Today I was taking care of some paperwork and a phone call came through.\u00a0 Now we only have a land line.\u00a0 No smartphone paraphernalia so I have to go over to the phone to see who\u2019s there.\u00a0 Well, the phone number was from the New York City area and was unfamiliar so I let it go to voicemail.\u00a0 When the caller started leaving a message, I immediately recognized the voice and as he started leaving his name, I found out I was right.\u00a0 It was a guy I worked with back in 1987.\u00a0 I left the City in 1988 and I guess I never expected to hear from him again.<\/p>\n
I immediately picked up the call and we started catching up.\u00a0 Apparently, he retired last year and was cleaning up some old letters and photos from the time period and he decided to try and look me up.\u00a0 We did the usual back and forth talking about the people we worked with back then and it was amazing how many details were at our fingertips even after thirty-four years.\u00a0 As it turned out both of us left the field we were in at the time.\u00a0 Which is not surprising.\u00a0 He and I had separately drifted into the securities industry by getting our Series 7 license to work in Manhattan\u2019s Wall Street district during the bull market of the 1980\u2019s.\u00a0 The fact that we both left after the 1987 crash is hardly surprising but it is gratifying to know that he also found a safe haven in the economy of the time.<\/p>\n
Well, we swapped stories about what had happened to us since that time and then we asked each other if we knew of any of the other people we worked with.\u00a0 But mostly we had lost touch with a former life.\u00a0 And then we reflected on that life.\u00a0 We agreed it wasn\u2019t a place you would want to stay in for long but that it taught you a lot about people and a lot about yourself.\u00a0 We exchanged info and we plan on getting together for a reunion.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s got me thinking about some of the things that went on back then.\u00a0 And some of them are pretty good stories.\u00a0 I think they\u2019re worth relating.<\/p>\n
I got involved with Wall Street when I ran out of money to complete the last few credits of my engineering degree.\u00a0 I had a wife and three young kids and bills and things that needed buying.\u00a0 So, I decided to become a \u201cstock broker\u201d and make my fortune or at least get enough money to finish my degree.<\/p>\n
That was a different world.\u00a0 You see the retail brokers of back then were being replaced by the \u201cdiscount brokers.\u201d\u00a0 And shortly both would be replaced by electronic trading that would sweep away the old Wall Street completely.\u00a0 But back then we still had accounts and clients and commissions and had to wear suits and ties.\u00a0 We had to know the floor brokers and know how to deal with the various options exchanges and we had to at least hint to the customer that we could do magical things with his order.\u00a0 There was a definite P.T. Barnum aspect to the customer relations side of the job.<\/p>\n
And this bull market was a magnet for people looking to live in the New York City area and wanted to \u201cget rich.\u201d\u00a0 Almost all of the brokers traded their own accounts and many of them dreamed of building up a stake and making a living day-trading.\u00a0 And it was this powerful force that ensured that the entrants were a motley crew.\u00a0 We had all kinds.\u00a0 And some of them were quite colorful.\u00a0 Some were actually crazy.\u00a0 This was partly due to the drug culture of the time.\u00a0 Several of the people I worked with had a cocaine problem.\u00a0 One fellow in particular named Joe eventually was forced out when he started having real problems.\u00a0 Joe was a colorful character.\u00a0 He was always using small exercise devices to strengthen his hands and wrists and he was constantly throwing karate punches and blocks in the air around his desk.\u00a0 He was quite a sight.\u00a0 On Halloween he brought in a black velvet bag that had what looked like an actual human skull.\u00a0 And one evening when his supervisor Rich was berating him for not handling his fair share of the work load Joe picked this little man up by the forearms and walked him over to one of the windows and asked him if he\u2019d like to be thrown out.\u00a0 Joe was a pretty big guy and we were on the 15th<\/sup> floor of an old building that had old style windows that could be opened.\u00a0 Nobody thought Joe would throw Rich out the window, except maybe Rich, but it was a serious breach of office etiquette to say the least.\u00a0 Luckily for Joe, Rich never said anything about it and afterwards gave Joe a wide berth.<\/p>\n Later on, I was Joe\u2019s supervisor and he came to me to complain that people were talking about him.\u00a0 You can imagine I wasn\u2019t particularly surprised to hear this.\u00a0 So, I took him into a conference room and asked him to tell me about it.\u00a0 He said that he heard them talking about him in the lunch room.\u00a0 He was sitting next to the soda machine so he was sort of hidden from the rest of the room.\u00a0 He heard some comments about himself that were very insulting.\u00a0 They made him pretty mad but rather than start a fight he came to me.\u00a0 I complimented him on his restraint and then asked him who made the comments.\u00a0 He said, \u201cThe soda machine.\u201d<\/p>\n Well, that slowed me down.\u00a0 I said, \u201cJoe, I\u2019m going to have to kick this upstairs to Bill.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Bill was the senior manager for the brokers.\u00a0 I said, \u201cBill deals directly with all vending machine related issues.\u201d\u00a0 Then I told Joe that he looked a little tired and considering what he had been through I thought he should take the rest of the day off and get some rest.\u00a0 He thanked me and went home.\u00a0 When I passed this along to Bill his eyes bugged out and he told me to leave this to him and not mention it to anyone.\u00a0 Joe never came back to the office.\u00a0 But about three months later he called me at home and told me that the company had helped him find a good rehab program to get off the cocaine.\u00a0 And he had left Wall Street behind and was working for his uncle who had a printing business in Brooklyn.\u00a0 He sounded as happy as I\u2019d ever heard him.\u00a0 Joe may not have been the craziest guy I worked with on Wall Street but he was surely one of the most colorful.\u00a0 And he had one of the happiest endings to his story there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today I was taking care of some paperwork and a phone call came through.\u00a0 Now we only have a land line.\u00a0 No smartphone paraphernalia so<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,818,1263],"tags":[1267,2872],"class_list":["post-15588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-ocf","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","tag-photogs-corner","tag-wall-street"],"yoast_head":"\n