Welcome to the jungle50
‘A quick question. Answer this and you get the job. Give me three
reasons why I always choose risky investments.’
‘You can make big gains. Your gains can come quickly. It’s more
exciting.’
‘Good. Start now. Five hundred a week OK?’
There wasn’t time for an answer. The previous year I had spent
the summer teaching English to foreign students for £50 per
week. That was a great job. Now I was getting ten times the
money, but I had no idea what I was going to do. Perhaps Jerry
Witts wanted someone young and strong to carry his phone.
I found out – much later – that the woman with the clipboard
was meant to send me to the post room. And it was to be some
time before I learned whose CV Jerry had on his desk.
The trading floor
Jerry took me under his wing that summer as I lled out spread-
sheets on the bank’s creaking computers. I was so green that I’d
never been through a door which opened electronically. One
morning Jerry slid his pass over the control. There was a beep of
recognition and he beckoned me in.
‘Welcome,’ he said, ‘to the jungle.’
It was the noise that hit me rst. Then the sheer size of the open-
plan oor, as big as a football pitch. Then the minions, shuttling
from desk to desk carrying printouts and bacon sandwiches.
Finally, the traders. Some were standing up, shouting into
two phones. Others were splayed across their desks, staring at
terminals and TV screens. At least two appeared to be ghting.
‘I won’t introduce you,’ Jerry said. ‘They’ve got no time, and
they’d only be rude to you.’
‘That’s very kind of you to protect me, Jerry.’
Jerry laughed. ‘It’s not you I’m protecting. I’m facing huge
reputational risk bringing a squirt like you into the lions’ den.