Its 30th June today and its ten years since I first stepped into the corporate world by joining the erstwhile Lehman Brothers. I still remember the excitement on the first day. We were around 60 campus recruits from across campuses. In the first day we had sessions by different department heads.From the next day onwards, training followed. We started with G.Ramachandran's ( He was fondly called ramach) financial markets domain training. I must say that was one of the best financial markets and derivatives training I have received till date. Anybody from Lehman who has attended Ramach's sessions will vouch for this fact. In fact in the years that followed , I attended one more day session on financial markets only because it was conducted by Ramach.
Post our training just as we were getting allocated to projects, there was news of Lehman being in distress. There was uncertainty about what will happen. In those times, our department head did a wonderful job of keeping us all updated regularly, reassuring us and asking us to have faith in Richard Fuld(the then CEO of Lehman). But destiny had something else in mind.
On the Monday morning of 15th September 2018, as I was boarding the office bus, there was news about Chapter 11 Lehman bankruptcy. I still vividly remember that day. I had a training scheduled that day. The trainer didn't turn up. I frantically googled what is Chaper 11 bankruptcy. What does that mean for our job? Will we be asked to vacate the building?People started taking out stuff from lockers because they were not sure if they could reach office the next day. All of us campus recruits sat in a training room not knowing what to do. Some of us started making CVs, applying on naukri.com. In all this, there were talks of some other bank buying us out. Finally on 6th October , Nomura acquired us. There was job and stability. Finally there was an end to this uncertainty.
There are just so many wonderful memories that I can keep on writing them. I got to learn from so many wonderful managers and colleagues, from people not only in Powai office but across regions. I made some very good friends. 10 years since joining and 7 years since leaving Lehman/Nomura, Apart from the work I still remember
- Those wonderful training times,
- Chatting in breakout and caferia,
- The fact of how I got used to addressing everyone by first name and dropping the sir or madam title
- Prem wanting super formal dressing to the extent of insisting guys to wear a tie daily
- Just amazing processes and communication to employees
- Newsletter and CSR work
- Shuttling between Kensington and Winchester
- Hanging out in Powai
....and much more..
To those Lehman and Nomura times, to those managers and friends, all I have is gratitude!
Cheers!
Dhanashree
Https://dsaidso.blogspot.com
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