The Final Hours at 383 Madison
I still remember it as if it were yesterday. 383 Madison Avenue. The year was 2007. As I waited in the corner office, I peered down at the city below. I saw a myriad of suited bodies bustling from corner to corner and felt excited by the energy.
“So, tell me, how does a pre-medical student, end up in our neck of the woods here on Wall Street? We aren’t looking for an on-site doctor, you know!” exclaimed a boisterous and inquisitive voice. That’s how my interview began…
As I explained my story, he scrutinized every detail. From my tonal inflections to my mannerisms, I felt like gram stained bacteria under a microscope. I saw him mentally wrestle with my words and after a period of silence, he said, “we here at Bear Stearns hire people who are PSD’s…do you know what that is?” Great, I thought to myself, in my interview preparation I had not come across this acronym. My pre-med side recalled PSD as postsynaptic density but that was clearly not the answer here. An onset of mental panic caused my cerebrum to go numb.
I needed to pull it together and as I reminded myself of what was on the line, I snapped back into reality. I told him that I knew I was not the typical candidate that walks through his doors and I was 200% certain that he was finding this whole situation to be extremely peculiar. That said, I was there asking for a chance. I knew I could be successful and I promised I would not disappoint. I needed him to believe in me as much as I believed in myself.
His response was three words long: “Welcome to Bear.”
PSD, in case you are wondering, stood for…poor, smart, and a deep desire to be rich. These were the qualities that the former chairman and CEO of Bear Stearns, Alan “Ace” Greenberg, saw in common among his employees. And clearly, management continued to keep those words close at heart.
I accomplished my mission. As a twenty-one year old, recently minted NYU pre-med undergraduate, I landed my first job at Bear Stearns.
For the next eight months, I worked very hard to absorb as much information as possible and bring myself up the curve. Words such as collateral, securitization, prepayments, tranches, and CUSIPS became second nature. Abbreviations such as ABS, MBS, CMBS, CDOs, and CLOs, all actually meant something. I was deeply fueled by the fact that someone had taken a chance on me and I could not let him down.
If you’ve gotten a big break, you know the feeling I am referencing. There is nothing quite as invigorating as finding individuals who are invested in your growth and who give you a platform from which you may spring even higher. And, while you absolutely have to have the potential and work ethic, there is no denying that you must also have luck on your side.
The idea of luck was driven home on March 2008, when I found myself at the epicenter of the greatest financial crisis of my lifetime. I had a courtside seat to what would be the demise of Bear Stearns and at the time, I did not even know it. There was something foreboding in the air and the uneasiness that permeated the floors was undeniable. I remember walking out of work the Friday before Bear Stearns was sold and glancing over at the J.P. Morgan building across the street. I thought about how great it must be to be over there instead of being amid the ensuing nightmare that was brewing on this side of Madison avenue. 48 hours later, my wish was granted…
I could write volumes about what I witnessed and felt in the hours leading up to, during, and following Bear Stearns’ sale; however, let me simply state that my colleagues and I endured what will likely be one of the most unnerving periods of our lives. We saw wealth evaporate in seconds and years of work get filed into cardboard boxes as thousands of employees were escorted out. The layoffs materialized right in front of my eyes and the number of employees in 383 Madison dwindled week after week.
Our team’s fate remained uncertain for several months as management teams from J.P. Morgan evaluated our business. Every day felt like an eternity and along the way, some pursued alternate routes outside of the industry while others returned to school.
It was in this time that I learned an immense amount about business, understood my own strength and resilience, and valued the importance of having coworkers who support you in both the good times and the bad. In many ways, 383 taught me about life and I think that is why today, on my penultimate day, I feel inundated by emotions.
Fortunately, our team was retained and assimilated within J.P. Morgan. In many ways, it felt like we had to start all over. New systems, new processes, new faces, and new ways of doing business. I also knew that my goal remained unchanged. I had to be on a sales & trading desk. At that time, as a heritage Bear Stearns employee, it seemed like a daunting task given that there was no clearly defined process. But somehow, I had to make it happen.
After months of networking, Lady Luck dealt me the card that gave me my seat on a sales desk. The learning curve was steep and I had to hit the ground running but this was what I had waited for. As I supported experienced senior salesmen, I began to pick up on their personal selling styles. I observed how they spoke about the markets and how they pitched their ideas. At the same time, I learned how to build client relationships. These were the soft skills they never teach you in school and you definitely learn them by doing. The more you do, the better you become.
So six years later, here I am. I manage my own portfolio of accounts and have been doing so for the past four years. Having become a “face of the firm” for my clients, I feel a strong sense of responsibility and have gone above and beyond of what was expected. I have always placed my clients first and have never taken any shortcuts in doing the work that was needed.
I think my professional journey at 383 makes these final few days incredibly bittersweet. I really can say that it has been a rollercoaster. The lows have been so low, the highs have been so high, and everything in between has been one huge lesson in how to keep moving forward.
And now, at the end, you start to think back to the beginning. I remember walking by Charlie Gasparino, the CNBC reporter who was perched outside of 383 Madison at the height of Bear Stearns’ dissolution. During one of my walks into 383, he said “you’re too young to give up hope…you’ll see, it will all work out.”
I walked in those doors as a young girl at Bear Stearns and now on Monday May 2nd, I will leave as a mature woman at JP Morgan. The experiences in 383 over the past nine years have molded me into who I am today. And, I am proud to say that they will always be a part of me.
