sort of busy visiting around the area. Plus Kimi has developed into quite the joint for the sisters, and I think that she would like to be in Shibuya as much as possible.

I love Japan. We went to a baseball game today at Jingu Stadium. It was a great game featuring the 3rd place Swallows against the 1st place Dragons. We had really good seats right by first base. The game was really fun. Kimi and I split a bento of Katsu sandwiches and takoyaki. Great ballpark food. Japanese games are really cool, in that the fans cheer constantly with set cheers that are customized to the player at bat. They mostly all feature a phrase Katobase!!! Which roughly translated I guess means “Get a hit,” and they are accompanied by trumpets and drums and I think I heard a trombone in there. The fans that are doing most of the cheering sit out in the jiyu-seki bleachers in the outfield. In fact they constitute most of the fans, as from the foul poles in were mostly empty seats. We cheered a little and Oshima-san bought us all cool bats.

June 30th 2006

The end of my first month. Although I guess I have been working only for a couple of weeks, it is sort of strange to be seeing the end of a month here. Today was good. Brad will be going out of town next week for his brother’s wedding. He has given me one project to work on next week and then I will be sitting with CRM for another part of the week. The project I will be working on involves following up on some reporting of OR-losses. Brad suspects there are some discrepancies in the reporting and what we have in the database. I guess I get to sort it out. It means that I will be staring at an excel screen for the next couple of days, but that is okay. My findings are very important to ORM and especially in the face of an inspection. So I want to do a good articulate job. I have requested some information today, so hopefully it gets back to me next week and I can really dig into this project.

My other projects are kind of coming to a close. I have finished a draft of the dashboard, and we are supposed to discuss it in a couple of weeks with Singapore. Carola, who works in ORM Singapore, has been really helpful getting me information and other things. She seems really nice. Cindy and Tracy are very nice as well, and it seems that ORM is a fairly less stressful place to work. They have all been very accommodating and helpful to me, and I have enjoyed working with them.

As for the mock inspection. I guess other than Brad’s interview with the inspectors, we are basically done. Pending feedback and other requests from the Kfi people.

Week of June 19th

June 20th 2006

Had a meeting with Bret in the morning, there are a couple of things that I guess have become issues with ORM. They aren’t really things that I understand very well. I guess ORM’s role is to inspect the cause of errors within the bank and try to find out if there are ways to prevent them in the future and make sure that from a regulations point of view we are all in line. One of the issues is a large loss where a trader sold something really cheap to a person after he put in this two weeks. I guess it cost the bank a lot of money. The other is an IT problem. I don’t understand really well, but I guess there is a section of programming that hasn’t been updated in a while and now it is causing a problem. Mitch is pretty involved in it as well.

Also, on another note, I have volunteered to help with the translation of a website for the Dreams Mountaineering Team. They are a group that has organized climbing of a Mountain in Switzerland for two Japanese paraplegics. As I understand it, there are a experienced mountain climbers that will carry the two young men on their backs using a special kind of suit. I translated some of the technical stuff for the website. I guess it should be going live in a couple of weeks. Deutsche Bank was very involved in a project for the special Olympics held in Nagano. In fact, as I understand it, when the Dreams team needed assistance for the translation and for fundraising, they turned first to Deutche at the suggestion of the Nagano prefecture government. It seems like a good cause, and I am glad to help out in whatever way that I can.

June 21st 2006

So today I had quite a few meetings around the bank. We had one with Andrew Kamii and Yoshiko Waseda. They are in charge of, among other things, the losses in GM. We talked for a while about the things that went wrong and such and what kind of issues were involved. We also talked for a long time about the IT thing with Ishmael Jabbar, or Jabbar Ishmael, depending upon your association with him. I have to say, I don’t know what ORM’s role really is, it seems like we are checking up on the people that are checking up on things. Brad does often say though, it is all about value added. I guess he has to prepare and get a report into Sebastian the regional head by the end of the week.

Today was also the first “Lunch and Learn.” Or in other words, a day where we have lunch in board room while a guy comes and speaks. Today was a training on Japanese business manners by a woman from Globalink. I guess the are a consulting firm that comes and does these trainings and other things. Nice woman, can’t remember her name. I tried to put on a good show and ask questions and participate, but it was sort of hard because she spoke kind of haltering English. So we bowed and passed meishi and talked about where to stand in an elevator, sit in a room, and ride in a taxi. All not so important for people that work exclusively within the bank, but I guess helpful when you go and meet clients. It was pretty much like the stuff that I had learned in Warnick Sensei’s class. Oh well, I guess you can never have to much practice passing meishi. I could see though some of what Brad was talking about with the value-adding. I could see that she had sort of dressed up a couple of things, for example like placing a received meishi on top of your meishi holder to show that you are “treating it with respect” and a couple of other things that I think we superfluous add-ons designed to make you think you need a professional to come in and give this training, and that someone from HR who had read a couple of books, and had some experience, and most of all a little common sense couldn’t do the same thing.

June 22nd 2006

Today was something new. I had to get my gaijin card. I didn’t think that I would have to since I would be in the country for less than 3 months. However, because no back around here would open an account for me without one, I had to go and get it. I ended up getting an account with Shinsei, since they offer an account opening with only a receipt showing I had applied for a gaijin card. It took forever to get over to the kuyakusho, and then over to shinsei for the account.

