Dreams of the Trading Floor

I don’t know why, but occasionally I still dream of working on the Trading floor. It is never a fun or pleasant dream. In fact, I’d categorize these as nightmares. Usually, it is about one of my old team leads looking for me, and either me being late, out of the office, or hiding somewhere.

I was thinking about it when I momentarily awoke from the dream. You know, I was never really taught the systems we used, it was kind of trial by fire. I remember when I first got to the trading floor, they sent me to see this really senior, big wig named Boaz Weinstein. He was having a problem with Bloomberg, and though I don’t recall exactly what the issue was, I was new and I know that I was unable to quickly resolve the issue. After that first visit, he never wanted me to go near his office again. He specifically wanted one of the other guys. His “issues” belonged to that specific team member and no one else.

As the time passed, I got more familiar and better at the job. I was never as good as some of the other guys, but I got better. Over time, I became the “guy” who people belonged to. Whenever they had issues, I was the guy they came to. No matter whether I was working, off, at lunch, or whatever. If this managing director had an issue, I was their go to person. That’s kind of how it is in I.T. support. Everyone has their favorites. There were guys who were way better than me, but these particular individuals liked me due to my personality, etc. Others didn’t like me and never wanted me near their computers. That’s just how it was.

I often say that I hated that job, but that isn’t entirely true. It was a stressful job, and at times it raised my blood pressure and gave me really bad headaches. But it had its fun moments as well. The Trading floor has some really interesting and funny individuals, that’s for damn sure. Stephanie Ruhle, who has since gone on to become a tv superstar sat on my global markets trading floor. She was in Sales and I still remember her yelling over the desks during those crazy trading hours. Later when I supported her on one of the “non trading floors” she was much calmer and easy going. Like I said before, the floor was really stressful. Time is money!

The I.T. team I worked with was phenomenal. It was made up of really great and extremely intelligent people. I cannot emphasize how good these guys were and how much better they made me. Their skills never ceased to impress me. Despite the stress of the job, I will admit that I do miss the team greatly. Hell, I’ll go on record and say that I even miss some of the users that I worked with, some of them. I wonder though, why do I only have stressful dreams about this former job?