The Part-Time Trader: Trading Stock as a Part-Time Venture, + Website

CHAPTER 1

So How Much Do You Really Hate Your Job?

I had not always planned to become a full-time trader. Though I started trading at a young age, I always assumed I would just hold a normal job like everyone else. I did not know any full-time traders, nor did I have any friendships with those I would consider to be entrepreneurs.

I had a pretty good start to my career in writing contracts. Essentially, it required me to derive agreements between us and another entity that addressed all those boring terms and conditions, pricing, and the kind of product that we would be receiving. Sometimes I got to put on my Jerry Maguire hat and do a little negotiating of my own.

In other jobs, I had worked on Capitol Hill as an intern [insert derogatory joke here]. I graduated from an in-state college with high honors, but failed to land a job with my political science degree during an interview in the West Wing of the White House. That dot-com bubble started to burst, and with a pretty heavy recession under way, so it made sense to take any job that was willing to pay, even if the only thing I knew about contracts was the two-year commitment my phone carrier suckered me into.

■ Becoming Determined to Find a Way Out

I was on the fast track, and as one of my many bosses (yes, we had group leaders, managers, senior managers, program managers, and contract managers all hovering over us) put it, I was a “rising star” in the organization. In fact, less than a year into the job, I won the employee ...