Wating for the Sun: A Failure in Perseverance

The alarm would buzz surprisingly every morning at 4:30am, even though I should have been used to it.  I’d zombie to the shower, and finally make my way out for a brisk walk to the subway during the muggy, New York City mornings.  My shoes would scuff from the abrasive sidewalk as I gave a polite nod to the fruit vendors at the bodegas filling their supply stands for the day.

This was my first real job, two years ago, where my morning routine consisted of me waking up early enough that the night’s last round of street hookers were still on their final shift of walkabouts on my lower Manhattan block scavenging for desperate business.  No, I wasn’t a pimp.  I worked on Wall Street.

The most fascinating aspect of my job and working in New York had less to do with my actual workday, and more to do with the professional culture I was thrown into at a young age.  The ride to the subway consisted of me in a dark suit and loosened tie, headphones blaring, with occasional beads of sweat dripping down my face if the subway car wasn’t air conditioned, usually observing the other traveling patrons.

I’d try to identify the people around me, usually scribbling notes to myself:  The foreign construction worker in baggy jeans and a stained white t-shirt, who probably spoke little English, but is so happy to have a job in New York.  The chef with calloused hands, nodding off to sleep, probably writing his specials menu for the day behind his eyelids.  And, the handful of other costumed workers, anticipating the relentless day of established routine in front of them.

“Same hustle,” I’d think to myself.  “Just a different grind.”

Corporate America creates artificial levels of bureaucracy.  What seems to be decided by a market, is really only decided by what feels like an irrational, societal force.  And, it wraps around to an inherent issue of the recent economic crisis: petty value attributed to worthless junk, with price being determined by how much you could convince a fool to pay for it.

My job, although it felt important, was nothing more than a title.  No more or less important than the others riding in the subway with me every morning.

The appeal of working on Wall Street, especially for those in college (like I was), or recently graduated, is created by accounts of ridiculous parties filled with glamor and excess, in addition to the Hollywood caricature of money-fueled machoism.  It wasn’t that I didn’t like the work; it was more that I had difficulty identifying with the culture dragged along with it.  And, it’s too easy for any of us get lost in routine.

A lot of my job consisted of waiting for the sun to come up, and then go back down.  If I learned one thing, it’s that I didn’t want to have to do that anymore.  Waiting on something can be painful, especially when it becomes part of your work day.   I absorbed valuable experience, in concepts and insight into how the system works.  The trick, I suppose, is to monetize it while not stepping into the unnecessary bullshit.

Now, I’m working on my start-up, and a handful of other creative projects, mostly out of New York and Philadelphia.  The waiting has ended, especially for the sun to go up or down.  And looking backwards, my interests haven’t changed much.  Only my motives and priorities.

At first flash of Eden, we race down to the sea.
Standing there on Freedom’s Shore.
Can you feel it now that spring has come?
And it’s time to live in the scattered sun.

- The Doors, Waiting for the Sun

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