This is the first week of our four-week holiday break. Today we’re featuring one of Carter’s favorite shows: Truthless. In this episode of Truthless, host Brian Phillips talks to The Kid Mero about the time he landed a job in the mail room at one of New York’s biggest investment banks, as a teenager. After deciding he was ready for a promotion, Mero talked his way into a new job in the IT department. The only problem? He knew nothing about computers. Truthless is out now on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. New episodes of Conspiracy Theories will resume December 25th. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is Truthless about?
Hey, Conspiracy Theories listeners, if you missed my holiday break update, this is the first week of our four-week hiatus, but we're still bringing you something I am sure you'll love. Today, I'm sharing an episode from one of my favorite podcasts, Truthless. On our show, sometimes we discover the official story isn't always the truth.
And on Truthless, bestselling author Brian Phillips interviews fascinating people about the outlandish lies they've told. Be sure to subscribe to Truthless wherever you listen to podcasts. We'll share a link in the show notes. New episodes of Conspiracy Theories will resume December 25th.
All right, let me tell you a story. So a long time ago on the island of Crete, there was this guy called Daedalus. Daedalus was an inventor. If he lived today, he'd have one of those social media bios that just says like, I make things, you know, the kind that, like, web designers love to have. I make things.
Daedalus actually did make things, and one of the things he made was this unbelievable maze, this labyrinth so complicated no one could find their way through it. He made this labyrinth for the king of Crete who needed a way to imprison his own stepson. This stepson, you see, well, not a bad kid, but he had a complicated medical condition that unfortunately made him about 50% malevolent bovine.
That's right, the Minotaur. the original cowboy. So long story short, a hero called Theseus comes along, solves the maze, kills the Minotaur. The king's upset and he gets suspicious. Did Daedalus tell Theseus how to get through the labyrinth? Daedalus didn't, but the king doesn't believe him. So he takes Daedalus and Daedalus's son, who is 0% cow, and locks them both in a tower.
Daedalus is like, well, this sucks. I don't want to live in a tower. Fortunately, Daedalus is a genius, so he figures out a way to escape. What he does is he invents wings, just casually builds some wings. He and his kid, a boy called Icarus, are going to fly right out of the tower. So Daedalus straps the wings on Icarus and he's like, okay, flying is easy.
You've just got to remember this one weird trick. Don't go too high because if you get too close to the sun, it'll melt the wax on your wings and you will fall. So Icarus takes off and it's so fun. He's got puffy white clothes. clouds all around him, and the blue sea down below, and he's just so happy. He's so happy, in fact, that he keeps flying higher. And, well, you know how this goes.
He gets way too high. And just like his dad warned him, the sun melts the wax on his wings, and his story ends with a little cartoon slide whistle like...
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Chapter 2: Who is The Kid Mero and what was his first job?
I lighted my resume verbally to get a promotion. I started working at Lehman Brothers pre-9-11. This is a young Merrill. So I'm in the mailroom and I'm not making any money. And I was like, yo, there's an opening in the IT department. Young Merrill knows how to use computers to download pornography and use LimeWire. Young Merrill does not know how to fix a broken monitor.
But young Merrill pretended that he did and lied his ass off and got that job. and finesse for like another two years, bro, not knowing how to do nothing.
I'm Brian Phillips. This is Truthless, Episode 2, Flying High.
Hi there, this is Steve Fishman from Orbit Media. Our new series, Season 4 in the Burden Feed, is Get the Money and Run.
You'll love it. Here's the trailer.
I'm standing here with Joe Loya. Over 14 months, Joe robbed so many banks, he lost count.
Just terrify these people and get them so scared that not only would they give me the cash, they would give me their terror. It made me feel strong. All I know is we're f***ing helpless. All I know is anarchy. All I know is chaos. I just leaned into that.
Listen to Get the Money and Run on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
The first time Marrow told me about where he grew up, this is what he said. I grew up in a neighborhood so rough, if you look it up on Google Maps, you'll get shot through the screen. This was in the Bronx in the 80s and 90s. Safe to say, Marrow never expected to get a job at one of the world's glitziest investment banks. But that's exactly what happened.
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Chapter 3: How did Mero lie his way into IT?
And Jose, who is, again, like, the child of my mom's friend. So, like, it was like, yo, I'm gonna take it easy on you. Like, I'm gonna let you make mistakes.
