Repo was a low-status but operationally vital function in 1980s bond trading.

Evidence

Repo, Rosenfeld recalls, was not a prominent or a prestigious business: “In the 1970s and 1980s, it wasn’t done by the top people at the firm; it was … almost like a clerk’s job.” Rosenfeld and his Salomon colleagues “always spent a lot of time with those guys and that was very important to us.” Equally important was discovering what bonds could be borrowed for short sale, and on what terms. — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 973

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Illustrates how mundane financial plumbing (repo desks) quietly underpin sophisticated trading — a theme parallel to trees as underused infrastructure.
• CANDY: A lively fact: the operations powering the world’s biggest bets were once a clerk’s job.