The dot com craze was in full throttle mode and I was taking full advantage. All of the countless hours spent gawking at the bloomberg terminal, researching about the internet, was transforming ideas into cash, via egregious stock market gains, both professionally and on a personal level. My small America Online position, ticker AMER, had exploded in value and my book of clients was robust.
I staffed up, hiring a sales assistant and several cold callers and account openers. Monthly production was humming along at a brisk 100-275k per month; life was good to say the least. I couldn’t handle the order flow, especially since, back then, every single trade had to be written out on buy or sell tickets. Often times I was unable to eat lunch, due to the enormous burden of order flow at work.
Out of necessity, my work hours were still asinine, 8am to 9pm. It was just part of the job.
I deposited a lot of my personal worth into the stock market, moved out of the basement, into a Brownstone. My friends and family really had no idea how much money I was making, since I kept a low profile. They just thought I was “doing well.”
Every month or so I’d spend thousands of dollars on jewelry for my wife, from a private jeweler. One time, I was counting money, about to head over to my jeweler. I had about 15k spread out all over the desk; suddenly, my sales manager walked in unannounced. He just sort of looked at me, bewildered, as if I was conducting a fucking drug deal or some shit. I still remember the look on his face. Good times.
In addition to stupid diamonds, I spent a lot of money on sales leads, thousands of dollars worth. Somehow, someway, I was able to purchase the entire book of client contact information of my old nemesis— that fuck faced sales manager, who had fired me 2 years prior.
I went to work.
I was obsessed with exacting revenge on that fucker, who had fired me and took my book of business, immediately after my Grandfather’s death. One by one, methodically, I convinced his clients to leave him and transfer to me. It was like taking stupid from a cold caller.
Granted, it was a diabolical plan, one that I would never inflict on anyone else. However, he deserved it and more. He was stealing books for years. He had no talent, so he back stabbed his way into a lofty position.
Payback is a motherfucker.
In a period of two months time, I had successfully transferred more than 30 of his clients and millions in assets from him to me. It got so bad, so egregious, my sales manager came into my office one day, displaying a “cease and desist” order, from a certain vanquished former sales manager. I viewed it as an offer of surrender; so I stopped calling his book.
Years later, incidentally, we worked at the same firm together, again. But he never said a word to me about the whole ordeal.
Hence the term was born: “The Fly” wins all the time, even when he appears to be losing badly.
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