Behind Closed Doors

（编者按：《华尔街疯人日记》(Memoirs of a Minyan)是财经信息网站Minyanville.com创始人托德•哈里森(Todd Harrison)的回忆录。Harrison讲述了他从摩根士丹利交易员到对冲基金合伙人再到网络媒体人的职业生涯，冷眼剖析了华尔街对金钱的错误崇拜。从7月6日起，《华尔街日报》中文网将每天刊登其中的一个章节，敬请关注。点击阅读已发表章节。）新转机2000年底的一天，吉姆.克拉默和杰夫.伯科威茨在吉姆的办公室里私下交谈，没人知道他们在说什么，而我在外头透过玻璃看着，觉得时间彷佛停止了下来。那次，吉姆为自己在Brocade股票上的失利大发雷霆，砸坏电脑键盘，我走出办公室后又拿东西扔到门上。此后，我和杰夫开诚布公地谈了次心，告诉他如果吉姆还留在这里，那明年我就不在公司干了。杰夫并不感到意外──从三季度末开始，情况就已经很明确了──但这是我第一次公开表明自己的态度。“我去跟他谈谈。”他当时说，“你把心放在肚子里，明天还要好好干。”杰夫是个好人，一生都以身作则。他和吉姆打交道的经验，比我们加起来都要多--九年艰苦的沟通之旅，还要不动声色地满足吉姆的明星情结。在华尔街，忠诚是一种稀有品质。杰夫就有这一品质。我下意识里知道这一点。我坐在那里，等待吉姆的办公室里能传来好消息。门一下子被打开了，吉姆大步走进交易室。一开始，我说不清他是愤怒还是高兴，因为他的这两种情绪别人很难区分开来。他走到主交易席位，大家一下子安静下来。就是现在，我想，决定命运的时刻到了。“我做出了决定，”吉姆说，嘴角有点往上翘，“今年年底我将宣布退休，把公司交给杰夫。”我和杰夫的眼神交汇到一起，事情开始变得清晰起来。真是个聪明人，我心里想，但这也很正常，毕竟那个关于吉姆开车撞人的比喻是杰夫教给我的。我估计杰夫提出，他希望从吉姆的身后走向前台，成为公司的掌舵人；但不清楚我在杰夫的决定中起了多大的作用，或者吉姆的反应有没有考虑到我的因素。不过，这一切并不重要。就像交易一样，最重要的是目的有没有达到。下节预告：期待和现实


Nobody knows what was discussed during the hour Jim Cramer and Jeff Berkowitz huddled in Jim's office in late 2000, but time stood still as I watched them from the other side of the glass wall.I had a serious heart-to-heart with Jeff the night after the Brocade tirade when Jim destroyed keyboards and threw an object at the door after I walked out. I told Jeff that I wasn't going to return the following year if Jim was there.Jeff wasn't surprised -- the writing was on the wall since the end of the third quarter -- but that was the first time I put it out there. 'I'll talk to him,' he said at the time, 'just relax and bring your A-game tomorrow.'Jeff is a good man who lives his life by example. He had more on the line than the rest of us combined -- nine hard years of channeling information to Jim and quietly feeding his stardom.Loyalty is a rare quality on Wall Street. Jeff lived it and I knew it. I suppose that, as much as anything, sat in the back of my mind as I waited for them to emerge from Jim's office.The door flew open and Jim bound into the trading room at a quickened pace. At first, I couldn't tell if he was angry or ecstatic, given the fine line that separates the two emotions in the man. He stepped up to the main trading desk as a hush fell over the firm.This was it, I thought -- the moment of truth, the secret to our fortunes.'I've made a decision,' he said as the corners of his lips folded higher. 'At the end of this year, I'm going to announce my retirement and hand the firm to Jeff.'My eyes connected with Berko as the pieces fit together in my head. Smart man, I thought to myself. But that I knew, since he was the one who taught me the car-crash analogy.I assumed Jeff communicated his desire to step out from behind Jim's shadow and take his shot as the man in charge. I'm unsure of how large a role I played in Jeff's decision to have that discussion, or in Jim's reaction, but it didn't really matter.Much like trading, all that counted was the bottom line.