Working

I recently read Working by Studs Terkel.  This, or other Studs writing, is a must-read for anyone who calls him/herself a true Chicagoan.  Working was written in 1974 and as the subtitle implies is about People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do.  As I read the book, I constantly thought about 1974 Chicago and this era for my grandparents, who were residents of this city for most of their lives.  My grandfather owned and operated a vacuum cleaner repair business on the southside of the city at this time.  I wondered how he might have responded to Studs' queries about his work at that time, but I suspect he would say that he was motivated by his desire to fix things, help others, and provide for his family.

While I read the book, I also focused on the motivations of the stockbrokers that were profiled and tried to relate each of them to my own experience in a stockbrokering environment. It seems that there have not been fundamental changes in what motivates stockbrokers over the past 30 years. The first stockbroker, David Reed Glover, is motivated by a sense of responsibility to do right by his clients. He says, “when you’re dealing with an individual’s money, it’s a terrific responsibility.” The second stockbroker, Ray Wax, seems to be 100% driven by money and believes that the market is rigged in the favor of the major brokerage houses. He seems to be somewhat less ethical than Glover and less motivated to do the right thing for his clients. He comments that the ethics that he was forced to learn about the business is “all mumbo jumbo.” I have witnessed both of these motivations at work in my interactions with brokers and I could probably think of a Glover or Wax that I've encountered in my own work. Typically, it seems that brokers are motivated by some combination of money and a sense of doing right for their client. In my experience, it is a very rare case when one motivation severely dominates the other, especially in the case of responsibility trumping financial gain.