The New York Times has published a resignation piece from Greg Smith, the executive director and head of Goldman Sachs’ United States equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. A man who’s responsible for selling things to more than half the world has had enough.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/opinion/why-i-am-leaving-goldman-

sachs.html?pagewanted=2&_r=4&hp

 
‘These days, the most common question I get from junior analysts about derivatives is, “How much money did we make off the client?” It bothers me every time I hear it, because it is a clear reflection of what they are observing from their leaders about the way they should behave. Now project 10 years into the future: You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the junior analyst sitting quietly in the corner of the room hearing about “muppets,” “ripping eyeballs out” and “getting paid” doesn’t exactly turn into a model citizen.’

 
The 1987 film Wall Street was an excoriating satire on short-termism and greed which attracted generations of people with psychopathic tendencies into Finance. Browse this report into the issue.

It takes a long time for the zeitgeist to change, and we’re entrenched in a culture that reward disgraceful behaviours with huge wads of cash, and tells the rest of us that money is the only measure of success. It’s a message that’s quickly filtered down through every section of society from celebs and industry to medicine, charity and council estate gangsters. 

‘My sense is that the majority of the people in finance have an urge to prove themselves. And banks offer a platform where they can do so. I feel there’s a particular kind of insecurity to many bankers, a form of neediness and a deep desire to compensate. Love? Many people in banking try to project an image of perfection, and banks play to that, trying to make you look perfect and feel invulnerable. It’s very easy to get hooked to that life, to become addicted to work and the money.’ 1

There’s never ending research on people who are poor and very little on people who are very rich, but increasing anecdote suggests that people in high earning jobs have serious problems with exhaustion, addiction, terror of failure and entrenched self-loathing. Which seems a sane response to being prepared to rip someone’s face off as part of your job.

Now that a hyper-successful super-achiever has spoken out about his disgust at a system that encourages people to see themselves and other people as things, perhaps the message will filter down. Gordon Gekko got rich not through talent but through illegal insider trading. And when he got out of prison no one was there to greet him.

1. Luyendijk J. Ex-mergers and acquisitions banker: ‘There’s no time for friends’. The Joris Luyendijk banking blog. The Guardian. 2012 January 

Eric Joyce MP has been charged with assault after losing it in the Strangers Bar of the Commons. Like bankers, traders, doctors, sales reps and lawyers there’s very little mental health or pastoral support for MP’s – the Chaplaincy role in Parliament seems more ceremonial than anything else – and it would seem that Joyce was left to get on with it after his previous arrest, driving ban and loss of his Shadow Cabinet job in 2010.

Many people thrive in high-pressure jobs, it looks as if Joyce did too until the day that he didn’t. Like Joyce, Nick Leeson and Kweku Adoboli were left to get on with things after a number of actions that suggested they might not be managing.   Part of the reward for this kind of lifestyle is high wages, high status, tolerance of illegal behaviours like drug use and driving convictions, and lots of perks to offset the ludicrous hours, non-negotiable deadlines, high workloads, often tedious processes and sustained adrenalin drenching. Of course, all the research shows that high pressure jobs can double the risk of anxiety and depression, as well amplifying any vulnerability to eating disorders, drug and alcohol dependence. Perhaps counter-intuitively, people who’re attracted to this kind of work can have real problems with self-esteem, shame and self-loathing.

Psychopathic personalities thrive in this toxic arena. A great many of us have some psychopathic traits but an environment that rewards pure greed or encourages you to ignore the human consequences of a deal or an ideological policy positively nurtures madness.

Alastair Campbell is not known for his lack of robustness and he remains open about his own mental health problems.

One in 4 of us will experience it. Clients who come to me from prestigious backgrounds experience it and leave feeling less like a miserable failure on the verge of collapse. They don’t make videos about it but neither are they ashamed or afraid of asking for confidential, professional help.