“Everybody wants to go to Baghdad,” Tony said gently but without any hesitation. “Right out there in our newsroom,” he went on, pointing to it. “There’s a line of people paying their dues to get to where you want to be. Are you ready to do what it takes to get there? To move to Atlanta? Can you handle working nights and weekends? Are you ready to give up everything for your dream?”
Suddenly, I wasn’t ready. All I could think about was everything I’d ever worried about: mortgage, bills, obligations, uncertainty. Air caught in the back of my throat, and I panicked. I couldn’t believe that I wasn’t willing to go the distance, but … I wasn’t willing to go the distance.
Tony knew. “Patricia,” he’d said, “I see people like you in my office every day. From recent journalism school grads to seasoned foreign correspondents. Everyone, all of you, wants to be a part of the action. Eventually that happens, but in a different way for each person. What I’m trying to say is that this might not be for you. But listen, you must follow your dream still, wherever it takes you.”
At that point, as I was saying good-bye to him and to CNN, I was hardly considering his advice. Boarding a return flight to New York, I decided to accept J.P. Morgan’s offer. My dream was over, I thought, and it was time to return to reality once and for all.
Now, sitting on the trading floor a few weeks later, on the phone with Phil, the client, I tried to explain all of this to him. Still, I winced at his reaction. It was what I’d been expecting, but I certainly didn’t want to hear it.
“You’re telling me you’ve gone, literally, to the ends of the earth to follow a dream, and you aren’t going to follow through?” he asked incredulously.
“I gotta go,” I said, and put the phone down. All around me, traders and salespeople had begun to shout at each other, in particular Les, who was spluttering, red-faced, into his phone, flecks of hot spittle landing on his desk as well as on those of us sitting next to him.
The currency market was rife with rumors, and regardless of their accuracy, those rumors were still moving the market to which I’d returned. That morning in particular, the first cracks in the foundation of the housing market had begun to appear. The rumors hadn’t become news yet because no one was sure what was going on. The number crunchers were busy crunching numbers, and with those results came gasps from analysts.
Because most of us on the trading floor had worked through at least one global financial crisis, we were accustomed to bracing ourselves for impact. And we did just that, spending a lot of time on conference calls trying to figure out what was false and what was fact, and then calling our clients to alert them of what we weren’t yet sure we knew.
The crisis itself was still abstract, so no one was predicting the collapse of the American housing market followed by fears of the Great Depression repeating itself. Instead, everyone was shrugging his or her shoulders, wondering if the analysts had gotten their models right. As for me and everyone else on the trading floor, we were simply too busy to think about anything but work. Frankly, it was a welcome distraction.
“Price up a one-month forty-delta yen,” a former Credit Suisse hedge fund client said to me one morning. “In size,” he added, and my stomach knotted, just as it always had. That the client was asking for a price “in size” was a gift. When a salesperson starts a job at a different bank, it’s always a risk whether or not his clients will continue to do business with him, and that risk can cost him his job if he’s guessed wrong. Bringing in big business, especially new business, would create a stir.
Next to me, with his phone in the crook of his neck, Les watched. I opened my options pricing model and started to input the details of the option quote the client had requested. The most important and sensitive ingredient in the model was the price of the yen, which at that moment and for the past few weeks had been fluctuating wildly.
“Dollar-yen quote in size, please,” I spoke into the microphone on my desk. Although the yen trader was only sitting a row away from me, rules at J.P. Morgan required salespeople to request quotes from their seats, rather than in person. It was just as well; the yen trader had a temper that I was afraid to confront.
“Who the fuck is your client?” the trader snapped at me, shouting so loudly that I could hear him down the mike and from his seat. When salespeople don’t trust their colleagues on the trading floor, they’ll hide their client’s identity. Although it doesn’t always work, it helps to prevent the traders from front-running the client’s order and prevents fellow salespeople from telling their own clients what someone else’s client is doing.
However, when you’re new to a firm and your trader is a bully, you make sure you give him the requested information. After I revealed the client’s identity to him, he gave me the quote: 120.48. Plugging the trader’s quote into my model, I called the client back with the price for the option he was interested in buying. Just as I did so, the dollar began to creep higher against the yen.
“Mine,” the client said. “I’ll buy two hundred fifty million dollars’ worth.”
Of course, a deal of this size should’ve been great news, but the yen was nowhere near the 120.48 I’d shown him. Trouble was, we’d already agreed on the price, and it was my responsibility to cover the bank’s hedge, which was no less than one hundred million dollars. Every one one-hundredth move in the yen’s price would risk the bank, and the yen trader specifically, about eight thousand dollars.
