What’s worse than having Ken Lewis as your CEO? Trying to find someone to replace Ken Lewis as your CEO. While the news of Lewis’ looming leave was met with cheers by everyone except his wife, when it comes to finding volunteers to take his office, the peanut gallery is surprisingly quiet.

The board was hoping to pick a successor for Ken Lewis by Wednesday, but the committee choosing the new CEO needs more time. Lewis actually forewarned that the committee was taking its time during his Oct. 16 earnings conference call. Lewis said on the call that the search for a successor for CEO was being done with a sense of urgency and balance. Lewis said he would give his recommendation for a successor to the board, but he would not tell analysts who it was.

Maybe Kennay needs to re-think that last part. At this point, a job recommendation from Ken Lewis would be as well-received as a children’s movie directed by Roman Polanski. What you want is for Kennay to say you would do an abysmal job and run the bank into the ground.

As it is, the two leading contenders are both $BAC insiders who were closely involved with the ML buyout. This makes them enormously popular with shareholders such as Jonathan Finger who were totally Team Ken. Other contenders never made it past the “board recites names drawn from a hat” stage, such as MasterCard COO Ajay Banga (whose name would have provided endless comedy), GMAC CEO Al de Molina, and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. On a personal note I am glad Fink told the board to eff off, because all I could ever think of for him is recycling Wizard of Id cartoons whose punchlines are “The king is a fink!”

So let’s say that you want to be considered for the job. What are some of the qualifications?

• First and foremost, thick skin. Everyone is going to hate you on your first day. Probably your second day, too. Maybe not your third if you bring in doughnuts or something, but they had darn well better be Krispy Kreme. $BAC is based in Charlotte, less than 100 miles from KK’s home office, and if you bring in Dunkin Donuts to appease the troops you may well face a mutiny. But I digress.
• The second thing you’ll need is the ability to look extremely awkward in every photograph taken of you. This was one of Lewis’ most charming qualities. No, seriously. Go do a Google image search on “Ken Lewis” and marvel at the awkwardness of his face in Every. Single. Picture. You’ll need to master this skill as well if you are to be successful. Don’t ask why; it just is.
• Third, and this is pretty important but not as much as the first two: it would help if you knew something about banking. Not so much as you might be considered a financial insider, because that’s not really in vogue right now, but an MBA would be great, though it’s not a dealbreaker if you don’t have one. At the very least, you should have a checking account somewhere.
• One final thing, not a requirement but it will be of a great help to you personally, might want to consider being independently wealthy. This is not to display money management skills or anything, it’s just that…well, you’re probably not going to be paid a lot by CEO standards. Heck, you might not be paid a lot by middle management standards. And while Charlotte is a pretty affordable place to live, at least compared to what your would-be colleagues are paying for their pads in Manhattan, I wouldn’t count on being able to afford anything on Lake Norman on what your salary’s likely to be.

If this sounds like you, go right ahead and give the board a call. If nothing else, I’m sure they’d like to be able to say they have some more names they’re considering, especially since the alternative is buying a busted hedge fund and naming its manager their new CEO. Right, Citi?