GUEST COMMENT: The reality of the trading floor
I recently worked with some graduate trainees for whom the first impression of a trading floor was the inside of a small office just off the main action. This wasn't for their safety or to break them in slowly. It was because the graduate recruitment team forget to tell us when they were coming, how many there would be, and what they were supposed to be doing. I then spent the morning running round, begging, threatening and making claims that were not entirely founded in reality related to their various skillsets until I'd found them all a home. It can't have been the easiest introduction to what is, to say the least, an unusual environment, but I believe most of them survived.
I've worked on trading floors in Asia, the US and in London. The main thing they have in common is that they are not as portrayed in the '80s film Wall Street. Yes, there are suits and, yes, there is always at least one woman keeping up the tradition of big unnaturally coloured hair, but they are not shiny, glamorous places. Look closely and there is 'stuff' everywhere: boxes of unread research, dealing tickets, old shirts, new dry cleaning, random food and half full (or half empty...) cups of tea, coffee, nasty dispensing machine hot chocolate or, in some extreme cases, vodka disguised as water.
The lack of personal space that comes from essentially sitting in a battery farm means possessions have only one way to go - up. Piles and piles of paper teeter in front of piles and piles of screens which give out enough heat and radiation to provide a year- round tan. These piles are in constant danger from the tatty stress balls given out in their hundreds by suppliers who know exactly how they end up being used. While they may have started off being different colours or shapes, almost immediately they will have had pieces picked out of them (mainly where the logo was), been written on, covered in tip-ex and stapled. In this state, they fly across the floor. Those who can catch these graffiti covered missiles are revered as Gods.
There is nowhere to hide on a trading floor. Everyone can hear your conversations and see your screen. Behaviour that would be unacceptable anywhere else, like shouting at someone in your bank of chicken stalls without even turning around, is acceptable. If you don't get an answer, shout again until you do.
As a result, good trading floors are noisy. Bad ones are terrifyingly silent and appear to be in rehearsal for the real thing. A good trading floor is possibly the best place to work in the world and makes everything else look boring, tidy and conventional. Bad ones should be avoided at all costs as should the stress balls. You just don't know where they've been.
