S&T - desk politics. Any stories or advice?

I'm a relatively new trader at a physical trade shop. At my place, there isn't an actual % of book type bonus structure. But I think everyone is somewhat aware that comp is driven by the PnL of the trades you enter. 

So I was pretty naive to this before entering a trading role. Probably bound to happen when you have multiple traders that might overlap on product, region, etc.

  • Guy A taking credit for good positions, and dumping them on a junior person B when they become out of the money
  •  Internal fighting over who gets to handle relationship XYZ 
  • Other BS over how deals get applied in our accounting system, people trying to jack their own PnL. Sometimes this is done by playing dumb, and getting the scheduler or accounting person to do stuff for you. 

From what I know, this is relatively common. And supposedly much worse at the Vitols and Trafiguras out there...

My way of dealing with it has largely been to just call people out when it's screwing me over, but not in a directly confrontational way. 

Does anyone have any anecdotes to share? 

2 Comments
 

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