nytimes.com— The mood on Tryon Street, where Wachovia and Bank of America have gleefully one-upped each other for decades, has turned palpably glum due to the financial crisis.
Oct 5, 2008View in Crawl 4
As someone who worked on the low rungs of banking as a bank teller for Wachovia (I worked for First Union and then they merged) I am happy I left retail banking (and retail for that matter). Banking is a cutthroat business no matter how they try to dress it up with talk about customer service. It's about sales, sales and more sales. It was also about intense competition and trying to come out on top no matter what. Morality be damned. The truth is they sought less regulation to the point where this crisis has occurred. There was a point in time when businesses sought to be regulated because they knew what could happen. I find this statement by a Bank of America director disingenuous: "When you go to a boxing match, you want to win in the ring,” said John Gachora, a managing director at Bank of America, “not because all your opponents had a car crash on the way to the ring.” You won! Be happy! That's how it's supposed to work right? (sarcasm).
diggforlaborOct 5, 2008
As someone who worked on the low rungs of banking as a bank teller for Wachovia (I worked for First Union and then they merged) I am happy I left retail banking (and retail for that matter). Banking is a cutthroat business no matter how they try to dress it up with talk about customer service. It's about sales, sales and more sales. It was also about intense competition and trying to come out on top no matter what. Morality be damned. The truth is they sought less regulation to the point where this crisis has occurred. There was a point in time when businesses sought to be regulated because they knew what could happen. I find this statement by a Bank of America director disingenuous: "When you go to a boxing match, you want to win in the ring,” said John Gachora, a managing director at Bank of America, “not because all your opponents had a car crash on the way to the ring.” You won! Be happy! That's how it's supposed to work right? (sarcasm).