Free The Trade by JT Kalnay Page B

in hardware. This system should work like a
champ, but it doesn't. We want the system to be faster than our
competitors’. Much faster if possible, but even just a little
faster is a big win. We want it to reach its decisions a full
second before other currency trading programs. This is also a
political hot potato. People are pointing fingers at each other all
over the place on this one.”
    "Great. So what's my goal and timeline?" Jay
asked. He'd been listening intently.
    "Simple. We need you to figure out what's
wrong with it and if possible, how to fix it.” Jay sat down at his
desk and surveyed the equipment arranged around him and the stacks
of design documents, source code listings, system diagrams, and
user manuals. "I think you've got everything you need,” Bill
said.
    "I'm on it boss,” Jay said. He took off his
jacket, pulled a pencil from his shirt pocket protector and started
to work. Bill left him bent over the documents. It was 8:05 am. At
12 noon, Bill came back. Jay was still bent over the documents but
now there were several piles and three or four empty diet coke cans
and two of the computer monitors had screens from the system up and
running. Bill was impressed.
    "Lunch time,” Bill announced. Jay literally
jumped out of his chair. He'd not heard Bill approach and had been
scared nearly half to death. Bill jumped back. The two men looked
at each other, shock and confusion in Jay's eyes, surprise and the
hint of a growing grin on Bill's face. He'd heard Jay could get
absorbed in his work. It was nice to see, if somewhat amusing and
disturbing at the same time.
    "Holy shit you scared me,” Jay panted.
    "Sorry,” Bill laughed. The fright was gone as
quickly as it had come. "Thought you might want to get some lunch?"
Bill asked.
    "No thanks Bill. I'm going to go up to the
fitness center and stretch and jog and then catch a sandwich at my
desk a little later. What's the deal on lunch hours anyway? Half
hour? Hour?"
    "Depends,” Bill answered. "I don't really
care how long you take or when you get here or when you go home or
whether you work at home. I profoundly do not care. My only care is
that you do insanely good work, and lots of it. I would like to be
able to get a hold of you in an emergency. But, I will give you as
much rope as you want, as long as you're getting your work done.
This place is pure performance based with dollars as the measuring
stick.”
    "Cool," Jay answered. "I've been looking at
this stuff and I've got some ideas on where to look first so I'm
gonna hit the pavement and see what boils up out of the grey
matter.”
    "Better keep your mind and your eyes on the
traffic,” Bill cautioned.
    "No worries,” Jay answered.
    "Catch you later,” Bill called after the
younger man who was now moving stiffly down the hallway away from
him.

    "I'll bet he goes jogging every day at noon
like a little robot,” Dan Landford said.
    "Probably will,” Bill answered. “You know
these geniuses. They are obsessive, repetitive, and
predictable.”
    “ Until they do something
crazy.”
    “ Exactly.”

    The day stretched towards five o'clock. Six
came and went. Jay hardly noticed the others in his hallway saying
their goodnights and drifting away. He was deep inside the problems
of his assigned system. Bill approached Jay's office, careful to
jingle his keys and scrape his feet so as not to surprise and scare
Jay again. He looked in and there was Jay still bent over the
papers. All the monitors were running now. Yellow post-it notes had
appeared throughout the documents. There were a couple of diagrams
on his whiteboard. Jay looked up and saw Bill. He looked at his
watch, rubbed his eyes, leaned back in his chair and put his feet
up on top of some of the documents on his overcrowded desk.
    "So?" Bill asked.
    "So ask me in another couple of days,” Jay
shot back. "This is a pretty complicated little system you
know.”
    Bill noted the edge in Jay's voice and
attributed it to tiredness and the