“Where is the yen now?” I asked the trader.
It was up to 120.56.
I could barely breathe, and my skin had begun to crawl in that way it does when you’re facing some sort of spectacular public shame. “Buy one hundred million,” I said to him.
At first, the yen trader was quiet, which meant that he was about to show us his worst.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he said after he’d made a special trip to my desk to ask me this. He was fat, sweating, and splotchy-purple with rage. Few situations on a trading floor result in total silence, but this situation had managed to result in just that. Absolutely everyone was watching the newest salesperson go head-to-head with one of the most seasoned traders.
I caught Les’s eye, silently pleading for help. Quickly, he turned away.
“I’m sorry,” I began, trying to explain that whatever money I’d made on any trades that day I’d give back to him to make up for his loss.
“I just lost sixty-six thousand dollars because of you,” he interrupted before he stormed off. There was no time for any more discussion. There was barely time to cringe.
“Where is the Mexican peso?” another hedge fund was asking, and if I had any hope of righting my wrong, it would have to be immediately.
The hedge fund manager inquiring about the Mexican peso was one of the biggest and most powerful in the business and still is. He was also generous, willing to allow the bank to make money if he made money. Generosity doesn’t appear often on a trading floor, and generous clients are fought over bitterly.
But this particular hedge fund was at odds with J.P. Morgan, on account of one of the London salespeople’s supposedly ripping him off in a very large metals trade. Weeks earlier, I’d been on a business trip in London, learning just what had happened between one of the savviest money managers in the world and one of the most senior salesmen at J.P. Morgan.
“He ripped my fucking eyes out on a five hundred million–dollar cross,” the hedge fund manager explained when I’d flown to the United Kingdom to meet with him. He didn’t offer any more detail, and I didn’t want any. It hadn’t taken me long at J.P. Morgan to learn that there was no upside to getting tangled in their toxic political quagmire. Unfortunately though, this time I wouldn’t have a choice.
“Buy me three hundred million dollars against the Mexican peso,” the hedge fund had instructed, not long after our meeting, and I immediately went to work. Once I’d finished executing his trade, I sent out the trade confirmation. It would spell the end of my career.
> “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” the salesman screamed down the telephone line, without even saying hello, just a moment later. Secretive and greedy, he was so short that I’d actually been instructed never to wear heels in his presence.
“I thought I’d forbidden you to trade with my account!” he shrieked.
The salesman was right. He had forbidden me from doing just that. But, ever since the salesman’s dispute with the fund, the fund had refused to trade with him and had insisted on trading with me. I was caught in the middle, and, at that moment, I had no choice but to follow the client’s orders. The only time I’ve ever heard of a salesperson refusing to execute for a client was during 9/11, when New York trading floors were being evacuated.
Now, for the second time, I looked for help to Les, who was gaping at me as he eavesdropped on my conversation with the salesperson. Quickly though, he turned his attention elsewhere, busying himself with a paper clip.
Incredulous that I was having such a combustible confrontation with one of the most senior salespeople at the company, I tried to simply reason with him. After all, I was resurrecting business that he’d lost, and he’d actually be the one to get paid for it, not me. Of course, he was never going to see it that way. At J.P. Morgan, rules were more territorial than practical.
As I listened to the salesman continue to screech at me from his cell phone in London, Mongolia and everything that had happened there came flooding back to me. From living with a Mongolian Mormon family and anchoring the news to reporting on and writing about other people following their dreams—I was reminded why I’d left banking the year before.
Suddenly, I began shaking. Voice trembling, I could barely continue my conversation with the London salesman, so I decided not to. I put the phone down on my desk and hung up on him. With my head in my hands, I asked myself what on earth I was doing back here in banking.
Of course, I knew the answer. Although I’d returned for the paycheck, and not for the kill, I’d gotten sucked back in. It had happened so quickly that I’d barely noticed it had happened at all.
Right then, I stood up and made for my boss’s office. It was time to go. This time for good.
“Just stay until the end of the year,” my boss said. “For one more bonus.” He’d make it worth my while, he promised. For just a moment, I was tempted once again, but I willed it away. This time, it was time—to finally take a real leap of faith.
Back on the trading floor, I cleared out my desk and handed over my security badge and Blackberry. Les watched but still said nothing. Finally, I made my way around the room, shaking hands with the few people I’d gotten to know during my short time there.
“You’ve made the right decision,” a senior saleswoman stage-whispered to me so loudly I wondered if she was talking to just me or to all of our colleagues. Exceptionally well-versed in economics and strategy, this particular saleswoman was a career banker, someone who’d really sunk her teeth into what the industry was all about. Or so I’d thought.
