Relationship Manager

It's sad that adults, especially highly trained Wall Street people, actually need these. But they do.

A relationship manager exists inside of a stock brokerage (usually) just to be sure everybody's happy. Why? Because most of the services that brokerages provide these days are absolute commodities, provide-able by almost anyone with a basic license and modest amounts of capital. So, at the end of the day, the buy side can choose to trade with any broker they want, and pay commissions to any broker they want. The commissions are almost always the same, the services almost always the same. So having a good relationship for the year-end determination by Santa Buy Side to figure out who's been naughty and who's been nice...is a process quarterbacked by the relationship manager.

"Are we doin' ok?" "Do we make you happy?" "Did we have you at 'hello'?" That's what they do for a living, along with setting up tee times and adventure bonding trips when and where that's still legal to do. And you must ask yourself what this person did in a previous life to end up having such a difficult job in this one.