People asking what you earn, how do you handle?

T

taclander

A couple weeks ago I was at a dinner with the family at a house of a friend of my oldest. The Dad and I were out back drinking and smoking a cigar and he asked what I do. I told him and I got the usual look of,"oh you don't have a job". i normally let it go, because I've never had a different reaction,but beer and irritation set in for whatever reason. I went in depth on trading,which left him perplexed. I know what he does and asked if his company hedges currency risk, and explained benefits of doing so,but obviously made no impression. He then went into well how much do I make.Now that is a sore point with me. I don't actually care who knows, but I threw back at him the same question,and got the usual answer that essentailly it was none of my business. I said then why is it any of his business what I make? We went down hill from there, and at the last football game for our kids he wouldn't even talk to me.He would answer my questions to my wife and asked her how everything was going,but wouldn't address me at all. I laughed and walked away for awhile,but have to admit it is irritating.
What the helleis with people that they think they have a job,but a trader doesn'tand when the hell is it any of their business what I make when they aren't willing to divulge the same?
 
They think you are a degenerate gambler. Most of these jackasses would be wiped out trading in a matter of weeks. Just laugh all the way to the bank.
 
Apparently the slacker hates his job and hates independents like you, resulting in envy, resentment, hate and anger.

With an attitude like his, you can bet he is quite the worker doing the work of 0.25 people. If he was doing his job, he wouldn't act with envy like that, but instead would appreciate the complexity and difficulty of your job-business. With the couple thousand people I have worked with, the less work they did, the more resentful and envious they were about everything.

I got fed up with the trash at work. Every 5 years you could look back and see a big reduction in work ethic with about 5% of the workers doing most of the work and picking up the slack of the slackers. Last night I had another nightmare that I was back at work.

Your best revenge is showing pure calm, contentment and confidence. And at the right moment tell him you would teach him the business, but that your business is not for sale at this moment, but maybe someday.
 
This kind of people asks you how much you make because if a) you make less than they do, they'll label you a loser - and answer the question about how much they make with something like "Well, certainly way more than you do"; and if b) you make significantly more than they do, they'll want "in" - because everybody despises a gambler, but then again everybody loves 20-30% annual returns on their holdings.

They'll never be the first to answer how much they make because that would expose their egos - think that they anticipate that if they make less than you, you'd give them the same douche-bag answer they had ready for you.

People who make several times what you make will be reluctant to tell you - as in not wanting to upset the peasants - but people who make 30%, 40%, 50% or even 100% more than you will be oh-so-happy-to-tell you.

If you want to do an experiment, answer their question by saying something like: "I have a small aggressive account that used to generate a few thousand a month for expenses and then I make 40% (or whatever) a year on a high six-figure account for wealth building". You'll find their change in tone amusing to say the least.

[For the record, I DON'T have an account in the high six-figure :D]

I encountered this very same problem some years ago when I became a freelancer - everybody thought I was kind of unemployed and inquired sarcastically how much I made - when I told them (I had no problem telling) they invariably had to shut the fuck up and evaded answering the same simple straightforward question with statements like "it's different, my income is safe, stable, steady, etc.". Many of them are now unemployed.
 
Quote from taclander:

A couple weeks ago I was at a dinner with the family at a house of a friend of my oldest. The Dad and I were out back drinking and smoking a cigar and he asked what I do. I told him and I got the usual look of,"oh you don't have a job". i normally let it go, because I've never had a different reaction,but beer and irritation set in for whatever reason. I went in depth on trading,which left him perplexed. I know what he does and asked if his company hedges currency risk, and explained benefits of doing so,but obviously made no impression. He then went into well how much do I make.Now that is a sore point with me. I don't actually care who knows, but I threw back at him the same question,and got the usual answer that essentailly it was none of my business. I said then why is it any of his business what I make? We went down hill from there, and at the last football game for our kids he wouldn't even talk to me.He would answer my questions to my wife and asked her how everything was going,but wouldn't address me at all. I laughed and walked away for awhile,but have to admit it is irritating.
What the helleis with people that they think they have a job,but a trader doesn'tand when the hell is it any of their business what I make when they aren't willing to divulge the same?
More...

A long time ago people had respect for those that were employed or self-employed involving the financial markets.

Today, after the collapse of 2008, the mentioning that you work in the financial markets (employed or self-employed) is a big sore spot with most folks. My spouse dad use to always talk to me in a respectful way about the markets. However, after he lost 250k in his investments leading up to 2008 and than the collapse in 2008...he hasn't mention one single word about the markets to me. To keep the peace between him and I...I don't ask any questions about his investments, his financial planner et cetera nor do I discuss any aspects of my job as a retail trader that trades from a home office although he already knows the details about what I do.

Also, I've seen institutional traders making a 100k base salaries, bonuses, vacation packages et cetera looked upon as dirt when someone ask "what do you do". Just the same, I've seen the exact same look by folks that find out someone is a day trader, swing trader or position trader as self-employed.

Another friend (casual friend) is an unemployed Banker was told by some guy at the unemployment office listening in on his conversation with someone else...

"You're one of the guys to caused us to be here". :(

Yeah...it's frustrating, irritating, rude and those are nice words I'm using to describe the situation. It's also sad that folks really don't show any respect unless they see what type of car you drive, type of house or neighborhood you live in or what schools your kids go too.

By the way, every year you'll see a thread here at EliteTrader.com that gets a TON of replies when some jerk shows up and saids basically "As a trader...what good are you to society?".

It's a simple solution, don't attend events where that guy you know is going to be there and do not invite him to your events (ensure he's not allowed to come) to maintain the quality of your rest/relaxation time.

That's the power of money...it's an important factor (good or bad) in any type of relationship.

Mark
 
The only people you should tell how much money you make is kids. Your kids and their friends. And be sure to exagerate, (kids don't know the difference between the price of a monthly cell phone bill and a million dollars) you know why you tell your kids, because teachers ask the class these questions and they are all Democrats and I want them to be pissed off.
 
I see you peeps never made Any money

If you did you would understand how smart it is to play poor. Acting wealthy is just stupid as it just brings problems. But you wouldn't know that. It's fun to be loaded and say you are unemployed.
 
just say "earnings"? "i have no 'earnings'. i OWN things for a living."

just don't tell him it's ES that you actually "own" and for 30 secs at a time lol :D
 
Seriously, why don't we just change the topic to something more fun like vacations when people started to talk about jobs at gatherings? It's cooler that way. :cool:
 
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