Annie Zhou had a bad first day of work on Monday.

The GW alumna was thrilled to start her job at the investment bank Lehman Brothers, but after only several hours she received news that her new company had filed for bankruptcy.

A chaotic chain of events on Wall Street this week devastated Lehman Brothers and several other investment and insurance giants. The aftermath has caused apprehension among many Americans and Wall Street employees, including several GW graduates.

“Many of my coworkers have packed up their stuff,” Zhou said. “There is panicking going on since the situation on Wall Street is not very good. Everyone is worrying about their jobs.”

Since graduating from the School of Business in 2000, Annie Zhou interned at Lehman Brothers and began on Monday in the firm’s Investment Management office.

“It was a tough time to start,” she said. “I had been traveling abroad before I started my job at Lehman, and when I got back to the States, there were talks about the company going down.”

Roxanne Orkin, a group fitness director of the wellness program at Lehman Brothers and a graduate of the School of Public Health and Health Services, also noticed that things were changing in the company.

“The other day, a co-worker ran into my room yelling, ‘Oh my gosh, shares are at $12.’ And now it is $0,” Orkin said. “No one ever thought it would come to this.”

Orkin said she was forced to lay off the majority of her employees in the wellness center. The company itself laid off 1,500 employees in one day.

“This week has been a major wake-up call,” Orkin said. “Everyone is struggling. I lost all my clients. Some came to me with tears in their eyes because of the news. It is sad, stressful and surreal.”

She said her company is now “part of history.”

“First, Lehman told us that we had three months left to close down the fitness center. Then they told us that we had two weeks. Now they’re saying it is over on Friday,” Orkin said.

Kevin DiGrazia, a School of Business student and member of GW’s Finance and Investment Club, said his group was planning on attending a recruitment meeting with representatives from Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch.

DiGrazia quipped, “I’m looking forward to seeing if they actually show up.”