How the Stock Market Crash Helped My Career

My life changed for the better 30 years ago tonight. I was working on Wall Street as an an analyst at an arbitrage firm for roughly one year when the stock market crashed. I wasn't particularly well-suited for the job, and I jokingly referred to it as a sabbatical from journalism.

A month or two earlier I had received a phone call from my old friend from Chicago newspaper days, Dan Roseneim, who was an editor at the San Francisco Chronicle. He said the paper was starting a new column and wondered if I wanted to apply. I politely declined. After all, the market was booming and I was an analyst in the then-hot world of takeover speculation with the kind of earnings potential (via the hope of one of those legendary Wall Street bonuses) most reporters couldn't imagine.

Then came ... THE CRASH. The market crash was on a Monday - and so was a class I was taking in financial accounting. It had been, as you might expect, a tough day at the office. The general partners of my firm were shell-shocked. But they also always had a "don't worry" attitude, so I went to the class. There was an eerie, walking-dead, dazed feel to the Wall Street area that night. Nassau Street, which was usually bustling, was dead. I went to the class and there was a sign on the door: "CANCELLED."

The one thing that kept running through my head was that there would soon be more than a few of people much better qualified than I was who could very possibly be vying MY job. And even if I kept my job, I could kiss that potential bonus good bye.

I was nauseous.

So...I went home that night and after consulting with my wife did the only thing I could think of doing: I picked up the phone and somewhat sheepishly called Dan. The call went something like this:

"Hi Dan, is that job still open?"

"Yeah."

Within a few months I flew out for an interview... and I was hired as a six-day-a-week "Business Insider" columnist. (Nuts, right?)

It was the best job I ever had and I kept it for almost 10-years to the day, until Jim Cramer (as he wrote in one of his books) "roped" me in to work at TheStreet.com, an edgy pioneer in what then was known as "online" journalism. (Jim made me a great offer, and I always thought I would kick myself if I didn't make the leap.) I had been formally hired by the site's editor, Dave Kansas, who was my ultimate boss. Dave was a GREAT boss because like all great bosses, he left me alone. After a few years he moved on and his replacement and I were like oil and water. After an acrimonious split I bolted to rival MarketWatch, where I was lucky enough to work for the ever-smiling Dave Callaway, who also left me alone (which makes him great) and who ironically is now CEO of TheStreet.

It goes on and on. I've had more jobs, lived more places and worked for more mostly great editors than I can remember. My 40+ years in journalism were great, and I owe it all to the stock market crash. (There's a moral in here somewhere; make it whatever you want it to be.)

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