Acela to the End of the Line — 1

Inane ramblings, a novella in installments

It was around the time of year where “summer” became a verb to your average New Yorker, yet the city was still crackling with energy well beyond the normal summer analyst class’ capabilities. I was loitering around the Wall Street station, unsure when the next train would come by. It happened upon me that “Wall Street” might be the phrase I had seen most in my life — certainly it had gotten off to a hot start when my dad handed me the Journal every morning from age 8 onward while saying “imbibe this if you want to make money.” Combine that with the fact that I had, in fact, “worked on Wall Street” (even though most of the meaningful institutions were far away from it) as a profession, and it was a pretty realistic assumption. The only phrase that showed up more in my day-to-day activities was “See H.R.” Nevertheless, while waiting for the subway, I realized that I had never actually seen the Bull in nearly a decade of being in New York. It was just one of those little absurdities — I had never been in the Empire State building either.

The subway arrived, and my buddy Roy and I hopped in. We were headed to an exclusive bar called “Employees Only”, which was ironic because I didn’t believe that either of us had done an honest day’s work in our lives. I thought about rationalizing this by claiming that liquidity provision was, in fact, a necessary service to the market, but it truly didn’t matter what you did as long as you knew someone who could get you in. We sat down and ordered a couple drinks — mine, a potent concoction of yellow chartreuse, grappa, and brandy; his, a decidedly tamer creation of Raki, Coca-Cola, and Kahlua. The conversation naturally shifted to the only topics New Yorkers ever discuss — where you eat, where you drink, and where you live.

“Soho House hasn’t been a thing for years, dude. How do you have an ‘exclusive members club’ that does 70% and 90% year-over-year revenue? It’s cheaper than Equinox, for fuck’s sake.”

“Yeah, the worst thing to happen to Manhattan was the saying ‘If You Know You Know’. We all know, everyone goes to the same places that TikTok tells them to go to. Eventually, everything goes the way of airport lounges.”

“I definitely don’t miss the weekly discussion of ‘should I get an Amex Platinum or a Chase Sapphire Reserve’. God, that shit bored me to tears. Anyway, how’s your drink?”

Roy took a gulp of his cocktail. Sip and spit was for losers. He then rattled off a description that could have been autogenerated:

“The intertwining of the Raki with the Coke and the scintillating hint of Kahlua creates a ménage à trois of flavor that shouldn’t work, but it does. As the illustrious Raki intertwines with the velvety embrace of Coca-Cola, a waltz of contrasting elements unfolds. The vivacious carbonation of the cola lends a sprightly effervescence of tendrils that tantalize the senses. Yet, it is the darkened elixir of Kahlua, the hidden gem in this mélange, that unveils its secrets as it swirls with the Raki and cola. A symphony of roasted coffee beans, harmonized with velvety caramel and a whisper of exotic vanilla, caresses the palate in a bewitching embrace.”

The nice part about spending a decade circumnavigating watering holes 6 nights a week is that you end up learning every maître d's name, and this bar was no different. Affectionately called “The Macedonian”, he and I had a game we’d play where we tried to identify which couples overbooked a dating app first date. The Macedonian, Roy, and I reeled in a particularly feisty catch this evening, where we caught a DEI consultant passionately describing her work to a bemused banker-looking type straight out of a J. Crew catalogue whose eyes had long glazed over.

“So yeah, my work revolves around helping organizations empower diverse and equitable cultures, where individuals from all backgrounds can thrive and contribute their unique perspectives to underscore the bottom line. I collaborate with leadership teams, conduct thorough assessments, and develop tailored strategies to address these issues head-on.”

“That’s, uh, fantastic. That’s so interesting. Tell me more!”

Roy, who appeared particularly perturbed by this exchange, gestured to the Macedonian and asked if we could move tables upstairs, but sadly, the entire place was booked out.

Back when I started, right after the 2008 recession, introducing yourself as an “investment banker”, “trader”, or “consultant” (of course, from McKinsey) was as toxic as “Koch Brother”. Alas, after the better part of a decade, the financial sector had found a way to rebrand itself with its former prestige, with climate bankers and ESG consultants galore. Oh, you thought finance had no actual value? Well how about the fact that we’re demonstrably saving the world? Not a profession so “devoid of any sort of meaning whatsoever” now, are we, Jeannette?

Look, Roy and I both went to liberal arts college. We understood the value of ESG and DEI before the abbreviations even existed or made it to the corporate lingua franca. We read Lolita in Tehran. But the machinations of selection processes for supply-capped positions necessitated the development of a zero sum game, where inclusionary could not exist without an equal and opposite exclusionary force. But bygones were bygones, and our litigation of diversity was more concerned with the spread of proper asset allocation than allocution, so the conversation once again turned back to the subject financiers adore the most — themselves.

“Man, I just can’t find a woman who wants to settle down.”

Think about the absurdity of trying to resolve this complaint in New York City.

“It’s like, I try and be honest with these women I’m meeting — we go out to dinner, far beyond your normal meetup (~ed. — because it requires a level of eye-to-eye contact that sex simply doesn’t) — and they all just sorta say, ‘we’ll see where it’s going’. I mean, what am I doing wrong?”

Setting aside the fact that obviously the best base for a relationship is multi-threading five paramours at the same time, this was a question I had heard with surprising frequency while making the rounds, because everyone, in fact, was operating with that framework.

“Look, Germany has Hochdeutsch, China has Cantonese, and New York has restlessness. The neurotic traipsing between job, apartment, new job, new girl, new therapist, and back to a new job, is the cultural currency of the city, but it doesn’t set one up for the traditional, long-term happiness of a pair of Iowa high school sweethearts. But it goes both ways — if you did, in fact, travel to the aforementioned Iowa city, your verbiage that’s par for the course out here would have to go through a minimum of 40% insanity-dampening to be understood by anyone from anywhere else. For better or worse, you’re trapped.”

I paused to take a long gulp of my provision.

“But the light at the end of the tunnel is that when you meet that person that does understand it all, you’ll find it intoxicating beyond belief, beyond those ill-advised fraternity party shots of Everclear, because any good relationship requires both the right person and the right timing. And where else are you going to find the person that progresses alongside you outside of the same psychotic hyper-transactional environment? If a relationship is a highway, and the exits are potential roadblocks, a New York relationship is like a drag race where, I dunno, the cars merge in the foreseeable future. At least until you go to law school and blow it the fuck up.”

The check arrived. 330 fucking dollars for a few cocktails and some caviar-laced karaage? Inflation was out of control.

We “split” the check — down the middle, who’s counting anymore? — and headed off into the Manhattan darkness.