One thing I forgot to mention: When I was let go from IndyMac a year ago — and in each subsequent round of layoffs shrinking the workforce from 10,000 to 7,200 — it was called a “right-sizing.” God, I hate that word. I noticed they finally dispensed with the bullshit last week . . . when they cut another 3,800 people from the remaining 7,200, just before failing completely, the word “right-sizing” was not used . . . Read more →
EppsNet Archive: IndyMac
Chuck Schumer Can Blow Me
Disclaimer: I used to work at IndyMac. It was poorly run and deserved to fail. They got way too much credit for their success when times were good. Look — in a housing bubble, a monkey with a sign can sell mortgages. Then when things started to turn ugly, they took the approach of trying to manage the stock price rather than managing the company. They started up a blog called The IMB Report, the purpose of which was to provide timely spin control on all the bad news about the company. The title — The IMB Report — gives away the game. The IndyMac Report would be a much more obvious choice; IMB is the stock ticker symbol. In shutting down the bank, the Office of Thrift Supervision said this: The immediate cause of the closing was a deposit run that began and continued after the public release of… Read more →
This Doesn’t Look Good, Indy
IndyMac, my former employer, laid off another 3,800 people this week, more than half the remaining work force. I got the axe myself almost exactly a year ago. Prediction — at job interviews, these people will hear something I heard a lot during my own interviews: “We’re seeing a lot of applicants from the mortgage industry.” Yeah . . . tell me something I didn’t know. The Elite Mortgage Daily Blog has helpfully provided a brief history of IndyMac stock: Read more →