XXX Financial Planning

This all started because I am ridiculously immature and I’ve spent a good check of my spare time studying for a securities license exam.

Earlier this week my company had an all employee meeting, which happens about once a quarter.  The president and CEO of the company touched on the areas of the country where we were under represented.  He identified these as our “under-penetrated markets.”

My first reaction was to realize that I have an under-penetrated market of own.  And, that was about the time I mentally undertook the following script:

INT.  OFFICE – DAY

Over an INTERCOME:

MS. DIANE (OS)

Why don’t you bring your long straddle in here, Michael?

MICHAEL

Actually, I’ve been feeling a little bearish recently.

MS. DIANE (OS)

Well, I’m bull enough for the both of us, so get in here already!

INT.  MS. DIANE’S OFFICE – DAY

MICHAEL Enters:

MS. DIANE

Finally!

MICHAEL

I was identifying under-penetrated markets throughout the midwest.

MS. DIANE

Why don’t you come over here?  I’ll show you either my aggressive investment strategy or my horizontal spread.

MICHAEL

I think you need to take advantage of the cooling off period, because I think you’re too heavily invested in back-end loaded securities.

MS.  DIANE

I’m sorry.  When I see a hot issue with a firm quote, I just can’t help myself.

MS. DIANE starts to undress.

Here are a few financial terms to that I used above, and a few others that I just think are fun to say:

Adjusted gross income – Earned income plus net passive income, portfolio income, and capital gains.

Aggressive investment strategy – A method of porfolio allocation and management aimed at achieving maximum return.  Aggressive investors place a high percentage of their investable assets in equity securities and a far lower percentage in safer debt securities and cash equivalents, and they pursue aggressive policies, including margin trading, arbitrage, and option trading.

Asset-backed security – One whose value and income payments are backed by the expected cash flow from a specific pool of underlying assets.  Pooling the assets into financial instruments allows them to be sold to investors more easily than selling them individually.  The process is called securitization.

Back-end load – A commission or sales fee that is charged when mutual fund shares or variable annuity contracts are redeemed.  It declines annually, decreasing to zero over an extended holding period – up to eight years – as described in the prospectus.

Bear market – A market in which prices of a certain group of securities are falling or are expected to fall.

Cash market – Transactions between buyers and sellers of commodities that entail immediate delivery of and payment for a physical commodity.

Catastrophe call – The redemption of a bond by an issuer owing to disaster (e.g., a power plant that has been built with proceeds from an issue burns to the ground).

Chinese wall – A descriptive name for the division within a brokerage firm that prevents insider information from passing from corporate advisers to investment traders who could make use of the information to reap illicit profits.

Cooling-off period – The period (a minimum of 20 days) between a registration statement’s filing date and the registration’s effective date.  In practice, the period varies in length.

Double-barreled bond – A municipal security backed by the full faith and credit of the issuing municipality as well as by pledged revenues.

Firm quote – The actual price at which a trading unit of a security (such as 100 shares of stock or five bonds) may be bought or sold.  All quotes are firm quotes unless otherwise indicated.

Horizontal spread – The purchase and sale of two options on the same underlying security and with the same exercise price but different expiration dates.

Hot issue – A new issue that sells or is anticipated to sell at a premium over the public offering price.

Naked – The position of an option investor who writes a call or a put on a security he does not own.

Naked call writer – An investor who writes a call option without owning the underlying stock or other related assets that would enable the investor to deliver the stock should the option be exercised.

Naked put writer – An investor who writes a put option without owning the underlying stick or other related assets that would enable the investor to purchase the stock should the option be exercised.

Sales load – The amount added to a mutual fund share’s net asset value to arrive at the offering price.

Stripper well – An oil well that produces fewer than 10 barrels per day.

Two-dollar broker – An exchange member that executes orders for other member firms when their floor brokers are especially busy.  Two-dollar brokers charge a commission for their services; the amount of the commission is negotiated.

If I see that bitch, FICA, I'm going to punch her in the nose!

Growing up can be lame, sometimes even SUPER lame.  And, today, specifically, I say bagh to taxes and future me* taking ridiculously large chunks of my paychecks. 

Don’t they know that I just want to buy shoes and pay someone to make my nails look fancy?  Damn it!

This all started this morning when I wanted to find out if my new job would bump me up into a different tax bracket.^  So, while I was looking at everything from the 2011 Oregon and Federal tax brackets to Social Security and Medicare rates.  I even pulled up Oregon’s Workers’ Benefit Fund Assessment to find the employee assessment rate.  Of course, that was all after I calculated a few figures to see if I wanted to increase my 401(k) contribution. 

