Confessions of a Cat-holic (206)

Last but not least, in order to protect the Morgan Stanley brand, all the interns were obliged to sign a NDA, aka non-disclosure agreement, which was about 20 pages in total. Even recalling my summer internship at Morgan Stanley kept me up all night. Thinking about that freaking NDA document gave me stomachache. The summer experience at Morgan Stanley was nerve racking enough that I had to take medication to save me from nightmares after some 20 years had passed.

The NDA agreement entailed a list of over 80 scenarios, with terms that required us to put our initials down next to every single item, so we could not miss any of it by chance. Given how meticulous the NDA document was with its depth and length, we really could not afford to be reckless. That process of HR compliance going through the 80+ statements alone took us almost a day. Under the premise of confidentiality and safeguarding Morgan Stanley's reputation, all the interns were required to shut down all blogs and social media channels, including but not limited to Facebook, Sina, Weibo, xanga or myspace, with a promise to never post pictures of or mention our coworkers, our workstation or the trading floor in any media outlets. We were not allowed to talk about our summer experience in public, not even about our colleagues or bosses. We could not mention anything associated with our employment at Morgan Stanley, that included the terms of our summer or full time offers, the intern class and their profiles, the content of our bootcamp and/or the summer project that we engaged in. If we had to mention our summer experience on a resume, it would have to be strictly on public information on WSJ or Financial Times; any violation in mentioning the party names or confidential process in executing the deals could end up in lawsuits.

We had to promise to never appear on the press or media, which might include interviews with a journalist, a video conference on a news program, a talk with a reporter, a radio broadcast, or anything that could disclose our identity and our employment with Morgan Stanley, even if we decided to not come back to the firm for a full time position. We were not allowed to talk about Morgan Stanley in any discourse, whether in private or in public premises. I could not even mention the name Morgan Stanley if it, in any case, might dampen the firm's image. If I had to execute a deal with Morgan Stanley, like when I worked at Lehman as a full time staff, I would have to refer to Morgan Stanley as MS, or in my case it would be MSPB (Morgan Stanley Private Bank). I could not hold against Morgan Stanley in any public discourse that could be deemed as a false misstatement about the firm; any violation of this item could result in damages of public perception of the bank and Morgan Stanley had reserved the rights to redeem any monetary loss as a result of my negligence in speech and publicity.

We were also obliged to never disseminate untruthful information about the firm in any chats or gossips, whether it happened in the office washroom or a networking cocktail reception after work. If the firm found out that we were interviewing or approached by external recruiters or headhunters, Morgan Stanley reserved the rights to withdraw its offer or terminate the summer internship program if necessary. We were not allowed to disclose any details about our internship or the firm's business policies in any job interviews during the process of seeking employment even after we left Morgan Stanley.

The interns were also obliged to promise to never write about or publish any work regarding our summer internship or full time employment at Morgan Stanley, even if we were no longer a staff of the firm. If we decided to journal our times at Morgan Stanley, Morgan Stanley reserved the rights to redeem all the profits generated from such publications including legal costs associated with the litigations. Morgan Stanley had all the permissions to initiate proceedings where it deemed appropriate.