WAMU Failure

On September 26th, I was privileged to switch banks to JP Morgan.  It is no secret that the financial banking industry was struggling, and Washington Mutual was no exception.  After a run on the bank the previous few days, the bank's assets were seized and immediately sold to JP Morgan Chase.  Not only are they my bank, but they are also a very large company in Seattle, and one of the largest clients of my company, Deloitte.

Typically, during a sale, an audit would continue through the end of the year, and that give the audit firm a chance to react to such a loss; however, due to the nature of this transaction, audit services through the end of the year, were not needed, and Deloitte needed to react sooner than they initially thought.  They announced to us in mid-October that they were trying to staff the other audit appropriately, and expedite some transfers to other offices, but eventually, they expected to separate about 8-10 people from the firm.

8-10 people in a firm of 135 or so is a big number, and I was preparing myself to be separated if need be.  Currently, the job market is not great, and is seems like a bunch of companies are laying off people left and right.  Overall, they decided to let 8 people go, and I was not included in those 8 people.  So for now, my job is secure, but I will miss those people whom I have previously worked with and hope the best for them.