Tremors from the implosion of Bear Stearns are being felt all over the world — and as close as Jay Street in Downtown Brooklyn.
From the middle-aged back office worker who is convinced she’s “expendable” compared to her similarly aged male counterparts, to the 15-year worker whose angry at the company bosses who “made some bad choices” that will almost certainly lead to him losing his job, most of the 1,500 based at Bear Stearns’ back offices in the Metrotech complex are facing dim futures.
“We’re all fearful of not being able to find anything better [after we get fired],” added a third worker.
It’s unclear whether Bear will maintain its Metrotech offices, but insiders say it’s unlikely given that new owner, JP Morgan Chase, owns another less-than-filled skyscraper a few blocks away.
As a result, workers are filled with dread, fear and a sudden urge to brush off their resumes. Here are their stories:
The Castoff
Susan Locicero, who works in the operations office, said that she and her co-workers expect that half of the company’s Brooklyn employees will be laid off soon. And that puts her — a middle-aged woman — at a disadvantage, she said.
“I’m 53 years old — and that’s a huge problem,” Locicero said, adding that there is a noticeable lack of middle-aged women in the company’s back offices. “We’re seen as expendable.”
Locicero, who lives in Bay Ridge, entered the workforce in 1982 and slowly worked her way into her position with Bear Stearns.
“I’ve gotten through women’s rights and struggled to get men to see that women are competent in the workplace,” Locicero said.
That made it all the more discouraging when she was job-searching a few years ago and saw countless older men get jobs at companies where she was told she was too old to succeed.
“I’ve worked all my life. I’m damn good at my job,” Locicero said. “And it’s ridiculous that a 53-year-old man who is equally or less qualified has a better chance than I do at finding a new job.”
The Careerist
One longtime employee, who has a wife and three kids to support back home in Queens, said it was bad enough to wake up on Monday to find that his stock in the company was virtually worthless.
But he was completely devastated because the demise of the company where he’s worked for 15 years was entirely out of his control.
“It’s frustrating to me that the people on top made some bad choices, and those bad choices are going to affect people like myself that come in here and work everyday,” said the 46-year-old, who requested anonymity.
Now he, like most of his co-workers, is “just sort of shuffling along, waiting for the ball to drop. We’re watching things fall apart up there.”
Will he end up with his head above water? He’s not sure.
“Obviously, you have to stick your head up and look elsewhere [for work]” he said. “But those openings are rarely that easy to find.”
The Outsider
Jimit Doshi was never really part of the Bear Stearns culture — and it’s a good thing, given that he knew his job was in trouble from the day he started two weeks ago.
An outside consultant, Doshi said the writing was on the wall for the financial giant.
“I got here knowing that I’d be out of a job in three months,” said Doshi, who lives in Jersey City. “I knew what I was getting into. I knew that the company was basically going to have to leave its employees behind.”
That said, he still feels “an almost overwhelming sense of disappointment” at the 84-year-old firm’s implosion.
This 26-year-old doesn’t think he’ll have any trouble landing on his feet, but at this point, he doesn’t even know if he’s going to be terminated. And any firing would put a financial strain on him.
“If I get fired tomorrow, yeah, it’s going to be a problem,” Doshi said, referring to the fact that all his co-workers are frantically searching “left, right and center” for new jobs.
“We’re all fearful of not being able to find anything better.”