Jose showed Marrow the ropes. He walked him through the complicated landscape of the mailroom, where a single misstep could torch the economy of Kansas.
Again, like, just literally learning on the fly, fucking a lot of stuff up, like, sending a lot of stuff to the wrong people and just, like, getting to cook because of the relationship I have with Jose, who's a friend of the family.
The mail room was somewhere in the bowels of the building. And of course, it was way less fancy. In my imagination, it smelled like envelope glue and cardboard and ink. And there were manila envelopes everywhere and a million packages flying in and out. And it was super confusing. It was like navigating a maze.
But Merrill was okay because he was in good with Martin, the friendly cokehead who taught him the ropes. And most importantly, he was in good with his boss, Jose.
The more I tell this story, the more I feel like this sounds like jail. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, I'm trading cigarettes for information. Like, yo, how do I use the printer? Like, yo, here's two cigarettes, Newport 100s.
I wasn't surprised to hear that Marrow landed on his feet in the Lehman Brothers mailroom, because Marrow happens to be the Kid Marrow, the comedian, writer, Showtime host, and all-around entertaining dude. He's currently a host of the 7 p.m. in Brooklyn podcast alongside NBA legend Carmelo Anthony. Check it out wherever you get your podcasts.
Mero's a Dominican-American guy with a smile that lights up the room and a completely infectious laugh. The first time he told me his Lehman Brothers story, I was talking to him while he was at a Mercedes dealership, literally in the middle of buying a new car for his wife, and he kept getting interrupted to fill out forms and select his infotainment trim level.
Did you know Mercedes these days come with both AM and FM radio? And he kept me laughing the whole time. And I just remember thinking anyone who can be this charming while filling out auto dealership paperwork would not have trouble finding friends in any mailroom or parcel dispatch situation on the planet Earth.
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Chapter 4: What challenges did Mero face in the IT department?
And as Mero tells it, Ralph very much understood the assignment.
Yeah, you little shit. Yeah, I know what you're trying to do, bro. Yeah, but hey, hey, hey, listen. Listen, bro, I don't do blow. All right? I'm not an alky. But everybody's got their vices, bro. And yo, listen, I'll be honest with you, bro. Getting a little bit of trim on the side, it's one of my vices. So I feel you, dude. I'm putting a good word for you.
Prong number three for surviving the application process, brazenly lie about knowing computers. Mero lied. Mero got the job.
And I Eurostep the whole, like, yo, you got to fill out paperwork and show that you know what you're doing. Nah, I just got walked right up into that motherfucker. Like, yo, here.
Up next, Mero does his first job as an IT specialist who knows nothing about IT. And we have a serious talk about the importance of honesty in capitalism. After several commercials. The kid Marrow was moving up in the world.
Lehman Brothers was one of the highest-flying corporations in finance, and Marrow had lied his way out of the mailroom and gotten a new job in IT, a subject he knew practically nothing about.
I remember my first job was... to remove the hard drive from a tower. And it was like, yo, so-and-so on 38, their hard drive is fried, they need it replaced. Here's the new one, just go replace it. And I was like, all right, cool.
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Chapter 5: What was the environment like at Lehman Brothers?
Marrow made his way up to the 38th floor. His heart was pounding, or at least mine would have been. Everything at Lehman Brothers went through computers, and a significant part of the world economy went through Lehman Brothers. This was more than a simple hard drive swap. For all Marrow knew, if he screwed this up, there'd be a coup in Japan the next morning.
I opened up that tower and I was like, I don't know what I am doing right now. I went back down and I asked one of the other guys. I was just like, yo, I was like, I want to replace this hard drive, but I'm like, I want to make sure that it's the right one. Like, I'm just bullshitting like crazy. Like, yo, is this the right... Like, did the specs line up right?
Like, is this the right number of pins on this thing? Yeah.
And I'm like, listen, did he ask for this specifically? Because, you know, we want to make sure that the guys get the stuff that they're asking for. And so then now make this guy come up with me. I was like, yo, is this...
Because I opened it up already and I'm like, bro, when I say that I'm just like word salad-ing my way through this, I'm just like, sir, so when you say your hard drive is fried, like it's burnt, like it's messed up. Like smoke is coming out of it. It's smoking? Did you see any sparks or any electricity or anything of that nature? I'm talking like I'm a fucking fire safety expert.
