Unlike most of the fairer sex, I crave risk. So when I was asked, during my interview to become a trader, “Give me an example of a time you took a gamble”, I mulled over the experiences with which I’d packed my 24 years.
I eventually plumped for the time when, heady with Krug, I decided to get married within a week of meeting my future husband (and before you ask, yes, it did crash and burn). It obviously did the trick. “When can you start?” my interviewer asked eagerly.
I already had a mental picture of what a “trader-ess” would look like. She would be asexual, unsightly, and a graduate of something like econometrics 301 from somewhere such as the London School of Economics. So, determined to prove that beauty and brains are not mutually exclusive, I showed up for orientation dressed to kill (4in Louboutins, inappropriately short Prada skirt) and ready to conquer the markets and this appalling “she-trader” stereotype.
From the very beginning, erotic tension hung thick in the air. My long, flowing hair, size-six figure and Barbie-with-attitude demeanour drew flirtatious looks everywhere from the escalators at Canary Wharf to the office itself. There were even catcalls directed at my desk. But I resolved that no amount of harassment would stop me from thriving in an environment that was more locker room than banking hall.
Statistically, it didn’t look good. Our mentor, slick and Machiavellian, let us know that – like an episode of “The Apprentice” – within a year most of us would be axed. It occurred to me that this City move might have been a mistake. However, the prospect of spending my life surrounded by violent toddlers was perversely exciting. It sure beat what most of my friends were doing.
What I learned over the course of the next year would change my life. When it comes to trading, everything you have ever learned about the relationship between work and reward is thrown out the window. I could work for 30 minutes and make my month, or slave away endlessly and not make a cent. And as for sexual politics, no amount of eyelash-batting at the boss was going to stave off that P45 if you stayed in the red every day for a month.
Most girls would have thrown in the towel after that year. But this was one risky business that I couldn’t imagine dropping. Not yet.