Competitive Eating

Trading floors on Wall Street are some of the most competitive places on Earth.  Traders often refer to the trading floor as the trenches and competitors as the enemy.  Every day as a trader you are trying to make money off of all of those around you.  Despite the markets not being a zero sum game, i.e. if someone is winning, then someone is losing, you spend all day trying to not let people “pick you off” or “steal your trade”.  Traders compete over everything; women, money, cars, kids, and even food.  The very competitive nature of trading tends to attract a lot of college athletes and a lot of oversized egos.  When there is a lull in the action bravado and bragging, or even a loose word, can lead to a crazy bet.  Once the money starts flying around it is almost impossible for someone to back down.  Here are a few of my favorite food bets.

The Chipwich Challenge

At the first firm I worked at we had something I have since only seen at amusement parks, an ice cream vending machine.  The machine dispensed popsicles, Snickers ice cream bars, and the holy grail of ice cream, The Chipwich.  A Chipwich, for those who don’t know, is two oversized chocolate chip cookies with vanilla ice cream in between.  It’s an ice cream sandwich, but with chocolate chip cookies as the “bread”.  God only knows how many calories those delectable treats contain.

One day our 10year note trader made an off-hand comment about Chipwiches being better than sex and that he could probably eat every single one in the machine for lunch.  That was all it took.  Soon several hundred dollars were being wagered on whether or not he could eat all the Chipwiches in the machine in under 1 hour.  How many were in the machine you ask?  Seven, was the answer as the junior traders emptied the machine out.  Once someone agreed to stake him with $100 bucks he couldn’t back down.  He did manage to eat the 7 Chipwiches in way under 1 hour, but he spent the rest of the day making frequent bathroom trips to heave his guts out. 

The Vending Machine Eat Off

In a variation of The Chipwich Challenge, one day a friend of mine from a competitor called me up on a slow day to tell me about a bet that was going on at his firm.  One of the junior traders had been goaded into eating one of every item in the floor’s vending machine in 1 hour.  The junior trader had been staked with almost $1000 by the senior traders on the floor.  When I responded that didn’t seem that tough.  A few candy bars, some chips, big deal, right?  He reminded me that besides all the chips and candy, that most vending machines have several packs of gum and several types of mints.  The kid was going to have to eat 5 packs of gum and 4 tubes of lifesavers along with the smorgasbord of chips and candy.  Now it just got interesting.  Well in this case the kid got through all the chips and candy, but the gum and mints did him in.  For his trouble he got $0 and severe indigestion.

The Appetizer Boat

Every firm has their own hole in the wall drinking spot that traders and salesmen congregate to after a long day.  Usually proximity to the office is the main draw.  At my first firm that place was Moran’s in the World Financial Center.  Almost every day we’d all stop off for a few cold ones on the way home.  Moran’s was great because besides happy hour draft prices, they also had an appetizer affectionately known as “The Boat”.  It was the largest sampling of cheese sticks, Buffalo wings, fried calamari, and chicken fingers I have ever seen.  It was meant to feed 6-8 normal human beings and maybe 4 or 5 Wall Streeters.  As these things always start, one of my fellow traders who had heard about “The Boat”, but never seen it, ordered one to split with a few of us.  Upon its arrival, he said that’s “The Boat” everyone has been talking about.  That’s it!  I could eat that whole thing myself.  He soon got his wish.  The next day for lunch we had “The Boat” delivered to his desk at noon, and we had scraped together about $500 to get him to eat it.  In one of the worst displays of competitive eating ever witnessed he barely made it through the chicken fingers before quitting.  At least we got to finish eating “The Boat” when he failed.

White Castle Sliders

Once a month or so, the head of our floor used to have hundreds and hundreds of White Castle sliders brought to the floor.  They came in these giant suitcase shaped cardboard boxes that held something like 100 burgers a piece.  I have no idea where he used to get them from, because even the White Castle website makes no mention of anything over the 30 burger crave case.  Anyway, as competitive people surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of steamed burgers are wont to do, an eating contest soon broke out between two junior traders.  One probably weighed 150lbs soaking wet and the other was a mountain of a man.  You’re probably thinking this is going to be a David and Goliath tale where the smaller man wins.    You couldn’t be more wrong.  The 150lbs kid forced down about 15 burgers before retching into his trashcan.  Just for sport the mountain took down 30 burgers and then polished off some fries.  He was still hungry, but didn’t want to overdo it.  This episode would stick with the 150lbs kid until the day he quit.  His nickname became “Puke In The Can”.