Time-Zoned

The old song Working 9 to 5 seems like a life of luxury in today's global world is flat economy. According to the Financial Calendar website the intense pressures of electronic trading is now available in nearly 600 financial centers around the globe.

The ECBOT (Chicago Board of Trade) starts trading here in Chicago at about 18:30 hours (00:30 UTC) and runs overnight. About 07:30 Central European Time (06:30 UTC) the Eurex and other European exchanges start trading. Factor in the Asian markets like the Jasdaq and voilà you now have a near zero window of opportunity for scheduled downtime and we must manage support staff in multiple call centers working accordingly "around the clock".

In order to meet these demands, Blackberries, wireless networks, laptops and all things electronic continue to increase without bound. CEOs, CIOs, CTOs and the like push their staff harder to meet the increasing demands of the traders who want access to these markets. Am I complaining? Not me... I'm laughing all the way to the bank.

An all too familiar example of this lifestyle is found in Time-Zoned: How to Cope With a Round-the-Clock Workday by Sue Shellenbarger of the Wall Street Journal Online.

As a friend said in college "Pressure makes diamonds".