I had wanted to increase my contribution by about three percent until I realized that – after taxes, my flex spending contribution, my additional life insurance+ fee, my long term care fee, and my 401(k) contributions at my current contribution percentage – my HUGE raise calculates out to about $100 more per paycheck.

*Stupid 401(k) and being “responsible” in planning for my future.  Note to future me:  You better take totally awesome trips and have a super hot cabana boy, or else consider yourself warned.  Thirty-year-old me is NOT amused.

^It did.

+To my nearest and dearest - you’re welcome.  You bitches better appreciate me when I’m gone, because if you don’t – I’m going to come back to life and use my natural nails to fuck you up.

The real reason I drank last night

After embracing my breakdown and posting it to Al Gore’s Internet, my manager brought in a temp to start training at the Front Desk around 11:30 a.m. 

Coincidently, my manager sends out notifications whenever a new employee or a new temporary employee starts.  These notifications go to the facilities manager (who finds them a place to sit), tech support (to set up a computer for them), the receptionists (we set up the key cards, update the maps and phone lists), and a handful of other people.  It was thanks to the notification that I found out I would start my new job effective January 1.* 

I wasn’t the only one who was surprised by the news.  There were other people who received the same notification who weren’t aware that I was in the running for a new position, such as the facilities manager (who was concerned that I was getting shit canned) and a member of our tech support area (who cornered me during lunch to ask when I would return from my extended vacation^).

Also, my meeting with the department rep yesterday afternoon was all flowers and rainbows.  Not only am I heading over to the new department next week, but the rep presented me with my official offer letter.+

And, after a whirlwind day, I rewarded myself with beer, so much beer.

*[A temp] will be joining [us] today, December 28 as a temporary Receptionist.  She will be sitting at the front desk training and will be replacing [me] effective January 1, 2012.…

Please let me know if you have questions.

Thanks,

[Manager]

^I wish.

+It was less of an offer and more of a memo stating what my new compensation package would be.  Don’t get me wrong, I am very happy with the new package.  However, I was confused by the fact that a member of HR did not present it to me. 

I was under the impression that no one – except HR – was supposed to know how much anyone else was paid.  You know what?  It’s not my problem.  I’m pumped to head into a new department, and if HR is okay with people knowing how much I make then so am I.  I even let the rep who will be one of my managers make a copy of my offer letter for her records.  She was cced on the original memo, so I just went with it.

I know why I'm drinking tonight!

It was really starting to look like 2012 would be a banner year for yours truly, but then things stalled or are currently in the process of going horribly, horribly wrong.*

Picture it – Friday, December 2, 2011.  I’m 20 minutes away from starting my weekend when I’m called up to my manager’s office.  She’s the HR generalist, so when she told me that another department would like to offer me the job that I’ve wanted since November 2010 – I was pumped.+  I could expect to transition into the new position between December 15 and the first of the year, but since they don’t know my exact start date there isn’t an acceptance letter prepared for me which also means that I don’t know how much I’ll be earning in this new job.^  Even so, I accepted on the spot.

The following week was the holiday bazaar.  I didn’t quite make enough to pay for all of the supplies I purchased, but I couldn’t get over the fact that people were buying my pendants and magnets.  Sure, I wore them, but then again I wore the first generation of pendants.  The same pendants that screamed “home made.”  The second generation looked much more refined.  And, not only did I sell them, I even had a few custom orders.  All in all, I’d have to say that the bazaar was a success.

On December 9, the HR generalist sent out an e-mail indicating that a temp’s assignment would conclude at the end of December.  This particular temp would be leaving the group that I would be joining.  As best as I could tell, I wasn’t going to be replacing her.  I say this mostly because my new position requires licenses that her administrative roll didn’t need.  However, it’s distinctly possible that I would absorb some or all of her responsibilities.

The week of December 12 rolls around and I hadn’t heard any kind of updates about my transition into the new position or heard anything about the new acceptance letter, so I contacted the HR assistant.  She said that she would work with my current manager, but that I shouldn’t expect anything to happen that week.  We post my job opening to Craig’s List that Monday, at least things are moving along.  So, I try to go with the flow.

Despite the fact that my biggest supporter in the new department had taken to asking me daily if I knew of any developments, I was able to flow along until I realized that I’d be out on December 19 when all timesheets were due.  Since I didn’t know if my new position was salaried, I sent an e-mail to both the HR generalist and the HR assistant to find out if I needed to fill out an additional timesheet. ~  The HR assistant replied and suggested that I fill out the same old timesheet since I hadn’t been given a specific start date and we would deal with it if I transitioned during the current pay cycle.

