I’ve been training this week (in commodity derivatives) in our wonderful capital (in between the pub anyway).
Being a sad kit freak I was casually (not staring at all) just checking out peoples phones.
I reckon about 80% had a blackberry. And about 60% had an iPhone. and a few had something I didnt recognise. like my pile of poop Millstone.
Thats right the latest news from the street is everyone should have two smartphones not one. Luckily I have the obligatory bb and touch screen lemon – have you?
I guess if you work for a proper company and you want to keep your work life and home life separate it makes some sense, so perhaps being self employed I maybe can’t justify it.
One of my colleagues has twos phone too, he has one from the eighties and one from the nineties.
Has anyone seen an andoid phone in a blackberry form factor?
cheers
simon
Friday, 4th February, 2011 at 7:20 pm |
80% had a Blackberry. The other 60% had an iPhone. The remaining 30% can’t count :)
Good to meet those that were there on Wed. And the curry and conversation was fab. Thanks.
Remember: patron saint of email is …. St Items.
Friday, 4th February, 2011 at 7:28 pm |
I have an personal HTC Legend (great) and a work BlackBerry Bold 8900 (not so great). I couldn’t face being contactable over the weekend if I wanted to keep a low profile so I chose to keep the two phones up – works OK in the main.
Can’t understand what anyone sees in BlackBerrys; awful, awful devices. Yes, I know they are ‘enterprise friendly’ but that says more about the competition’s deficiencies than it does their strengths. I hear more and more about iPhone acceptance in large companies and it can’t be long until Google turns its big eye on that market and makes Android a real alternative too.
The weird thing is that a lot of the kids seem to want BlackBerrys, primarily for BBM it seems. “Wha gwan wid dat?” as Rastamouse might say?
Saturday, 5th February, 2011 at 9:47 am |
Where I work the people who’d use them (meaning: those foolish enough to read incoming work e-mail late at night, over the weekends and on vacation) get Blackberries. Everyone else has to use their own phones for voice and have no work e-mail access (Oh! the loss!). They’ve taken Blackberries away from people. Probably because hardware and software support is outsourced, and we may pay for support by the unit.
For large organizations the main benefit to Blackberries vs anything else is that Lotus Notes runs on Blackberries.
Saturday, 5th February, 2011 at 2:25 pm |
Droid Pro is a blackberryish Android based phone. There’s one or two others that are similar.
Sunday, 6th February, 2011 at 12:59 pm |
I’m on my second personal iPhone. Used to be able to hook up to exchange at work in my last job which was useful, even more so ‘cos i could turn it off (email) when i wanted. At new job they gave me corporate issue Blackberry (which was plain awful). It got stolen in a pub in Slough and I have since “forgotten” to order a replacement :-)
Sunday, 6th February, 2011 at 7:58 pm |
Commodity Derivatives ??? In my day they were called Commodity Futures kid :-)…
I miss those days some times. We used to say that a Commodity Trader slept like a baby … they’d wake up in the night screaming. Another BIG-TIME Traders from the New York office of the company told me was that you’re never a Trader until you’ve tasted your own blood. Another saying about a losing Position has to do with sliding down a 20 foot razor-blade using your balls as brakes. Fun stuff.
I remember when i was about 24 and lost $100,000 on a Currency position in a day when the Canadian Dollar dropped below parity with the U.S for the first time ever… Fortunately my boss had agreed that we would hang on and so it wasn’t my ass on the line (and to him that was peanuts). Fun times.
Hope they don’t make you trade this stuff or predict it – just track it.
If you need any help give me a shout.
Dick
Monday, 7th February, 2011 at 5:32 pm |
Love my BB Torch (their first touch phone) – but do not have an iPhone so can not compare – don’t need two phones thank god
Tuesday, 8th February, 2011 at 10:47 am |
I’ve got a Samsung Galaxy S which I like bar the battery life. No BB. No intention of a BB. I don’t need the office chasing me anymore than they already do.
“Commodity Derivatives”
Sounds interesting. Where are you studying that? Is it a short course or certificate based?
I’ve worked in Equity Derivatives, so I would suspect that many of the principles and product classes are similar while the market drivers would be quite different.
Is this for a role you’re in or starting or just an area you want to get in to?
Tuesday, 8th February, 2011 at 2:39 pm |
Marcus
You’ve got the wrong end of the stick – Simon was actually training others in understanding commodity derivatives – based on what he’s picked up from his contract in Geneva presumably
Mike
Tuesday, 8th February, 2011 at 4:40 pm |
HI Mike – I had indeed. Thanks for the correction.
Saturday, 12th February, 2011 at 11:34 am |
Mike you must have been even more drunk than you looked!
(Mike doesn’t drink)
I’m pretty sure I said I was being trained.
I studied at bpp on London wall for the CISI cert in commodity derivs. Would recommend it to anyone interested in the area.
What I picked up in Geneva is an even stronger dislike of MicroMcManagement than I had before. As well as an insight into oil trading.
Saturday, 12th February, 2011 at 11:52 am |
Yup Mike, Simon did say he was on a course to learn ‘more on’ Derivatives. If not for the few drinks I had I might have missed that :) (That’s ‘more on’, he wasn’t talking about any morons, present or absent)
Anyway, MicroMcManagement … totally new word for me. So Googled it and came up with just one (1?) link. Here
http://caterwauling.com/blog/archive/2004_04_01_caterwauling_archive.html
Wow! what a blog! TheGoddessDawn … my new best friend and inspiration.
[going more off topic] Simon, ‘MicroMcManagement’ … was that what you meant, or was it a typo for ‘micro management’? Either way, serendipity. A result. Bargain.
Saturday, 12th February, 2011 at 3:46 pm |
No typo Hiran, exactly as dawn says at that link. adding Mc in front of anything means taking all the soul, initiative, intelligence, intrinsic rewards out of it. From the formulaic approach of Mcdonalds. A McJob is a low esteem, low reward job, and Mc mangement does the same to the managed. Micro just does it in even more anal detail.
Monday, 14th February, 2011 at 11:11 am |
Well at least it appears that I’m not going senile and I was probably the least plastered there.
Simon are you just doing the one unit (9 – Comm Derivs) or is this one unit of many?
Monday, 14th February, 2011 at 12:17 pm |
Marcus
Apologies for the duff info
Mike
Monday, 14th February, 2011 at 5:32 pm |
No problem, Mike.
Simon – looks very interesting. Are you doing the whole certificate or just the one subject.
I’m reading through Foundations of Banking Risk at the moment trying to fill in (the many) gaps in my knowledge as I’ve worked in Market, Operational and (some) Credit Risk.
And while I have some derivatives exposure – mainly equities – I was looking to expand on my knowledge.
Tuesday, 15th February, 2011 at 1:05 am |
Marcus
I’m doing the cert. 2 exams, regulations and derivs.
Its good for filling in the gaps you get when working only in certain areas.
Regs maybe isnt directly so relevant, but you need it for the ticket.
Monday, 28th February, 2011 at 10:44 am |
I have a candlestick telephone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candlestick_telephone) – an original not a reproduction – operating as a VoIP phone on a fibre-optic line……not sure whether it’s as cool as an iPhone though.