A Veteran Trader’s Experience - A Cautionary Tale

Those of you have that been around for the last 1-2 years and frequent the trading section frequently probably noticed that at some point I just dropped off BA. From Early January 2019-Mid July, I was gone. For a couple months leading up to it as well, I was pretty spotty.

What happened? Real life. I won’t go into ALL of the details since some are very private, but the highlights include:

• Looking for a new house in a new city in a different state
• Trying to buy a house in the crazy housing market
• Traveling for 3 months constantly for work
• Elderly pet death
• Acute medical incident(s)
• Moving
• Fixing old house To sell
• Wife gets Pregnant (YAAAAAY!!!)

Leading up to these months, I did not know that I would be this busy. I had no idea. That time of the year, biennially, always requires a lot of travel, but it was made worse with the government shut down, and everything else was not something I was prepared for. A new discovery at work on one of the trips also complicated matters

So what happened? I dropped off the face of the earth. I dug in(to real life), and I didn’t even visit BA while on the pot. Certainly was not staying awake at night just to read and post. Funny enough, I also mostly stopped drinking.

Leading up to this point, I felt like a veteran trader. I have sent a huge number of boxes out (near 100), completed a ton of trades (65 recorded), and made a number of trading partners - some of which are FiBs, others being FIB (Fucking Illinois Bastards), and some just turning into straight up friendships. I thought I was prepared to juggle real life and beer. I felt like I had been. At various points I have shopped off as many as 7 boxes at a time.

But, guess what? I wasn’t prepared. Not even close. Life hit me hard, and I completely folded.

This is a cautionary tale, because I fucked up. I made mistakes, I accept that, and I’m happy to share that publicly if it helps someone not make the same mistake that I made.

I think most people on here understand that RL gets in the way, but it is pretty hard to understand how life can be so unrelenting that it causes many months of prolonged chaos and absence. In my case, I was having such a hard time accepting the circumstances that all a I did was focus, and forget my BA obligations. When I stopped visiting BA I had:

• A box I owed someone on here for a generous box they sent me. We didn’t fully arrange the terms because we have completed a few trades together and talked so much. He got me my box before I was ready, and then shit hit the fan.
• A box I owed someone as part of a “I Owe U” for a previous trade. I owe him many boxes, and the next shipment needed to go out.
• An almost complete trade with someone, neither of us shipped when I stalled, but we were about to.
• I was owed a box by someone else, I just had to send them a label.

In all of these cases, nothing happened when they should have. Person #1 was super upstanding, and reached out by text to see what had happened, and where I went. I specifically did not touch anything in this box since I had not gotten their box out. I let them know I could either get it out, or ship theirs back, and I would include extras. The BAer was so amazingly understanding, and just asked me to do it when I could. Stayed in contact, and although it took me about 3 weeks (this was in the middle of the pet death), I got it out. That was in April.

The second I tried to stay in contact with, but fell out of contact, and I believe I also got that box out in April. Also extremely supportive and understanding.

The third has never been completed, but I finally reached out once I got back on BA, but have not heard since. Offered to complete the trade, and still will. I don’t even have an address, otherwise this would likely be a different result.

The last, I sent the label over in May. It took that long for me to get beer that was just waiting to be shipped.

Leading up to this, there were several people that I spoke with about trades that would have materialized if I had just been around, and if I just had not stacked so much on BA up at once. This is only to say that it was not just trades that were in the process of being completed that I hung out to dry.

None of this even touches the fact that I just stopped being communication with friends and trade partners.

I have made good on everything that I can, and reached out to so many to apologize. I would never allow myself to ever leave anyone high and dry. I understand that for many this will hold no weight, because that is exactly what I did for months.

I understand that I will probably get bagged by some people for being exactly what most could consider a bad trader. I accept all that, and I accept that many will not want to ever trade with me after I have posted this. I understand. I take my relationship seriously, I own my mistakes, and I’d rather post this if it will help others.

-B_E

 

Thank you - to all that responded, and all that have read my post. I appreciate the kind words. I also appreciate that everyone has been so accepting. Not only are there classy traders out there like @not2quick that were so lenient and willing to give a man a chance and reach out, But the community as a whole. I had two past traders that I keep in touch with by text reach out after they had not seen or heard from me in any form in 2 months.

@FlintB I appreciate that what you said is accurate, but for me everything just got bumped to the next level. I’ve been an adult for a long time (that’s supposed to be funny), and I’ve gone through plenty of issues with family death, and even becoming a pseudo-step father to a teen when I was barely an adult myself because of a family death. Still, nothing made me feel as underwater as everything did during this time period.

If I am being honest with myself, one thing that creeped into my mind toward the end of this whole process, before I ever came back to BA was the idea of bad trader behavior, and what is “acceptable.” I had to ask myself whether I was that guy - whether what happened was or should be considered acceptable. That was something I wrestled with. Maybe that is me being too philosophical, or maybe that is me caring too much about this community. Or maybe that is too great of a psychological hurdle for me to accept that I could be that guy.

So, I guess to answer your question, the cautionary tale is not that life happened, or that life got in the way, but to be aware that it really can. I never really figured that I could feel that overwhelmed, or that I could be in that territory. But it happened. I guess that is part of growing, even as an adult. (Ironically, I just had a talk with my wife recently about how my views have changed since becoming a father. You hear that they will, but it’s something else when you watch it happen to you.)

It’s good to be back.