The Unemployed Life

Out on the Street: From Bankers to Wankers

Each week, “Joe the Trader” chronicles his experiences with life after Wall Street.

“Where have you gone Gordon Gecko? Wall Street turns its lonely eyes to you. Oooh hoo oooh…” I found myself making up words to Simon and Garfunkle’s “Mrs. Robinson” as I walked to my local coffee shop for another He-Man’s Unemployment Club meeting. Increasingly it seems to me that the current financial crisis is going to be a seminal event in the culture of our nation. The illusion of our collective wealth ended faster than you can spell CDO. Frugality is the new cool, long hemlines are coming back and nesting is preferred to clubbing. What other cultural changes are going to take place?

The jury may still be out on broad societal shifts, but the public quickly volunteered to be judge, jury and executioner for the Wall Street fat cats. Even in the halcyon days of 2006, Wall Street guys were called douchebags. I imagine it won’t be long before John Thain, Dick Fuld and their army of financial engineers will be wandering Gitmo in orange suits.

This antipathy is clearly making its way into popular culture. A few weeks back I was watching 30 Rock. Alec Baldwin as Jack Donaghy confesses to Tina Fey’s Liz Lemon that the new interns, laid off I-bankers, “have zero real world skills” and Kenneth the Page laments that the former bankers “don’t know how to do anything.” How true. It reminded me that I never heard back from that boutique Brooklyn wine store I wrote to in my first week of unemployment.

Dear Sir/Madam,
I am responding to the posting for a wine sales position on Craigslist. My answer to your question on why I would like to work in a boutique wine store requires some context and I apologize in advance for its length. Until recently I worked on Wall Street. Losing a job at any point is a shock to one’s system. The routine that had been established is suddenly arrested and doubt jousts with potential for primacy in the psyche. Needless to say this is a period of self-examination. However, when I try and figure out the color of my parachute, I find that food and wine always rise to the top of my list.

I am a born and raised New Yorker. Food was central in my household growing up. My mother was a caterer in the ‘70s and meals were serious. At the time D’Agostinos had an “Ethnic Food” section that was next to the Clorox and no one seemed to think that cheese that glowed liked waste from Three Mile Island was unusual. With my mom, I schlepped to Sahadi’s on Atlantic Avenue for Bulgarian feta, to Cafe Roma on Broome Street for cannoli and to the Lower East Side for tamales. Food is in the bones.

My interest in wine took off when my college physics professor offered a wine class on Thursday evenings. I signed up as it allowed an hour and a half of drinking before the campus bar opened. My mind was blown wide open when I tasted a 1989 Chateau Leoville Barton. It was still young at the time (as was I) but it made a lasting impression. There was a core concentration of black currant fruit that was linear and direct but then morphed into what I now know to be that classic Bordeaux cedar flavor. With that taste I got wine.

I would like to work in a boutique wine store so I can share with others what is one of the most enjoyable and civilized aspects of life, simply enjoying a wonderful bottle of wine.

Best,
Joe

At first I thought no one called me back because I was overqualified, but maybe the hipsters that run the place just want nothing to do with Wall Street d-bags, past or present. I should have written “financial services” instead of “Wall Street.” Or maybe I should have created a fake resume.

The extreme attitude towards Wall Streeters was not lost on the rest of the He-Men. TJ noted that opinions of bankers are even worse in Europe than in the US. The New York Times just reported that only prostitutes and convicted felons are held in lower regard than bankers.

The other day in London the crowd at a Chelsea football match, disapproving of a penalty called by the referee, began chanting “the ref is a banker, the ref is a banker”— substituting a “b” in the last word for the usual “w.” At least to the paragon of English society—football fans—it is now worse to be a financier than an onanator.

Elsewhere in London, outside of the Royal Bank of Scotland’s headquarters, young twenty-something protestors were filmed throwing snowballs at RBS employees. While RBS employees were being pelted and mocked, the metropolitan police just stood idly by while the protestors taunted.

“Cmon you like to take risks with other things, how ‘bout taking risks with a snowball fight? Maybe you’ve learned more about risk recently.”

“You like to play with our money, now play with our balls.”

TJ said, “When you really think about it, that video was as close to a mob as could be legally tolerated. The guy in the red shirt must have been hit 10 times, and hard. Of course I would have shown ‘em how to really throw a snowball—you know, with a nice core of ice.”

Hal was somewhat more philosophical. “I wonder how many of those protesting have had student loans or carry some credit card debt. I would bet that hardly any of them understand that financial markets have allowed what are now considered basic rights to exist in modern society.”

Roberto was more surprised by vitriol, he asked: “But why this degree of anger? Have the class tensions always been there? “

For TJ the explanation was pretty clear. “It’s one thing when everyone is faring well and Wall Street is making tons of loot. The average person just says ok, that’s the game, but Wall Street’s not for me. Now, the average person is really struggling because Wall Street is the problem. Nobody’s happy when the music stops.”

“But the problem wasn’t just Wall Street it was societal,” Hal said. “Wall Street failed, mortgage brokers failed, the regulators failed, the government failed and individuals failed. Everyone, not just the people who took out Ninja (no income, no job) mortgages, borrowed and spent way too much. How many cell phone, iPod, flat screen upgrades did people really need?”

As we were adjourning the meeting, the cute barista came by and cleared my coffee cup. She asked, “Say, what do you guys do anyway?”

I looked around at the other guys. “I’m a freelance journalist,” I said.

Joe the Trader spent 11 years as a proprietary trader at a major U.S. bank that recently shuttered his division. Previous work experiments were in the public sector as an economist and a brief foray into academia. He has three children and currently lives in Brooklyn. When not looking for work, Joe enjoys skiing, tennis and taking urban hikes. He writes our Out on the Street column about life after Wall Street.

Tags: Out on the Street, The Working World, Wall Street