Where were you when?

Significant events are etched into our memories.

The ability to remember where you were when something important happened in your life is known as a "Flashbulb Memory." This is a special type of memory where people remember details about traumatic or dramatic events with remarkable clarity – like where they were and what they were doing when the event occurred. There are several psychological explanations for this phenomenon.

High emotional arousal: A traumatic and unexpected event that triggers a strong emotional response releases chemicals in the brain, like adrenaline, that strengthen memory encoding.??

Historical and cultural significance: When an event holds great historical importance, it is etched not only in personal memory but also in collective memory, reinforcing personal recall.?

Personal relevance and perception: People tend to remember events better when they are considered significant to them or the society they live in.??

Repetition and conversation: An event that was widely covered in the media and became a public conversation topic for a long time strengthens memory through frequent repetition and discussion.??

Surprise and uniqueness: Surprising and unusual events tend to be remembered better than everyday occurrences because they break what we expect to happen.

Many people in the industry and related fields clearly remember the day Lehman Brothers collapsed. For the analyst class, this event contained all the necessary ingredients to be indelibly etched in their minds.

Personally, I distinctly remember the weekend before the collapse. We were all waiting to hear what would happen. It was clear to me that my continued stay in London depended on my job at the bank. Just two days earlier, my shipping container had arrived and was unloaded in the apartment I had rented for two years. That weekend, I wandered along the Thames with my wife. We both tried to enjoy the sunny Sunday and push away thoughts about the future. On Monday at 6AM, I went to our living room to check emails. I remember the location of my desk, overlooking an English yard in West Hampstead, and the email that announced the company had declared bankruptcy. There would be no bailout. I went to wake up my wife and start replanning our future.?

For some analysts, the flashbulb memory etched in their minds was not necessarily the moment of the collapse but the events leading up to it. Jenny (#23), now a senior banker in Asia, vividly remembers the day her internship ended in 2007, a year before. Everyone who was accepted to the bank after the internship received a large white envelope with their contract details, including the most important part – the annual salary and signing bonus. The new hires were so happy that they went out together to celebrate at a club in London, holding their envelopes and celebrating a future that then seemed guaranteed.

Oscar (#28) recalls a stark contrast between two events that occurred weeks before the collapse – one, a formal cocktail party on the 26th floor where all the senior managers came to pick their preferred candidate, and the other, a week later, at the annual analysts’ event, where they contributed to cleaning a local cemetery. He remembers thinking that one moment you’re touching the sky, and the next, everything is dark. While cleaning the cemetery, he realized that if this was the event to close the course, the bank's situation was likely very poor..

Today, it sounds almost surreal, but in a time when mobile browsing was just becoming available, members of the analyst class received the news over several hours rather than immediately.

Zara’s (#30) story is both unique and strange. Zara managed to completely miss the collapse. On Monday morning, the day the bankruptcy was announced, she took the train towards work. When she arrived at the station near the office, she received a free newspaper, folded it so that the main page faced inward, and continued on her way. When she arrived at the Lehman building, PWC accountants, who were chosen to lead the bankruptcy process, were handing out leaflets to employees asking everyone to stay in their places. Zara, who didn't understand the note's significance, assumed it was just another audit. When she reached her desk, she met a friend from the analyst class who looked particularly pale. She asked him, half-jokingly, half-seriously, "What happened? Did someone die?" Only then did she realize the magnitude of the event. She unfolded the newspaper and saw the headline – making her, likely, the last employee to learn about the bankruptcy.

Raj (#44) remembers the apartment he shared with several other analysts who came to the class from India. They sat in the living room all night, and he remembers the image of the bankers coming out of the fateful meeting where it was announced that Bank of America would purchase Merrill Lynch – sealing Lehman's fate for bankruptcy.

Kai (#28), from one of the Nordic countries, woke up after a long weekend of partying. He decided that in the absence of certainty, it was better to enjoy the moment. While still in bed, he received a text message from his older sister asking if he was okay. He didn’t understand what she meant, but a few minutes later, he heard about the bankruptcy. It had already been made clear to him that the department that was about to hire him no longer intended to recruit more employees, so he understood that his chances of surviving at Lehman or whatever would be left of it were very slim.

Wyn (#28) spent the weekend before the collapse in Paris, waiting for what he considered the "golden news" – the possibility that Lehman would be acquired by Bank of America. When he realized on Sunday that the bank of America had started purchasing Merrill Lynch, he knew that Lehman was headed for bankruptcy. On Monday morning, he woke up to a flood of messages on his BlackBerry. When he reached the kitchen, his mother told him, "Lehman collapsed. It's just terrible."

I asked the interviewees what was the first conversation they remembered making. Because of their relatively young age and the fact that most of them were still single, most of the calls were to family. Hugo (#19) called his father, who had previously worked in finance but switched to teaching. His father simply told him, "These things happen. Good luck.". Marco (#26) was still sleeping in his rented apartment. His father woke him up with a phone call at 7:00 in the morning. Marco told his father he planned to sleep in because he didn’t need to be at work until the afternoon. "You should read the news and call someone because I'm not sure you're going to work today."

Flashbulb memories are not always entirely accurate, but they are strongly imprinted in the mind due to the combination of intense emotions, historical significance, and repetition in the media and conversations. Sometimes, the event is simply suppressed and erased.

My interview with Nisha (#29) took place during work hours on a Friday, a time when most traders are a bit less stressful. But this interview had a few brief interruptions for urgent trading calls, shedding light on how dynamic and demanding life on the trading floor is. Nisha apologized several times, and in between, we managed to sneak in a few sentences. In the interview, she didn’t clearly remember what happened on the day of the collapse. Her flashbulb memory wasn’t sharply imprinted. A few months later, I sent the article published about the project to everyone I had interviewed up to that point. The next day, I received two WhatsApp messages from Nisha:?

[15.9.2023, 09:55]: I met u at the station outside my work, and we both burst into tears on the road with people watching! Very vividly remember?

[15.9.2023, 09:55]: From my mum! Clearly, I had totally repressed this memory. Apparently, I did arrive home to my parents' crying :)

A memory that was completely erased for 15 years.

I'm truly grateful for the growing interest in this project.

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