"yeah but what if you're getting paid minimum wage??"
"hmm.."
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it is everyone's dream in our society to become a banker.
it started when we were kids. coming home from day care, we would see men dressed sharply in dark colored suits, their ties carefully sticking out so you can clearly see the 'ferragamo' label on them, their shoes so shiny that you can spot a blemish in your reflection on the high quality leather, the looks on their faces wore concern, stress, and calculation. constantly barking commands into their blackberries. constantly in motion, checking their watches, fixing their hair. but overall their image screamed money. success. power. as if nothing else matters more than where the Dow Jones closed at today or whether the new drug was approved by the FDA. if it didn't make a dollar, it didn't make sense.
we looked at them with awe and wonder. true businessmen. our parents kept reminding us, 'that is real success in the world. commanding power and respect, making money, living a comfortable life style.' this line, repeated over and over, deeply ingrained itself in my mind. i wanted the money, the success. to feel important. i kept it close to my heart and knew that i wanted to play an integral role in society as a banker.
as a child, i honed my banking and finance skills wherever possible. although many write off the popular boardgame monopoly(tm) as a game of chance, i studied the manual for days and nights and eventually was able to consistently win the game seven out of ten times. instead of playing with a play keyboard or reading a book that emitted plot-related noises like mooing cows and meowing cats, i was busy familiarizing myself with a miniature banking system by Fischer Price. i am even proud to say that i was able to recite the rules on the instruction manual verbatim.
i argued over technicalities in social games with my class mates. to me, being right took precedence over everyone having a good time. i didn't want to be the agreeable pushover. i knew that in order to succeed i had to have an opinion and then yell it in everyone's faces (i saw that in a movie somewhere and it sure as hell worked). needless to say i didn't have that many friends growing up. but i only saw them as future competition for a big pay check so it didn't bother me.
the minute i was able to enroll into a finance program (i chose NYU Stern first for its job placement because, lets be honest, that should be the only criteria for rating schools. i'm not going to pay $200,000+ just for a piece of paper with some no-name signature on it certifying that i learned shit. also, i chose NYU Stern for its student body of finance tools and douches--and i wasn't going to let anyone out douche me) i did. i was so eager to be a part of the finance world that my parents had to convince me with money to wait until my actual graduation year in high school before i went off to college.
choosing to enroll in Stern was a great choice. not only was i able to flash my prior knowledge of financial markets while sitting in the front row of lecture hall classes in the most douche baggery fashion, but also i made friends with a few like minded individuals. granted, we did not celebrate the true rewards of friendship since we were competing for the same jobs (and yes, finding a job and getting paid should be our first priority, lets get real here), but finding acceptance among peers was one joy of life that i had missed out in my childhood. even though, my chief goal of being the best led me to spend so many late nights in solitary confinement pouring over accounting and financial textbooks.
i was having a great time in college. surrounded by aspiring bankers, feeling the competition, learning as much as i can about the world of finance. i sucked so hard and shamelessly at the teat of every professor i had, just in case he or she had a job lead. all i needed was a foot in the door. i padded my resume with the biggest buzzwords--'managing expectations', 'database maintenance', 'industry research network autonomous high frequency trading'--sometimes even creating my own nonsensical phrases just to catch people's eyes. i was so close to my dream life that sometimes i would lie awake in bed, head swimming with thoughts of prestige, glamor, and torso soaked in my own excited anxious ejaculate.
then all shit hit the fan. the wall street financiers, so convinced that they correctly ran the modern world, truly bit off a little more than they can chew and soon enough, the entire financial system, built on a house of tooth picks glued by false ratings and greed, eventually collapsed. and with its explosive demise went my childhood full of solo monopoly games, knowledge of pro forma financials, and my hope that forfeiting my supple virginity to be ravished endlessly by corporate america will land me a dream job.
like there will even be a job available.
my aspirations of becoming a glorified slave, working 100+ hours in the maze of cubicles in a high rise building in manhattan all vaporized in a matter of minutes. me, among thousands of others in the same position, seeing our futures implode, toying with the ideas that we could find other professions. what a shame to graduate college with a finance degree and end up working as a full time baby sitter. suddenly happy hours and $1 beer on tap didn't seem so lame. and forgoing taxi cabs and walking everywhere. little by little, i had to give up what seemed like an attainable dream, the soulless job just within reach.
i spend nights lying awake, wishing i could be stressing over excel worksheets and dreading client meetings. and now, i have all this free time but no greedy corporation to devote it to. i am a mere shell among many many shells, hollow and unfeeling, purposeless, with only the function and intention to carry out corporate america's trivial bidding. my entire upbringing devoted to banking and now, with the demise of that profession, i am lost in the world. soulless, inhuman.
-andy
