Yale: LIVING the DREAM, Webisode 6

When I was a lawyer, I worked with this investment banker who, for some reason, assumed I went to Yale. Every time we were together he’d make some sort of Yale reference. At first, I assumed he went to Yale and was just dropping self-serving New Haven tidbits to impress his peers. But he wasn’t. He truly thought I went to Yale. Every time I tried to correct him, someone would interrupt, his phone would ring, he’d change the subject. It was like a bad joke. Years later, he called me out of the blue and asked if I wanted to join his investment bank. I said yes, of course. But did he still think I went to Yale? If so, was that the reason he was offering me a job? Would he still want to hire me when he found out I didn’t go to that little school up in New Haven?

So I went to the interview ready to rebuff any and all Yale references with self-effacing humor and honesty. Luckily, it never came up—mainly because he talked about himself for the entire interview. I did, however, meet with several other bankers—all of whom were aware of my real credentials—and I was offered a job that afternoon.

I fortunately never had to disabuse Mr. Yalie of his potentially embarrassing mistake because he left the investment firm for a more lucrative position at another bank three days before I started work.

Anyway, I figured it would be funny for Nick to suffer the humiliation of being on the wrong end of a “You went to Yale” mistake, too.

Interesting tidbit: Spencer Garret, the actor who plays Thorne (the Yale-obsessed partner), just finished shooting the upcoming Michael Mann movie Public Enemies starring Johnny Depp and Christian Bale.