The Wall Street Psychologist – A Common Scenario Imagine, for example, that you are a retail stockbroker, having worked as a financial consultant for the same firm for 25 years. You’ve seen a variety of managers come and go and you are familiar, by now, with the old boy network. You were an average performer (third or fourth quintile); you make a decent living, you had the golden handcuffs (the great bulk of your retirement funding is placed in your firm’s stock) and then along comes a meltdown like the one of 2008-2009—and your company’s share value plummets by nearly 70 percent.
Meanwhile, the company’s new CEO has been on a shopping spree, redecorating his office with furnishings fit for a king. In the broker community, John Thain, Merrill’s ousted CEO, is fondly remembered for this $35,000 office commode, and his $1.2 million overall office refurbishment with shareholder assets.
So what is the net result? Your company’s stock is cheapened. Your 401K has shrunk dramatically. Upper management continues to take huge bonuses for questionable performances (too many credit default swaps and mortgage-backed security products), and now the markets are in a free-fall.
Century-old, previously venerable companies are going out of business, and your clients are beating the hell out of you. Where, in all this, is the CEO’s fiduciary and moral responsibility to you, the financial consultant?
You feel that you have been forced to work in a deceptive, hostile environment. You feel that you have been betrayed. Your neurotransmitters are in an uproar, you cannot sleep, you are over drinking and self-medicating, and you are chronically anxious.
You are alienated from your spouse, distant from your kids, and literally terrified about the security of your financial future. In times like these, sales of SSRIs (Prozac, Zoloft, and Lexapro) soar and Big Pharma is having a field day.
Again: “This is how we do things here.”