Things were rapidly coming to a head between Mr. Brown and me. If I’d ever had any hopes of being viewed by him as a peer, those days were long off. Whereas most days used to provide a shared laugh between the four of us, I was rapidly becoming even less a part of the group. Brown would constantly be looking my way and disapproving of whatever was up on my screen. He decided more and more every time he took at gander at my screen that I was not cycling through all my tools in the proscribed ACME9 way.
This was true of course, but after seeing myself make bad trades and lose money due to his constant jibes at my work ethic, I had pretty much decided that I was going to do what I thought was proper and not waste a ton of time pretending to appear busier than my role allowed me to be. My response to Brown was always the same. “You can see my trades. You tell me; which of them are bad? What are the trades that I’m missing? Can I have some of that free money you guys get to funnel into your accounts every day?”
I had a pretty good idea this was going to end badly for me. After all, I’m the 2nd least respected trader in a big firm and he was the first person hired by Mr. and Mrs. Wallace when they started ACME9.
Eventually, I went by Mr. Orange’s office and basically begged for a trade to the National League. I tried to explain to him what a bad situation that I was in, and how Brown was making me insane. Orange wasn’t unsympathetic, but Orange was all about numbers and he pointed out how compared to Brown, Floyd, and Freddie’s mine didn’t look so good. Not that anybody had ever patted me on the back during the two months where I did much better than them. Orange told me he’d consider my situation.
Now, it’s possible that if Brown and I had lasted another day or two that the big meltdown wouldn’t have happened, but neither of us was that fortunate.
Soon we came upon a really slow day, so slow that Brown, Freddie and Floyd had been joking around all day. At some point, I jokingly pointed out something that continued to be unusual in Phillip Morris, my favorite issue and Brown’s bugaboo. I wasn’t doing it on purpose, but he hated to hear me talk about anything in that name. We were both Jewish, but I guess to him it was somewhat akin to me mentioning what a great guy Hitler was every day.
Brown cut in and said something nasty to me about goofing around. I mentioned that the three of them had been talking non-stop the whole day about the Cubs, the Bears, or Brown’s next door neighbor, the one he let drive him to the train station, which forced him to converse with the man for the entire ride when he’d much rather relax and read the newspaper. You know crap. I noted that “they had been completely wasting time, whereas I at least was pointing out something funny about work.”
Brown let me know that he didn’t agree, and I forget what I did. Maybe I said something like “well, you would have been amused if you weren’t too much of a pussy to trade that stock.” I doubt that I called him a pussy, but as close as you could say that to a partner without being fired immediately is what I said.
Since I was right on the edge, I waited through a couple of minutes of ugly silence and went downstairs to smoke a cigarette. About five minutes after I got back, I got called into a private meeting with Orange and Brown.
This would probably have been a smart time to simmer down, but I wasn’t having that. It’s almost impossible to get me angry. I’ve been told by many people how incredibly patient I am with others. I’m not patient with myself, but I’m close to infinitely tough to incite.
But I’d spent close three months losing more and more respect for myself. I was being abused on a daily basis by a guy who had started out in the business after I had. I was willing to concede that he was a better trader than me, but not enough to merit the abuse I was taking from him. Every day I’d bitten my tongue, worried about losing my job, and felt more and more like a loser; until, that day.
I can document how many times in my life I’ve been truly enraged. The last time had been after the same guy had stolen my car stereo for like the fifteenth time. I lived right on the edge of Oakland back then, and every single time I would forget to set my car alarm I’d wake up to find another radio gone. By the time I got to work, this other trader came up to me to whine about something my clerk had done to his account. For all I know he was justified in coming to me, but I strongly doubted it, and I pretty much tore his head off. After about a minute and a half, he was willing to forget it and go get me a sandwich as a peace offering.
So I walked into Orange’s office, and Brown started going over all of my bad habits, but as I said I wasn’t having it. I was desperate to keep this job, even if it was less than ideal. The thing that burned me up was that it so easily could have been the ideal job, if guys like Brown would just get off my back and let me do it. For once, losing my job didn’t even enter into my head.
I’ll let you cut me off at the waist. I’ll let you cut me off at the knees, but when you look to cut my pride down to my ankles, I have to start sticking up for myself.
I shot back again with, “show me the bad trades I’ve made lately? Show me the trades that I’ve missed. Show me my bad positions.”
Brown reminded me about the infantile tool diary that I never really started keeping.
I reminded him that I wasn’t the same age as his four year old son.
He mentioned that I didn’t even have a specific tool up on my computer screen. I told him that I, not only had the tool up, but that I’d bet him $1,000 that the tool was up.
To which, Brown grunted in exasperation, in effect saying, “I’ve done all with him that I can do,” and walked out of the room.
Orange, to his credit, wasn’t really that bad about it. He assured me that there had been personality conflicts before. I assured Orange that I liked and respected Brown, but that he was driving me insane.
That night I sent an e mail to Brown saying nothing personal, I like you and respect you, but I don’t think I was meant to work with you and the day after that my computer was moved. Not into another group, but basically into Siberia. If I thought I was on an island before, it was now much worse. I was sitting nowhere near any other trader, and my seat bordered an empty aisle and a technology guy from India, who I still have yet to hear speak. I’d been thrown to the sea, left to sink or swim.
I Fought ACME9 and ACME9 Won: Part 9 Enjoying It in Siberia
Related Posts
