Big Business' Brothers in Arms: Meet the Warriors of Wall Street

I've joined the ranks. The ranks of underslept, overworked, understated, over-expected, underestimated yet overachieving New Yorkers. Ghosts in suits, ties and pointy leather shoes that haunt the subways after 10pm on a weekday. Even a quiet upbringing, a balanced childhood and a limited attention span couldn't save me from being drafted and now I'm trudging along with the rest at 11:32pm on another nondescript Tuesday, thanking God for DVR.

Yes, these corporate night crawlers do indeed exist among the normal, the well rounded and the wellslept. And there are many, many of them walking quietly amongst you here in Go-Getter Gotham. They are the culprits who make the rest of us normal people feel guilty for an unanswered weekend email at 5am, who crowd the pre-made frozen food aisle, whose daily excercise consists of walking to and from the subway, supplemented by the weight-loss effects of a constant stress and sleepless night diet, and who may be single-handedly responsible for the destruction of the nuclear family (although I think that particular illustrious illusion had it coming anyway).

11:34pm, the late night train finally arrives, freckled with sleeping bums and stiff red ties wrinkled only slightly from another day at the office. The bums, passed out, discussing racism with the voice in their head or sleeping, look 10 times as lively as these suited soldiers, whose bleary-eyes have the cloudy, fixed appearance of a 2-day old dead person left undisturbed. This is the ugly underworld of the corporate world and these are its creatures. It is truly disturbing and more than slightly eerie to see them arrayed and upright in their pressed Kenneth Cole heather grey at such an ungodly, lightless, soulless hour - collared, corporate vampires marching up a gruelling corporate ladder, ambition's very own army of indentured servants who simultaneously rule the New York class system and slave for it as both lords and serfs of modern commerce. How unperterbed they look, how unmoved and mechanical, normal and untired as if a 11pm commute was as normal and regular as brushing your teeth before bed. If you see any glimpse of these reclusive creatures during their prime commuting hours, then chances are you yourself are one of them.
I slump on to the train, my head heavy and my posture dissolved into a puddle. The painful act of moving my eyelids over my parched eyeballs in order to keep them open, feels like peeling a bandaid slowly off of unwashed skin. I am consumed by all of the things my body desparately wants -social interaction, unlimited sleep, simple carbohydrates, visual stimulation, circulation to my immobile limbs. But my fellow soldiers march on, stare unseeingly at the passing platforms out the train window, holding their briefcases as if they were an extra appendage they'd been born with much like a third nipple, never checking their watches and even feigning to cast me a look that clearly says 'dont worry newbie, you'll get used to it. The hunger pangs and the dizzy spells both subside after your first promotion.' The more lively ones are blankly thumbing their blackberries like a kid fixed in front of a video game theyve been playing for 8 hours straight but havent beaten.
No one is slumped, leaning, shuteyed, drooling, raving from sleep deprivation or even making anything that even resembles a facial expression. They don't even look anxious to get home because this IS home - the uptown apartments that they work this hard to afford are like time shares for the rare but occasional vacation of an extra 2 hours of sleep on the weekends or dinner with their girlfriends, who are either enlisted as well or filling the hole with nail salons and the sweet-smelling dressing rooms of Bloomingdales.

My stop arrives and I drag myself up to the street as the rest of my commerce comrades pass me robotically on the stairs. Welcome to corporate New York - Has my number really come up?