A Wild Hair?

Picking up from where I left off ...

The temporary assignment required me to travel to another city - the city where my (bad) manager was actually located. I was to spend 1 week in that city, work (remotely) for 3 weeks at home, and then finish up the last week again at the other city.

The first week I was there, I had the pleasure of eating lunch with my (bad) manager. On the trip to the restaurant, he asks me the following question: "How is this temporary assignment helping you work toward your career goals?" Wow, was he actually caring about my well-being and my career? I was floored! I figured that since he asked, I would tell him. I told him the publication was requiring me to work with solutions architects and people in technical sales, and I was really interested in pursuing these areas within the company. He seemed to acknowledge that statement by saying something like: "Yes, I think that is something that you are capable of doing, and you would be good at it." I honestly thought he had turned the corner in terms of care and compassion. At the very least, I had opened the door. He knew I was interested something else.

For the next couple of weeks, I worked on the publication and I enjoyed myself. It was something new and technically invigorating and much better than the previous project I had been working on for the past 2 years. Eventually, I had to make my return trip, though, and this was where "it" happened.

A little background ....
I had become very passionate about the stock market over the past several months. Similar to the OCD behavior I had with cable TV back in 2002/2003, I started reading a lot of books on the subject of technical analysis, and I loved it. This level of passion was what had been missing in my life for the longest time. I had always heard of day traders, but never thought I had the capital to really be serious about it. Instead, I played around with options and swing-trading, and experienced some success (and failures as well). All in all, the mathematician in me was intrigued that there were theories out there that believed you could mathematically represent or predict the emotions of fear and greed in the stock market. That was awesome! I had to learn more, but the only way I could do that is to consume myself with it on a daily basis. Unfortunately, I had a job that just would not afford me the luxury to do so.

One night during the second trip, I was in my hotel room watching TV and surfing the web on my laptop. I had been viewing quite a few trading web pages when I got a "wild hair" to go to CareerBuilder.com and do a search for "Trader". Honestly, I didn't know what to expect, but I was surprised to see quite a few results. I narrowed down the search to just Texas, and couldn't believe the result. There was a posting for a Proprietary Trader and the location was my home town. Who knew that something like this was going on right under my nose? I visited the firm's website, and realized I owed it to myself to learn more about this place and the job. I fired off an email, and the next day I received a questionnaire to fill out. So, every evening during that trip, after work, I went to my hotel room and poured my heart and soul into the questionnaire. I must have spent 8+ hours drafting, editing, and perfecting my answers. By the last evening, I was finished and I sent the questionnaire back.

Now ... it was a waiting game. Was I getting my hopes up? Was this just a totally "wild hair"? Was I actually serious about pursuing this as a career? Would they even be interested in me? Was I crazy? These were all questions that were going to find answers very soon.