My supporter continues to ask for updates every morning.  Since I have no new information, I notice myself becoming more agitated, frustrated, and negative.  All of these negative feelings seem to be directed toward one person, and I find it hard to determine whether everyone feels the same or if more and more people are commiserating while word vomit spews unchecked from me.

At the company holiday party, the head of what will eventually be my new department asks if I know when I’ll be joining their team.  Actually, my promotion was brought up a lot at the holiday party – and usually not by me. 

I don’t hear anything about my promotion before leaving for Christmas weekend.  So, when my family and friends ask me for details, I catch myself sharing that because it’s been over three weeks since I was informally offered the position and I don’t know anything more – maybe I don’t actually have the job.  Or, if I do have the position, I have no idea when I’ll start it.  The Craig’s List post has been up for two weeks.  We’ve received 190 applications, but no one has been interviewed.

The HR assistant told me yesterday that she’s still looking through all of the applications.  She’s not sure exactly what she’s looking for since she never really been the first person to review applications before.  She used to be the second receptionist, but was promoted in mid-October 2010.

I assumed the process with my promotion would mirror hers.  A temp started on October 18, 2010.  The woman who would eventually become the new receptionist interviewed on October 29.  And, the temp worked here until the new receptionist started on December 27.

Since I still hadn’t heard anything by yesterday and the HR generalist is out until next Thursday, I sent an e-mail yesterday asking if the plan was still for me to transition by the first of the year.  I never heard a response.  However, the temp who was supposed to mosey at the end of the year will now be here until the end of January.

Now I’m supposed to meet with someone in the new department this afternoon.  I’d be pissed, but not shocked if she was tasked with telling me that I’m not going to transition until the beginning of February.  Blurg.

It’s enough to drive a lady to drink!

*Yes, I’m being melodramatic.  Things aren’t that horribly wrong.  It’s pretty much just work that I want to punch in the face.

+The main reason that I was pumped was because it had been such a long hard road to get there.  I started talking to my manager about the position November 2010.  I asked her about a policy I had found on the company’s intranet that specified an employee had to be in their first position for one year before they could apply for a new one.  She told me not to worry about it, and actually encouraged me to set up informational interviews with people in that department or who had held that position to find out if it was something I was really interested in doing.  As it turns out, yes, it was something I was very interested in doing. 

I tried to formally apply for the position on January 6, 2011.  I didn’t receive any kind of response or indication that my application would not be considered.  So, I brought it up a week or two later.  I ran head first into the wall that required I spend one year in my current position, but she’d like to keep my application on file.

That’s when I realized that although the policy is on the books, it’s not always applied.  If I had someone who would fight to get me, I would have the opportunity to move into another position. 

When a manager approached me in February about joining the finance department, I went with it.  I never really thought about going into accounting before, but I could learn so, so much from that manager so I pursued it.  When mid-March rolled around, my substantial lack of accounting experience was too much to get around, so I shifted my attention back to the original position.

I celebrated my one year anniversary with the company in September.  I met with my manager a few weeks later to start talking about the position again.  I was encouraged to consider a more administrative position, which would “build off my strong points” and act as a stepping stone to the position I wanted.

After looking over the administrative job description and realizing that whether it would take me one or two jobs to get into a position where I could actually use my law degree – it didn’t matter as long as I got out of my current position as soon as possible.  My current situation was sucking my will to live.  I consider the job below me, find it hard to work with a certain person, and between temping and being a permanent employee – I had spent 16 months in my current position.  I firmly believed that I had paid my dues, and was ready to move onto another position.

So, I tried to schedule a meeting with the HR generalist to sit down and have a formal discussion about my career path.  I didn’t hear back so the day before the “scheduled” meeting, I sent a follow up.  Apparently, they were so, so busy, so we scheduled a meeting a week or two out for October 25.

During that meeting, I was told that interviews would be scheduled for the non-administrative position during the week of November 14.  Also, the administrative position wasn’t “officially” open, since there was a temp in the position.

I hadn’t heard anything about the interviews, so I sent a follow up e-mail on November 7.  Within a matter of hours of my follow up e-mail, my interviews had been scheduled.

^Sure, I could have asked, but the opportunity to work in a new department for a new manager and in a new job where I’d actually learn things was too much for me to pass up.  Plus, I figured that I’d know within a few weeks and I had already been informed by another that they bumped up against a none negotiation policy when they were offered another job within the company.

~This was also my way of trying to be sneaky, and see if any new developments had been made in my transition.