Things My Boss Said To Me

"What are you? A Nazi soldier that just does what he's told and doesn't think?"

Ah yes, this is a classic story. This statement was made after a very bad day in the foreign exchange dept. at Bear Stearns. Here's what happened.....

A trader did a peso option, which wasn't traded in pesos but in US dollars. This was such a weird product that it didn't even appear on the computers and a confirmation of the trade had to manually created. Unfortunately, neither the trader or back office guys did it. So, the next day the customer asks, "where's my confirm?" pretty angry too. So panic began and they hustled around to get the confirm written. My boss asks me if I know the client, yes I did. Did I know the fax number ( faxes - chuckle)? Yes I did. Could I please as quickly as possible fax this piece of paper to the client?

So, not questioning my boss who made it clear this needed to be done right away. IMMEDIATELY. I faxed the paper to the client. However.....

the piece of paper had both sides of the trade. Which meant the customer saw how much money was made on the trade, which was roughly $100,000. DOH! Not good. Very bad. Currency trades were not electronic yet - so it was feasible - on occasion to make big money on an FX trade.

They had to back out the trade to make the client happy. Big mess. My boss blamed me. The trader stood up for me and blamed my boss, saying he was the one at error. Debra was just trying to help - had no involvement whatsoever in the trade resolution was just walking by and agreed to send a fax.

But, the head of the dept saw it differently. He agreed it was my fault. Calls me into his office with my boss and the guy who wrote the confirm and says the infamous Nazi comment.

Now - here's the context. He's Jewish. I have a very German last name. This was completely and totally over the line. I call HR and say - really - I have to put up with this? I come to work and get called a Nazi. For real. Not kidding. They couldn't believe it. But upon calling him - he admits it.

Fours weeks later I transferred to another department.