Erin Burnett's career has been on an upward trajectory ever since she ditched her humdrum position as an investment analyst at Goldman Sachs.

After escaping banking monotony, she wrote an unsolicited letter to Willow Bay, a former correspondent for CNN's Moneyline. The letter got Burnett a position as Bay's assistant, leading to a spot on the CNN writing team. Now, after several amazing career moves, Burnett is the youngest anchor to cover 3 hours of business news daily.

One of her coworkers describes her as a "work in progress," though she is more an example of how progress works. Burnett's aggressive, ambitious stratagems (and stalker tendencies) got her on CNBC. Let's not forget, she's attractive (in a conservative, sanitized broadcast journalism sense) and legitimately knowledgeable about the business world.

Her aforementioned attractiveness helped her receive a creepy request to move closer to the camera by Hardball (yup, that's the show's name) host, Chris Matthews. Matthews, who is over-the-hill, tells her to inch up to the monitor, lavishing her with construction worker-esque compliments. Nice!!

You know you've made it when a 62-year-old host asks to get a "close-up" of you with thousands of viewers to witness the misstep.