Management is AWOL

I feel some sympathy for management, I really do. The atrocities of the past week were pushed down on them from North Carolina. Our managers looked absolutely miserable carrying out their orders from above, powerless to oppose them and lacking any information regarding the direction of the firm.

Ok, that's the limit of my pity.

The smell of blood is still in the air, but it is time for management to step up and manage. They may be hadcuffed, they may be shell-shocked, they may feel powerless to change what has happened, but none of that matters. Everyone is wondering what happens next. Everyone is making up their own minds, always negative, about the future of the firm. Very, very few have enough experience (here and/or elsewhere) to understand how to frame what has happened and that is crushing any possibility of hope. Perhaps the future is bleak, perhaps nobody really has an idea of what happens next, but somebody needs to step up and take the opposite side of the current negative monologue being repeated throughout the firm. It takes courage because all the tangible evidence points in favor of negativity, but through the history of this ridiculous business, bear markets have not caused all firms to collapse. In fact, many retrench and then re-emerge when the market stabilizes. They may undergo major change, and change is painful, but to those who survive, change can be very profitable.

Final thought on this. The people making the most money here have the most to lose. Those MDs and managers need to start taking the lead to calm nerves and improve productivity or else their paychecks will face even more pressure next year.

Plane crash survivor

I have heard that 13% of retained empoyees in equities received no bonus. No Bonus?! Bet they wish they could have gotten severence and unemployment benefits! This was an official statement, but has not been corroborated by anyone that I know of.

One person, who will go nameless, told me that his bonus was not cut at all! He described feeling like the sole survivor of a deadly plane crash. He is happy, but wonders "why me?" Good question. I guess I see his point, but I'm not feeling any sympathy here!! I'd say that he's actually like an unscathed survivor of the crash; around 60-65% of the department limped away from our disaster, but only one (so far) has no wounds to show for it.

Any more data points on comp, positive or negative?

Hey Come Work for Us

I heard that the firm stiffed most everybody by paying out 0-5% of last year's bonus as this year's bonus to those who were let go. This, by far, was the most atrocious part of what went down. People who've been around Wall Street for years/decades were left scratching their heads trying to figure out how this sort of brutal treatment of PEOPLE who not so long ago were valued Associates, could possibly be justified or spun when attempting to attract talent in the future. How can the bank's executives, in good conscience, justify obtaining a full year of 60-80 hour work weeks from people without providing a fair level of compensation for those efforts?

Mind you, most everyone who was let go was a good performer. Poor performance may justify a crappy bonus, but this was not about talent or performance, it was about executing a new strategy because management failed in its previous attempt to map out a proper game plan. In baseball they fire the manager, not the team. Here, they dismantled the team just as it was preparing to go to the playoffs.

The comp debacle turned this layoff from a strategic repositioning into a full-fledged retreat, despite all the pillow talk about how we are fully committed to the business. Is there any other way to interpret the message delivered by management's actions?

Contact Information

A few people were able to send out goodbye messages at work today but many others never had that opportunity it seems. If you would like to stay in touch with others, please post your information in this message thread.

“I’ve had all the fun I can stand in investment banking at the moment.”

Thanks Ken (Lewis) for those inspiring words that will echo in the memories of thousands of former employees who helped generate the money needed to fatten your wallet.

It is late Wednesday night in New York and I'm unable to channel my energies into work when all I can think of is the many, many fine people who were mercilessly let go from BAS Equities today. I've been on the receiving end of the Big F-U in the past (multiple times) so I know what my former colleagues are going through and that has driven me to create this forum in which all of us (you) can come together to stay in touch, exchange contact information, vent, team up, etc.

Perhaps the veterans of the Wall Street wars can provide some context to the young guns on what this all means, what to do next. Looking for an attorney? Looking for job leads--want to share a job lead? Exploring a start-up of your own? Definitely post a message when you land somewhere! There's a lot on my mind that I'd like to say about what has happened and I'll post more messages in the days to come.

You can be anonymous or make yourself known here -- up to you. I hope you'll check in daily and pass the address of this site on to others from the company so they can also participate.

Good luck to all; you are already missed and will NOT be forgotten.