Unsung Heroes

Yesterday was the so-called anniversary of "Lehman Brother's bankruptcy" - yup, it has already become a watershed event. In fact, I myself vividly remember that day when the news broke out and the stock market to a dive of ~7% or so in a day.

Anyways, there was an article about that yesterday. Lets keep aside the far reaching effects of that event in the financial system and the ripple effects of that etc etc. What troubles me most is because of the greed and thoughtless risk-taking of a few in the top of the ladder at LB, their entire work force ended up paying heavily. Think about the low level employees who had no idea/control of what was going on at top, suddenly find themselves in the street, struggling to make ends meet, seeing their hard earned nest egg of 401k (most of which was in LB stock) reduced to little to nothing. In that news article, there was a mention about a coffee cart vendor outside LB's NY head quarters who has been selling coffee to LB employees for 10 yrs now. He was troubled by the state of the employees - his customers - who are just thrown into the streets. More so, the flock of media reporters, insensitive to the entire happening, irritated him a lot when they asked questions like "how it feels to be suddenly out of job etc" to the already-dazzled employees coming out of the door. The infuriated coffee vendor literally put up a sign in his cart saying "no coffee to press/reporters". Sure some reporters were dazzled to see such a courage from a low earning coffee cart vendor. This man could have easily rigged up some cash by making the most of that day as his future was uncertain as well like any LB employee. But it takes courage to stand up to your principles/feelings and put it on top of your livelihood instincts. To me he is an unsung hero.

PS. The article also mentioned how one reporter gifted him $100 on seeing his reaction and how he used it inturn to give some free coffees to his ex-regular customers for one last time.