Waste management, construction, phone telemarketing schemes, dog fights, vending machines, restaurants, seafood distribution, pizza parlors, espresso cafes, loan sharking, gambling, car theft, extortion, pornography, narcotics, counterfeiting, hijacking, bankrupty fraud, labor union racketeering, cigarette smuggling - mostly
Thank you, you helped me patch that hole in my brain. I can't be like "Quant-Girl" any longer, she with her highly educated mind deserves something when she helps educate the people, why give your time away? I use to give and help and now I am at burn-out, perhaps the Traders on Elite-Trader have the most awesome social circles who appreciate your time and value it! The people I use to hang around with, would dump a box full 1099s and other crap and ask me to do their taxes because they heard I knew something about Finance. I swear, I had a few bring me Orange Boxes of Brokerage Statements, Home and Bank information wanting me to sort their mess out of charity (He only made $216,000)? I was like "what the hell are you thinking?" and avoided going to certain places for seven months because I felt I could have kept my mouth shut or avoided the topic of money. NoDoji: Brilliant! If pressured to go beyond Tech-Support I use S.H.'s line. Satan's Helper, I like that one, it made me laugh and I would love to see the look on people's faces if I could muster up that courage! You got some brass, I need to learn to be like that and stop worrying if I hurt the feelings of people who are only concerned with what I can do for them, how did I get stuck with buttheads dropping off taxes or my favorite, I had some guy invite me to lunch and he call's up his H.R. rep and puts me on hold while waiting for his HR person, I was there to set up his 403b plan and allocate it to max out the $17,000 for 2012. How could I be so dumb and stupid to think he wanted to be a friend? The warning signs were there, when I would break off the topic of Trading or Finance and Taxes, he would use his Sheep Hook to drag me back to his financial problems and questions he wanted done. I am dumb, no longer, you all have empowered me to say: If Asked "What do you do?" I say "I am a consultant" They want more details "I am a technical support man!: That's not enough, "I am a tech support guy who get's paid and laid!" When pressed further, "Ok, tech-support who help's film the most hardcore Gay Porn, now back off!" What if they want in the business Satan's Helper?
I'm glad someone actually read my post. 1. Helping the people whom you least expect to help you in return is also a lesson learned from raising outside capital. 2. Almost everyone from a physics background just genuinely loves to have even 1 person who is interested in hearing what he/she has to say. But as you get further in this field, you realize that's fewer than you think - so you acquire a natural predisposition to instill a passion in whatever you have to say, first, before you start saying it. 3. The only opportunity cost of explaining things to people is time, of which money is really just some polynomial function. I've gone past the stage where money is my main priority in life, and what remains is to make this world a better place. I rather share a small slice of a larger cake than hoard a large slice of a smaller cake. 4. Besides, if you think you've had it worse, good programmers generally get more outlandish requests (can you help me assemble my PC?); I always get asked to divide the bill (being a good mathematician doesn't mean being a good calculator)...
I usually tell them that I am a professional programmer. that's enough information to keep most people quiet since it sounds too technical to them to bother about asking further questions.
I use to tell them what I actually did, but people being people start treating you differently or want you to look over 250 stocks, I would ask them to make an appt and bring cash for a fee. That stopped that. Then I used to say I worked 7-11, those were the hours I worked, they do an about face on that one, and now I am retired, cause I am. I don't view trading as work, it is a game.
for the past few years I say, 'financial markets, stock market stuff' nobody, not one person out of hundreds, has asked any real specific questions. nobody cares. nobody. if you have cash, good. if you don't, too bad. cash is king. cash lets you say anything. if you drive a Porsche and say you work as a clown, who cares. you have the cash. if you say you are CEO and rent some beat apartment, who cares, you are a loser. it's really simple. hopefully you don't care what others think and just move forward.
Exactly. 99 out of 100 people you run into ask that question as a social formality to break up 'dead space' within interaction, be it with you or someone else, as the luck of the draw dictates. Unless you're advertising affluence (legit or not) with 'bling,' no one cares beyond the sake of being 'proper' in convo. Make up whatever answer you want.
I just tell them I do investments. Most people think I'm referring to Real Estate, and usually I just roll with it as I do have some holdings in RE anyway. In the end, most people are just being polite by asking and don't really care anyways in my experience unless they can use your services. And I'm not interested in sharing my strategies or trading concepts, so it's better to keep it more general in my case.
I tell them I manage a small apartment for my family, which is technically the truth. It usually gives off the image that I am taken cared of but not living lavishly. While I agree with other posters here that sometimes it's good to get perspective from people that don't trade, you absolutely don't want to let other people you know and that you see on a routine basis (like extended family members for instance) that you're doing well financially and making more money than they are. It draws too much attention, not necessarily all negative, but attention you can live without. Something that I've learned the hard way is that when it comes to money, having privacy is almost just as important. For instance, in my family we have the Superstars who are generally known to be wealthy, and much praised and adored. So naturally at family events, their almost always expected to pick up the tab. And on occasion, over disputes and petty arguments, they tend to get resented even more because of their wealth than those who don't have it. Like a, "This person is rich and isn't helping me, I hate them!" sort of thing. And they are always being gossiped about. I don't know how it got out, but pretty much everyone found out about a mortgage and several lines of credit that one of them defaulted on. I don't want that kind of attention.