"Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving." That's a quote by Terry Pratchett. Pratchett was an English author of fantasy novels. He died in March, 2015. I never read any of his novels, so I am not sure what context was behind this quote. For me, it still holds meaning though.
You see, I, in a sense, have come back full circle to where I have started. In 1991, I started as a research assistant at the Value Line Investment Survey. It was my first job on Wall Street, and I was proud to work there. I moved up through the ranks quickly and left five years later as an editor and the editor in charge of the Supplementary Reports portion of the survey. I left to go to Merrill Lynch in 1996. In September 2014, I rejoined Value Line, and in a sense it felt like a homecoming. I still knew many of the older analysts there and many of the younger analysts were very welcoming. After my wife died, it was very hard to keep my hedge fund consulting business viable, since I was also raising two young girls on my own. There just wasn't enough time to do everything, and the business suffered even further, while I supervised visits for the girls with their Mom, or had to drive Sharon to doctors visits as the courts had decreed. In 2014, I still had clients, but I was writing a lot of proprietary reports that I could not send out to other prospective clients, thus the business was stagnating. In July, a number of old friends came up for a fishing trip, and I was talking shop with one of the analysts that still worked at Value Line. He told me that Value Line was looking for analysts to work from home, and I immediately jumped at the opportunity. Two weeks later, I was hired! I must say that coming back to where I started is not like never leaving. I picked up the Value Line system again very easily, and I am thoroughly enjoying working for Value Line again. I, of course, work from New Hampshire. My New York extension rings in my home office. Some of my old friends ask me if it bothers me going back to where I started. And I must say that it doesn't bother me at all. Sure I miss working with the hedge funds and trying to out think the Street. But the reality of it is that that wasn't what I was doing anymore at my own company. I didn't have the time to do the research AND the marketing AND the client talks that are necessary to keep that type of business going. I had more than enough work to keep me going, but I was just making the bills. And the work was no longer run and gun trading and shorts, but more management critiques and operational synopsis'. I enjoyed doing them, and was happy for the work, but it was just not going to allow me to comfortably increase the rest of my business and home school my daughters. At this point, I am covering about 50 stocks for Value Line. Although the press schedule can be tight, particularly during earnings season, I still have time to teach my daughters, train in the martial arts and do other things that need to be done around the house. Although I miss the camaraderie of being in an office setting, I am older now, and it just wouldn't be what it used to be anyway. In the end, I feel like I have to some extent come home... even though I never really leave my home to work anyway. At least not since 2003. It's funny how life changes, yet still manages to stay the same in so many ways. One final thought: If I never left Value Line, I never would have met my wife, and I never would have then had my daughters that I have now. I also never would have moved to New Hampshire, where I am extremely happy. Thus, although I have come back to where I started, I am also happy that I am never really leaving my happy place in New Hampshire!
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