The unwritten rule for anyone working on the trading floor; no matter how sick you are, how hungover you are or how drunk you still might be…
…get your ass in the pit by the opening bell and we can decide then if you should take the day off.
That rule was effective for a bunch of twenty and thirty year olds making a shit ton of money, living a fast lifestyle.
In the age of Covid where all of those punks are now in their fifties and sixties, the old school ways have faded.
It didn’t stop me from going in Monday morning with a high temperature and a throbbing headache, just to be sent home a couple hours later.
I went to Superbowl XXVII in 1993. Our trading group took some customers out to Vegas that weekend. We took a plane Sunday morning to Pasadena to watch the Cowboys and the Buffalo Bills game. I could give two shits about either team, but Michael Jackson was the halftime performer.
After the game we flew back to Vegas. Everyone got off the plane and went back to the casinos. I went over to a locker and grabbed my weekend bag that I left earlier that day.
I was the low man on the totem pole. I got a free ticket to the game under the condition that I had to make the open Monday morning.
I flew into O’Hare around five in the morning. Since I didn’t do well playing craps, rather than a cab, I took the CTA into the city. I went to the health club in the Options Exchange and while everyone there was working out…
… I did the steam, shit, shave, steam, shower workout.
I had the steam all to myself until Richie came in. I didn’t know him very well, so I couldn’t call him Richie.
“Rough night last night Jumbo?”
“I was at the football game last night Your Honor and I had to come straight home afterwards.”
He replied, “You were AT the game, that is impressive Jumbo. Impressive work… Enjoy that nap this afternoon.”
As I left the steam room I answered back, “Have a great day running Chicago sir.”
I went to my locker and put on the same clothes that I wore to the Rose Bowl stadium. I was twenty-six years old and all my clothes were stuffed in my travel bag. The only thing decent enough to wear was the pair of khakis and Hawaiian shirt that I had been wearing for the last twenty-four hours.
It was a slow Monday morning, so I slipped off to the side of the pit to take a quick nap.
While I was sleeping, just twenty feet from the Five Year Pit, a couple trade checkers were stapling my trading jacket to the chair.
Once they secured me to my nest, a guy standing in the pit yelled my name as loud as he could. Keep in mind that a hundred people watched me get stapled to the chair.
When I heard….. “Jumbo get up here!”
I sprung up and the entire row of chairs flew up in the air with mine strapped tight to my big ass.
The floor roared with laughter and my old school customer at Merrill Lynch told me, “Son, if you’re going to hoot with the owls, you better be prepared to soar with the fucking eagles.”
The ticket to that game is on my trading desk to this day.
I haven’t seen the end of the last few Superbowls lately. They’ve sucked since Prince did the halftime show.
GenerationX, we hoot with the owls and soar with the eagles.
Be astonished today and always enjoy a short afternoon nap.
