By their early 20s they have simply gotten used to being brilliant at everything. They pass every exam, they make every team, they get all the girls. Everyone they have ever met - family, friends, teachers, team-mates, career advisors - has told them over and over again how brilliant and special they are. They envisage trading in the financial markets as the next box to tick. After all, how hard can it be, it's just a bunch of numbers, right?
"Give me some trading limits on day 1 and by month end I will be the new George Soros." When you do actually give them trading limits, and take great pains to explain that they are expected to lose money at first (unless they actually ARE the next George Soros), they usually sort of guffaw, and you can read the quiet "ha-ha.. I'll show this old fuddy-duddy!" thoughts that flash across their faces. Humility is in short supply.
In light of this it becomes terribly, terribly difficult for them to admit it when they have made a mistake. No matter if the error is small (who spilt coffee on the keyboard?), medium (who just told our best customer to call DeutscheBank for a price?), or relatively gargantuan (who just bought 2 tonnes of Platinum instead of selling 2,000 ounces of Silver?). They either pretend they had nothing to do with it, or if evidence is incontrovertible, they try to bore you to tears with a verbose catalogue of mitigating circumstances, while explaining that the problem was actually the result of a communication / system / procedure / training / management-directive error...
Rare moment in which a trainee trader tells it like it is...
7 comments:
Funnily enough his face is actually going to ++++ing look like that if he lies to me once more about not even knowing about that mistake (which was all someone else's fault anyway, even if he did know about it).
Regarding Soros, he was just a lucky bloke who ran over a Black Swan.
Or something.
I soooo enjoy these middle-aged posts ..... [I didn't say that BTW, it was somebody else ..... I think it was the bloke over there actually ---->]
@UDH Boy - As Lee Trevino famously responded to a "you lucky, ++++" heckle... "You know, the more I practice, the luckier I seem to get!"
@DP - And it's a tremendous pleasure to provide you with vicarious pleasure...
p.s. the bloke over there ---> has been fired
p.p.s. I'm doing a sideline in middle-aged posts. I'll send you a couple free with every second-hand VCR order...
I wasn't expecting this picture gonna end up here :)
Next Soros ? Ursss..and how now pls? :)
ROFL! I heard exactly the same complaints about graduates embarking on a computer programming career from Other Half when he was in that business. They leave uni with the idea that they're God's Gift to the industry, but in reality, their training is only just about to begin, and they can't seem to wrap their heads around that.
Potential for damage must be greater in trading though, huh?
@trywalker - sorry, dude, some material is just too good to waste ;-)
@jay - actually damage potential is minimal since it's only money we are talking about. Or in fact 1s & 0s representing money... I'd imagine there is MUCH bigger potential for carnage in the programming world. Imagine, for instance, what would have happened if the Florida vote-counting system job HADN'T been given to a trainee in 2000...
(Hey, Jed, who shall we give the vote system job to?
Ahh, give it to the new kid Teddy... it's only for adding up votes, after all!)
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