On learning that Diamond had resigned over the bank’s role in the Libor-rigging scheme
'It was insane. No one in the firm knew about it beforehand. I got to my desk that morning, and the guys on my desk were like, ‘Did you read The Wall Street Journal ?’ So I go to WSJ.com and the headline is ‘Barclays CEO Resigns After Libor Scandal.’ That’s all we knew for the next three or four hours, and guys were just shitting themselves'.
On what happened next
'They called us in. This guy sat us down and was like, ‘Look, we’ve been through worse times than this, but this doesn’t reflect our reputation at large.’ But it was kind of like this big dent. Barclays is supposed to be this highly esteemed brand'.
On interning at a scandalized bank
'When you’re working in the bank, you’re just sitting there working on Excel sheets all day.No one felt morally responsible. The first concern on everyone’s mind was, Is this going to affect my pay in two weeks ? And the answer we got from management was a firm no. As far as other people outside the industry, to be honest, nobody knew. My mom saw that it involved Barclays, but she didn’t even know what Libor stands for. A couple of my friends saw the Jon Stewart thing and were like, What the hell happened ? But mostly it was quiet'.
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