Wednesday, April 18, 2001
By the way, your headline: Sell, Sell, Sell reminded
me of an awkward moment earlier today where I proved
how inept I am in the real world and why I'll never be
rich and will probably have to borrow money to pay for
my future kids' education. As I was waiting for the
elevator to sneak down for a smoke, someone who works
here - I don't know his name - youngish, blond hair, a
real comer, player, a click-click finger gun greeting
guy, asked how I was and then said, "strange day..."
I said yeah, thinking he meant all the lay-offs but in
this business I get the sense that talking about
lay-offs while they're happening is kind of like
congratulating a pitcher in the fifth inning of a
no-hitter - you just don't do it. Anyway, he starts
going on about how the Fed has cut interest rates - a
fact I don't really understand to begin with (perhaps
since all of this doesn't effect number 1) but I
suppose is good. He went on about how the Dow and
Nasdeq are both up and I stood there hoping he
wouldn't ask me for my analysis of the situation. I
said, "wow, that's cool" like some fool, then there
was a silence, the elevator didn't come and we both
stood there he high on the stock market, me down on
ignorance and then I said, "it'll probably go down
tomorrow..." and he said, "that's not the point.
Everyone's selling today." I nodded and said, "The
climate is so strange," he nodded, furrowed his brow
thinking I was suddenly talking about the weather, and
then the ammendment of my comment, "Financially, I
mean" was drowned out by the elevator chime and three
other smokers inside bouncing on their toes for their
nicotine fix.
I guess I'll never be a financial wiz and watching
Wall Street on Cinemax last night only added to my
repulsion and confusion.
-- The Gin Man
posted at 3:26 PM