Contemporary evidence supports this as a plausible description of late-1980s City culture, but not as a universal rule. A 1987 Washington Post report on the City’s post-Big Bang “shakeout” said firms were laying off staff after securities losses, and another Washington Post report said Citicorp’s London trading chief resigned after losses and policy violations. A later Guardian retrospective on the old City likewise recalled a performance culture in which failure could mean being fired. But these sources show a strong tendency toward accountability and job losses after bad trading, not that every bad transaction automatically meant immediate dismissal. Sources: The Washington Post, “After ‘Big Bang,’ A Big Shakeout”; The Washington Post, “Citicorp Said to Suffer Trading Losses”; The Guardian, “Special report: an outsider’s guide to the City of London.”