Another day, another Wall Street analyst gets fired for his anonymous blog, despite taking precautions after the same thing happened to former Citigroup trader Michael McCarthy. The blogger known as "1-2" was never all that anonymous: for starters, he happily posted links to his blog entries on his Facebook page where he was also a member of his employer’s group.
But more to the point, 1-2 is 24 years old and hasn’t done anything to embarrass himself: while his blog entries weren’t always particularly highbrow, they never came close to McCarthy’s levels of obnoxiousness. 1-2 can now join the pretty happy ranks of other young twentysomethings recently laid off from Wall Street with generous payoffs.
Wall Street is not a particularly hospitable place for the kind of person who feels such a need to express himself that he starts an anonymous blog. 1-2 will find a better job soon: it might not pay quite as well, but that’s not everything. People who are fired while in their early 20s are much more likely to put the experience in the "best thing that happened to me" category rather than the "one of the worst days of my life" category — which is where firings often are when they happen to longstanding and loyal employees with dependant families.
Besides, statistically speaking, given the number of layoffs happening on Wall Street, there was a good chance that 1-2 was going to get laid off in any event. At least this way he has a good story to tell, and he managed to do something he loved at the same time as slaving away over some earnings spreadsheet. A comment of his on Dealbreaker shows maturity and perspective:
Look. We always knew we were playing with fire. We never indulged ourselves with delusions of being "too good to be caught" or anything. But, to be honest, i needed the outlet. I took every precaution to never disparage anyone around my firm or release any proprietary information. In the end it was still poor judgement, and I messed up, but that’s life. I loved my firm–if not my exact position–and I do not wish ill will towards anyone there for what happened. Obviously I wish things had gone differently, but they didnt. So I move on. I’ll land on my feet faster than anyone expects–I always do.
One word of advice, 1-2: don’t just take the first job that comes along. Especially if it’s another job which prohibits personal blogging. Even if you don’t want to keep up the blog any more, you clearly chafe under such restrictions. So wait until an offer arrives which doesn’t impose them. It will.
Cindy (71)-You have to keep in mind that 25 years ago, Ranieri had to package the seeiuitrcs with much higher quality stuff than what you’ve seen recently.Ranieri is on the record as having noted that Fannie’s guidelines back then precluded a lot of skulduggery. Remember that on a micro level, borrowers had to have excellent credit and a significant DP to get a mortgage in 1985.