I guess the general pattern of my job will be to have a couple of projects that are ongoing, and then with that have a couple of short things that I take care right away. Some of the ongoing stuff has been the report, or Risk Dashboard as it has been called. Another ongoing one is the mock inspection and update of procedures stuff. Some of the things I have worked on intermediately are a clarification of the New Product Procedures, (NPA) for a product in DBREEF (Real Estate), a couple of things for the Taiwan Risk workshop that Brad will be going to, and a couple of follow-ups about the equities platform.

Work is good. I think sometimes people aren’t sure why ORM wants or needs to know some of the things that we are asking about. I really think in some ways the position is one that has been created by the regulations by the government and the FSA. However, as Brad says, it’s all about value-added. Hopefully by making all these people explain their problems to us, we are value-adding.

As I am going to be using this post to update my weekly post, here are some thoughts about goals.

Professional:
Well, the days keep moving on. I'm learning a lot about Risk, the managment of Risk and IBanking in general. But I'm learning more about the culture of the office. The more I work, the more I see how the people view each other in the workplace. The more I work, the more I understand about having a real job, the hours, and the politics. I learn more about "value-adding" and wonderful things like that.

This past couple of days, I have enjoyed the conference calls between Singapore, Taiwan, Tokyo and Hong Kong. I think it's neat that we can get trainings over the phone from London.

I am working research of some current issues in the bank. Although I don't really know what ORM's job description is, I kind of think we are the second level of control. Control, Legal, and Compliance make sure as best we can that we limit mistakes from happening. We make sure mistakes don't happen again.

It is an interesting perspective of the bank. I get to see all the things that are not going right. You get to learn both sides, how things should work, and what happens and it what ways people mess up. I have heard more stories about frauds, suspicous mistakes, and boneheaded errors that I though were possible for large institutional banks.

Most of all, I enjoy learning.

Cultural:
I have been mostly going back to places that I have been before. But the most interesting thing is I can see them in new ways. We go out probably 3 nights of the week and also Saturday. It's weird to be out past 9:30. It's weird to not stop and talk to people. Night is more normal. But the other day I was walking through Shinjuku during the day. It felt just like I was doing some morning streeting. I would stop people with the same phrase that I used when I was a missionary. "Chotto okaigai shitai no desu ga." But this time it was only to ask directions.

One of the neat things as well, is to hang out where all the nihonjin hang out. Not that I go to izakaya, or anything like that, but now I sit and hang out in cool resturants. I walk around the park, or shinjuku with the rest of them. It's weird to blend in. In some cases, like when I'm riding the train to and from work, I blend in. No one is looking at my badge, I'm not scanning the car to find people to talk to. I just pull out my book, and start reading. The only difference now is that I'm reading a book in English.

Language:
I'm looking as hard as I can for an electric dictionary. I have my eyes set on a Casio. I really wanted a Canon that could look up characters with the stylus. However, those dictionaries are really weak on characters, and they tend to have fewer books on Japanese-English and more stuff on Chinese. The problem is, I really don't need Chinese. Oh well. So Canon is out, otherwise their dictionaries are sort of futsu. The Casio's are nice, and the Sharps. I like the Casio setup a bit better. The screens have backlights, and the interface is a bit more stylish. Some of suites of books on the sharps are a bit better, but not by much. So perhaps a Casio.
I have been checking books and on kakaku.com, but I think my best deal will come out of Akihabara.

June 23rd 2006

Well, finally got word back about DBREEF. I really hate calling people that I have never met. I called Jon Tanaka, I’m sure he is a really nice guy and all, but he was very short with me on the phone. I know it would have been better if I could have met him before and this was follow up. I much prefer email when I call someone that I don’t really know.

Today was a bit wilder day. I all sorts of funny things to do. One of them was to use an insanely poorly designed program to get access to a network drive in Singapore. I usually feel I am somewhat skilled in being able to figure out computer programs. However, this one took 3 calls to IT before I could even figure out how to input information. I’m starting to notice a pattern in some of the software that I have seen developed in-house. They all come with terrible user-interface.

I had a couple of calls/emails with Tracy back and forth as she was trying to find out about the DBREEF NPA stuff. That was a bit rough, because I hadn’t really be given a deadline from Brad to find out, so I was going to give Jon Tanaka one more day to give me a firm answer before I asked again.

I also had a funny one happy with an email. I was supposed to email a woman named Serene in Singapore about the IT issue. So I was looking in the database, and found that there were two women named Serene that worked in Singapore. So I asked Brad if it was Serene Yeoh. He confirmed with a quick “Yep.” So I sent the mail. She got back to me in about twenty-minutes not knowing a single thing about the issue. I replied and tried to explain what kind of information I needed. Then thinking it was a bit strange that she had no idea what I was talking about, I asked Brad about it. He looked at the email I had got in reply and was sort of stunned as well. Then he said, “Well, you sent it to the wrong, Serene, you should have sent it to Serene Yap.”

Good Lunch Monday

June 19th 2006

Monday again. Work was good, but not really that much different from last week. I have settled into my projects. I have one where we are working on the formatting for a report that is to go to the central management board. My job is to come up with an easy to understand one page report that will convey all the important information to the board. I have been working on a couple of other small things for Brad. We are having a mock inspection by the FSA. Apparently the FSA is quite feared by people in the industry. Mostly because they are somewhat unpredictable and it sounds like quite harsh in their audits. The mock inspection is run by an arm of KPMG called KFi. We have a couple of things that we need to get ready for them.

I went to a really good restaurant with Brad, it was a katsu that was Miyazaki style. Namban I think is what it is called.