Meanwhile, I'm just doing this so that the guy that I went from downstairs could just do the job. You know what I'm saying? So he, the other kid does it, puts the hard drive in, boop, boop, boop. I just put the screws on the tower and close it back up. And I'm like, all right, job here is done.
You're like knocking the top of it. Like she's going to hold like Scotty on Star Trek.
I'm like, good to go. You're good now, sir. So then I leave and I'm like, yo, Damn. I was like, I don't think I'm going to be able to do that again. You know what I mean? So then I'm like, all right, how do I finagle the bagel now? Like, how do I keep myself in here without having to do this again? Because this is high pressure, bro. That was a high wire act that I just did.
Marrow had gone up for the IT job mostly because it wouldn't be all that much work compared to the mailroom under its new leadership. Now he realized that he had to avoid even the small amount of work that was expected of him at all costs.
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Chapter 6: How did Mero navigate his relationships at work?
You give like the pink copy to Ralph, you give the yellow copy to so-and-so, you give the blue copy to this person, then you file away the other copy.
He told his coworkers, hey, you know what? You go up and take care of this operating system crash. Which, he'd add, I could totally do, by the way. But because I'm so nice, I'll stay here and fill out all the paperwork so you don't have to do it.
If his coworkers complained, he'd just point out that at the time, he was smoking a lot of weed at work, and he probably shouldn't be wandering through the hallways on his own.
So I made that my job. Every time a guy had to go upstairs and fix a thing, I'd be like, yo, yo, yo, they want me to go up to 36 and, yo, Mr. Wong, two of his monitors are on the fritz, bro, but I ain't really trying to do all that, man. I'm high as fuck. Like, I don't want them to see me high as shit. So if you, I'll do the paperwork, because I know you hate the paperwork.
Marrow, like Icarus himself, had gotten way too high.
So, like, I just did that, bro, for, like, my entire Lehman Brothers career until the last Christmas party.
I bet all the other tech guys loved you because, like, nobody wants to do the paperwork. Nobody, bro.
And I'm doing this shit all wrong. I'm writing names, bro. I'm fucking high as fuck. I'm just like, yo, yeah, Captain Crunch on 38. You fix his monitor. Yeah, no doubt.
Yeah, fuck that. You're like, yeah, we changed out the warp crystals on the dilithium drive. Yeah. Yeah, yo. Got some new photon torpedoes in the modem. Man, wait.
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Chapter 7: What was Mero's experience replacing a hard drive?
I watched 9-11 like it was a fucking movie. From the roof of my building, smoking a blunt, like, holy shit. What the fuck is going on? And then my cousin called me, yo, you going to work? Yo, you at work? Yo, turn the TV on. I'm like, what? I'm like, ah, turn the TV on. And I'm like, oh.
what the f- and I immediately go to the roof of my building, and I'm in the Bronx, so I just see like a pillar of smoke, right? Like, I'm just looking downtown, I just see a pillar of smoke. I don't see nothing else. Then I run back down to my apartment, I'm watching the TV, I'm like, oh shit, like, what the fuck?
Mero and his cousin stayed on the phone, though really, what could they say?
At one moment, there's like a pause, and he's just like, yo, yo, you think we still got jobs, though? I was like, motherfucker! I was like, what the fuck are you talking about? Do we still get a job? Do we still have a country? Now I'm high. I'm watching this smoke. I'm coming down. I'm seeing the news. I'm on the phone. I'm smoking weed. And it's, you know how weed goes.
It's like, it's either you're either chilling or now you're paranoid. Yeah. Now I'm paranoid. I'm just like, yo, what the fuck? Are they coming for me? Is this about the mailroom? Did I open the wrong Saudi Arabian package? What happened? Yo. Doug. My father said the most calming... This was a verbal Xanax. I called my pops. I was like, yo, I was like, yo, you saw this shit, bro.
Like, yo, they bombed the fucking thing. Yo, they flew a plane into the shit. Yo, I was like, yo, I'm in the Bronx. And he's just like, papi, calm down. I said, no, we calm down, bro.
He's like, papi, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey Nobody going to bomb in the Bronx, Papa.
Trate tranquilo. The Bronx, nobody want to, who going to, what the fuck they want to blow in the Bronx? The Bronx who? I was like, nah, you're right, Dad. You're right.
Safest place in America on 9-11.
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