2 p.m. — I swing by the vending machine for my second cherry Coke Zero and overhear coworkers talking about how our stock is doing. When the company offered me my current role three years ago, it took me almost an hour of fiddling with a spreadsheet to figure out how much money they were actually offering me. It was really good money, around $130,000, but about a third of it was in the form of stock that wouldn't start to vest until I had been there for two years. The volatility made me somewhat nervous, but I wanted a change of scenery and was frankly sick of billable hours, so I left my management consulting job for a large tech company, the stock price of which has since tripled. My semi-annual stock grants — which I quickly convert into a combination of cash and index-fund investments — are now in the neighborhood of $75,000 each. $2.50