Deutsche Bank made the point with Teutonic precision last week when it affected a reorganization of the bank that will make 18,000 employees redundant. Although it is widely speculated that this is the largest culling in financial services since the Lehman collapse, the ugly truth is that Wells Fargo cut 30,000 jobs last year. 

Deutsche Bankers who survived this round of cuts did their cause no favors when they had tailors show up on Monday morning to measure them for bespoke suits at the same offices in London where former colleagues were packing personal effects into small cardboard boxes.

A source who works with the senior bankers in question says the sartorial appointments had been made weeks in advance of the job cuts. To her, and to the bankers themselves, I say let none of us get fitted for $1800 suits in such oblivion of the misery of those who are literally a few feet away from us. 

Walking Away With a Small Box of Personal Effects

But almost as distasteful as their behavior is the range of reactions – indifference at best and pure venom at worst – witnessed from the most unexpected quarters. From the publication that put up a picture of a young man at Deutsche’s Mumbai office walking away with a small box of personal effects and a heart-wrenching expression on his face to the reams of smug analysis on every financial blog and chat-site, a wave of vitriol is awash.

«Are we expected to feel sorry for these overpaid bankers?» a reader in the Comments section of the «Financial Times» asked. Perhaps not. But we are expected to treat statistics in a news story like the individuals they truly are. 

Absolutely Lovely Executive Assistant

If you struggle with abandoning the notion that everyone who was let go or is about to be let go at Deutsche Bank is a managing director who has banked years of million-dollar bonuses, let me tell you about those that I know are not. There is the absolutely lovely executive assistant who has responded promptly to every meeting request, interview question or quote-check I have sent her way over the last nine years even though I am reasonably certain her boss didn’t have quite the same reaction to me.

There is the product structurer – one of the best in his class and a brilliant mind – who has spent hours breaking down equity derivatives for me; there is the team leader in London who was nice enough to walk me around the floor on my first visit to her Canary Wharf office; there is the research analyst who was happy to collaborate on a data product I was working on.

These People Have Family

I imagine some of these people have family or other dependents that will sorely miss the security of the monthly paycheck.  I know all of them have much to offer but some of them will be hard-pressed to find opportunities to do so, though consulting and fintech might be able to absorb at least some of those that financial sector cannot.

For every Deutsche banker I have met who offered me his NetJets discount code or told me about the last deal-closing party in Monaco, I have met dozens who are decent human beings and superb professionals. It is keeping the latter in mind, that I caution those of us who are experiencing schadenfreude. We may have dodged a bullet this time, but the war still rages on.