“A long time ago, I had a dream,” she went on, still in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear. “So go find yours, before it’s too late.” Only a few years older than me, the saleswoman looked a lot older. Dark circles ringed her eyes and fine papier-mâché creases lined her face. She didn’t look just tired; she looked as if she’d sold her soul.
I thanked her and walked out. Just as I did, Les turned to look at me but only briefly. He was on the phone and didn’t bother to say good-bye.
EPILOGUE
After leaving banking, I went to work for CBS News in New York. While there, I got a chance to watch and learn as some of the world’s biggest news was being made and produced: the election of President Obama, the global financial meltdown, the bombing at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad. I was even called up to 60 Minutes to help Lesley Stahl’s team produce a story on credit derivatives. In short, my dream was coming true, but the very best was still to come.
On a whim, I flew to Hong Kong to meet a friend at the Hong Kong Sevens, an annual rugby match that is more costume party than sport. Dressed in an ill-fitting Snow White costume (a last-minute purchase), I met a man dressed as Hugh Hefner (admittedly, not a last-minute purchase). He was a New Zealander living in London. In a crowd of forty thousand people, we met and really liked each other. And then we immediately lost each other. Incredibly though, the following day, at the sold-out rugby final match, my friend and I finagled tickets and found ourselves seated … right next to my Hugh Hefner. We fell in love, got married, and had a baby girl.
And then the big call came, this time from Sinovision English, the English-language arm of the Chinese television station. They were looking for someone to report on stories of people following dreams. I was hired, and I got a chance to interview celebrities and artists who’d overcome extraordinary obstacles to pursue their passion. This was truly a dream come true. But again, the best was still to come.
Later, along with my director at the network, we formed Morpheus Pictures LLC, an independent film company that plans to chronicle the journeys of people achieving their dreams. Our first film is currently being produced, and it’ll take us right back to where it all started for me—Mongolia. And this is where the journey, the real dream, begins again. Still … the best is yet to come.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Whenever you find yourself in hot pursuit of something that you’re sure about but no one else quite yet understands, you end up with a debt of gratitude owed to all the amazing people who suspended doubt, believed in you, and granted you a shot. For this, I have so many people to thank that I barely know where to begin, so I’ll begin at the beginning.
I’d like to thank my mom, for planting the seed of this “book” in my head. And then for nagging me about it until I got started. I’d like to thank my dad for putting a globe on his desk, just out of reach, knowing that would do the trick to get me interested in following in his own adventurous footsteps. I’d like to thank my three brothers—Joe, Tim, and Danny—for doing it better, saying it more eloquently, and usurping my firstborn monopoly on our parents’ attention. Without them, maybe I never would have left home at all.
With deep admiration, I’d like to thank Magee Hickey for giving me that “shot” here in New York. Likewise, I’m forever grateful to Gandima Rentsendorj in Mongolia for believing in me and giving me a chance I didn’t deserve. And without Tobie and Meg and “Evan” and Batma and her family, this book wouldn’t have happened at all. My gratitude to all of them for so graciously allowing me to write their stories and their descriptions from my own perspective. And a very big thanks indeed to my former banking colleagues, 99 percent of whom are the most wonderful, caring people on the planet. They must be, if they continue to support me and keep in contact with me despite my pestering them to follow their own dreams.
Humbly and with endless gratitude, I’d like to thank my agent, publisher, and editors. Doug Grad is my first agent, and hopefully he’ll be my last, too. Anyone who takes frantic phone calls with his serenity and wisdom simply must become your agent—maybe your physician, too. Beaufort Books, my publisher, and Tracy Ertl of TitleTown have taken a huge chance on me. I’m honored to have such dynamic, inspiring people in my court. My many thanks to them and their teams. Also a huge thank-you to Claire Gerus, and Sandy Smith, the editors without whom this book would not be what it is—Claire and Sandy offered just the tough, constructive love that it, and I, needed.
Finally, I’d like to thank my husband and my friends for their endless support and patience over the years. In particular, Meghan for her existential wisdom that encouraged me to leave banking and pursue my own path. Meghan believed in me from the start, as well as when the going got tough. It’s a true friend who does, and she’s a keeper. Netta read, reread, and read-some-more the manuscript, and then even treated me to fine sushi while talking me through her assessment. Finally, I’m grateful to my husband, Jesse “Bunkle” Phillips, for his infinite (and often hilarious
) support and patience throughout this mentally tumultuous process. Not only did he coin the term “consonant omelet,” he challenged me to be a better writer and a better person. But don’t tell him I said that last part.
Thank you, all of you. I’m so very lucky to have each and every one of you in my life.
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