Boiler Room

Around 4:30 Kyle and I were heading out the door for a meeting, thanks to my buddy J.Sully (not Kyle's dad) regarding a potential job, when I got a phone call. Earlier in the week I had applied to a financial sales job. I'm not exactly sure what I would be selling but I need work so it seemed like a smart play.

The number comes into my phone as restricted. I answer and the bro starts talking to me telling me he had read my resume and wanted to talk for a minute. It sounded promising at first so I asked Kyle to hold up when we hit a relatively quit part of the street.

First he asks me if I have any sales experience, so I lied and told him I had done some insurance sales and some bull shit telemarketing. After that I told him about some other experience I have and he seemed to think that would suffice.

To this point essentially all I had done was lie and reiterate stuff that he already knew. Now generally speaking in terms of finances and investments I feel much of the responsibility falls in the hands of the investor not the manager / salesman. My fiscal conservatism and pro capitalism mindset can be a flaw in the rarest of occasions, this happened to be one. The first real question the guy asked me, that could not be answered by my resume, was:

"Would you have trouble selling something to a client that benefits you financially while hurting them financially?" I told him thats an ethical question and then responded by saying: "So your asking me if I would be okay selling an asset to a client that I know will adversely effect them financially while befitting me financially at the same time?" The dude tells me that I am correct and have the gist of things. I told him I'm not sure I would be cool with that and that it's not even legal in the US. He then replied "Well this probably isn't for you then." At which point we exchanged pleasantries and ended the call.

Maybe I'm getting soft but I do not want to be barred from the financial services industry for life as a result of financially crippling some Spaniards.