As you may have seen, this morning the Times a serious issue this morning involving financial services employees who will be receiving nada come bonus time this year. How serious? Codename serious. “They’ve come to be called the Zeros,” the gray lady quoted someone as saying (possibly the same person who snorted to himself and then said “stop, no, you’re so bad– so bad you’re good” after coming up with the nickname). “And they…are facing a once-unthinkable prospect: an annual bonus of … nothing,” he/she continues. One executive- possibly James Gorman- can’t even think about it.

Even though employees will receive roughly the same amount of money, the psychological blow of not getting a bonus is substantial, especially in a Wall Street culture that has long equated success and prestige with bonus size. So there are sure to be plenty of long faces on employees across the financial sector who have come to expect a bonus on top of their base pay…One executive, whose firm prohibited discussing the topic with the news media, said the bump in base salaries had confused people, even though their overall compensation was the same. “People expect a big bonus,” this person said. “It is as if they don’t even see their base doubled last year.”

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