Heaven only knows what possesses some people…
A couple of months back, there was a terrific short story in The New Yorker (“Expectations”, by John Lanchester) about a London banker who was banking on a big bonus that didn’t quite pan out. Life, as he knew it, went instantaneously and completely to hell.
I thought of this story the other day when I saw an article on Bloomberg about how Wall Streeters are coming to grips with the measly pay-outs that so many of them are getting these days.
The Bloomberg article reported on the woes of one Andrew Schiff, who is the director of marketing for a broker-dealer firm run by his brother.
Although he earns $350K a year – which, I have news for him, is a lot more than most directors of marketing make, and is about 7-times America’s median income – this year’s skinny bonus means he won’t be able to cover his nut.
“I’m not Zen at all, and when I’m freaking out about the situation, …it’s very hard.”
Now, other than his parents, in-laws, wife, kids, and – possibly - the brother – ain’t no one is going to be losing any sleep over someone who can’t make in on $350K per year. Even for someone working in New York, this remains a pretty darned tidy sum.
It just doesn’t cover a nut where the nut includes private school tuition, a four-month summer rental, and other expensive niceties:
“I feel stuck,” Schiff said. “The New York that I wanted to have is still just beyond my reach.”
Well, there are plenty of things that are beyond my reach, too. And, short of winning the lottery (note to self: buy ticket), they’ll remain there. But this doesn’t preclude me from living a decent better-than-average life. And, hey, it’s actually fun to take books out of the library. Kind of like shopping, only free.
So oh, boo-hoo. If something’s beyond your reach, you live within your reach while trying to get to the above and beyond. And if your reach exceeds your grasp, well…tough ya!
Schiff’d also like to get out of his 1,200 square foot rental, where his kids – girl 10, boy 7 – have to share a room. And where,
“I don’t have a dishwasher. We do all our dishes by hand.”
Oh, no! Maybe you should just eat out of cans!
He wants 1,800 square feet -- “a room for each kid, three bedrooms, maybe four,” he said. “Imagine four bedrooms. You have the luxury of a guest room, how crazy is that?”
Not crazy at all, Mr. Schiff. And, while it may not be the New York you wanted, I’m betting that on $350K a year you can swing a pretty decent 4-BR house on Long Island, New Jersey, or Westchester County – probably even in a community with decent public schools. And, by the way, your kids are getting well past the stage where a boy and a girl should be sharing a room. Your son may not need privacy yet, but your daughter’s sure on the cusp of absolutely needing it. No little girl this close to wearing a bra and getting her period should be sharing a bedroom with her little bro, unless there’s a divider down the middle of it.
“I wouldn’t want to whine,” Schiff said. “All I want is the stuff that I always thought, growing up, that successful parents had.”
Pink Slip to Mr. Schiff: If you wouldn’t want to whine, then don’t.
And Pink Slip to Mr. Schiff: As a marketing professional, didn’t it occur to you that it might not be the best idea in the world to be interviewed for a story – in this climate – on the struggle to make do on a pittance salary of $350K. A story that makes you look like an unrealistic, babyish whiner, a complete and utter tool who we’re supposed to feel sorry for because he is only going to be able to swing one month in the summer rental this year.
Heaven only knows what possesses some people, but this interview is, IMHO, not the most professionally astute move that Andrew Schiff has made.
Now, I get that this lack of a bonus is personally devastating and dashing of dreams.
But there are plenty of “successful parents” who parent successfully in a more modest fashion – a fashion they can afford, not just dream about.
There is, of course, an element of sadness to Schiff’s belief that “successful parents” do the Brooklyn brownstone, the private school tuition, the pricey summer rental. If material things, if acquisition, is so much a part of your self-definition, your notion of good parenting, then the loss is far deeper than just being about The Benjamins. Sad…
Anyways, Schiff is not the only beleaguered non-bonus baby:
Facing a slump in revenue from investment banking and trading, Wall Street firms have trimmed 2011 discretionary pay. At Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Barclays Capital, the cuts were at least 25 percent. Morgan Stanley (MS) capped cash bonuses at $125,000, and Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) increased the percentage of deferred pay.
Earth to Wall Street: it’s not very smart to count on your bonus for your “regular” expenses, however lavish and outlandish those expenses may be. How about you wait and see what your bonus is, save half of it – even if it’s the measly Morgan Stanley $125K – and blow the rest on something: family vacation, new car, divider for the kids’ bedroom.
Schiff was not the only one whose trials and tribulations were aired in the article.
There’s the Wall Street headhunter who drove to a Fairway in Brooklyn to nab some salmon on sale and combs through the supermarket circulars hoping to find a bargain on Wheat Chex, and is going to forego his annual ski jaunt to the Western slopes. (Oh, the humanity!)
But at least Daniel Arbeeny is a bit reflective on how he used to roll back in the day:
“Wow, did I waste a lot of money,” Arbeeny said.
I understand that the reversal of fortune caused by a lack of bonus is as crushing to these folks as it would be to me if, say, I had to move into a shared flat in a tenement in Chelsea. I wouldn’t like that one little bit. But unless the world goes completely to hell, it’s not going to happen.
All I can say is if there are so many Wall Streeter’s who were living so large that they can’t sustain themselves on $350K a year, then it’s no wonder we’re in the economic trouble we’re in. And no wonder there are so many one-percenters who don’t want to pay any taxes!