Harsh Lesson for Laid-Off Recent Grad

Ali Sayed found out the hard way what his professors didn’t teach him in business school.

The Finance and Accounting double major at Pace University’s School of Business got a fulltime job in Lehman Brothers’ tax department when he graduated last May.

In August, the news filtered out about how hard Lehman had been hit by the massive financial failures afflicting Wall Street. The next thing Sayed knew he was out of a job; a few weeks later, on Sept. 15, Lehman announced the largest bankruptcy filing in American financial history.

In this video compilation of various video in and around Wall Street, you can hear the sound of three NY residents protesting the financial situation.

Sayed, 22, found himself behind the counter at his dad’s upper west side Subway sandwich shop in Manhattan, pondering the lessons he has learned in this downturn. He’s now keeping customers’ sandwich orders straight, for free, instead of putting together tax returns, for the $55,000 annual salary he was promised by Lehman.

“I was one of those people that was laid off,” a casually dressed Sayed said, his hand cutting through the air to signal the downsizing. “But it didn’t work out for them either.”

Sayed’s fate is one of the hard lessons of the business world that’s not covered in a business school curriculum, said Baruch College’s Economic Professor, Robert Schwartz.

Sayed wasn’t prepared for what happened to him. He’d been elated when he landed the fulltime job with a global investment bank after interning at Lehman for three years while he was in college. He received a good salary and benefits, and his Lehman supervisors told him he was “doing a great job.”

When the axe fell, Sayed felt frustrated and disappointed, but given the magnitude of the business failures sweeping the country, he’s clearly not alone. The Department of Labor Statistics said that more than a million people have lost their jobs since the beginning of the year, half of them just in the last three months alone.

Economic woes are motivating recent graduates, like Sayed, to continue school while employers scale back on labor. There are more applicants applying for MBAs this year, said Pace University’s Employer Relations Assistant Director, Helene Cruz.

Sayed said he has thought about graduate school, but he is not willing to spend more time in school. He is weighing his options for now.

“Whether it’s to go back to Wall Street or do something on my own. I’m in no rush right now … I don’t want to have to feel that frustration and disappointment I felt when I got let go,” Sayed said.

But the recent business graduate said he is not willing to let economic woes keep him down.

“I’m definitely ready to fight for myself and fight to succeed … I know times will get better. I hope so under our new president, you know… I have hope. It’s just going to take us a while, a couple of years, maybe,” said Sayed, chuckling.

His family has been there for him during the setback. “By learning the hard way, he learned what hard work is all about,” said his sister, Lina.

Their Lebanese-born father’s “classic American story” of building a future with “a strong work ethic” and having pride in one’s work is how Sayed learned to stay optimistic, she said.

For now, Sayed has volunteered to work at his father’s Subway shop in Manhattan and consider his future.

“My father tells me, ‘Do whatever you want, whatever makes you happy. That’s what’s important,” Sayed said.