All Hallow's Eve
Happy Halloween, kids! And happy anniversary to that hardy group of adventurers who made the sojourn down to New Orleans so many years ago. I may be mostly out of touch these days, but I think about that weekend often. It remains one of the defining moments of my adult life, and it's thanks to all of you. If you happen to be reading this, have a shot of rum and a voodoo blessing on me.
I'm taking a mental health day from work, because the last couple months have been mega-stressful. As you no doubt know, the market's been insane, and since my job is to take market orders and execute trades, my stress levels are in direct proportion to the wonkiness of the exchanges.
We're living in historic times. At this time next week, we will have elected either the first black President in our history, or the first female Vice President. Financial institutions that have been around for a hundred years have failed, virtually overnight. Gas prices have gone from almost five bucks a gallon in the summer to nearly two bucks a gallon now. Very little is predictable. Very little is clear. Especially the market.
Since early September, the Dow's been up or down (mostly down) hundreds of points a day. Sometimes 400. Sometimes 700. Sometimes both within the same day. That kind of volatility is unprecedented, even since the days of the '29 crash or the bursting of the dot-com bubble. For almost two solid months, our department has been taking double (or even triple) our usual call volume, skipped most of our lunches, and stayed late to catch up on paperwork. I've been racking up 6-8 overtime hours a week, which certainly isn't that much to someone who works in a warehouse or on construction, but it's a bunch when you're basically an 8-5 cubicle warrior like me.
This past week has seen mostly up days on the market - although still with big mid-day swings - and the workload has settled back to normal. Still, I thought it would do me well to have a day off that wasn't a weekend, that was time where I could just opt out of the ratrace for a day. I need to clear my head. Today's doing that. I got plenty of sleep. I plugged in the leaf blower and got my lawn cleaned up, which will make all the neighbors happy, I'm sure. I'm doing laundry. I'll hand out candy to the kids later. Then I'll head over to Tom and Christine's and maybe do a corn maze tonight. It'll be a good day.
I'm taking a mental health day from work, because the last couple months have been mega-stressful. As you no doubt know, the market's been insane, and since my job is to take market orders and execute trades, my stress levels are in direct proportion to the wonkiness of the exchanges.
We're living in historic times. At this time next week, we will have elected either the first black President in our history, or the first female Vice President. Financial institutions that have been around for a hundred years have failed, virtually overnight. Gas prices have gone from almost five bucks a gallon in the summer to nearly two bucks a gallon now. Very little is predictable. Very little is clear. Especially the market.
Since early September, the Dow's been up or down (mostly down) hundreds of points a day. Sometimes 400. Sometimes 700. Sometimes both within the same day. That kind of volatility is unprecedented, even since the days of the '29 crash or the bursting of the dot-com bubble. For almost two solid months, our department has been taking double (or even triple) our usual call volume, skipped most of our lunches, and stayed late to catch up on paperwork. I've been racking up 6-8 overtime hours a week, which certainly isn't that much to someone who works in a warehouse or on construction, but it's a bunch when you're basically an 8-5 cubicle warrior like me.
This past week has seen mostly up days on the market - although still with big mid-day swings - and the workload has settled back to normal. Still, I thought it would do me well to have a day off that wasn't a weekend, that was time where I could just opt out of the ratrace for a day. I need to clear my head. Today's doing that. I got plenty of sleep. I plugged in the leaf blower and got my lawn cleaned up, which will make all the neighbors happy, I'm sure. I'm doing laundry. I'll hand out candy to the kids later. Then I'll head over to Tom and Christine's and maybe do a corn maze tonight. It'll be a good day.