On jobs, Part Two: Money

A friend of mine in high school had an internship with Merrill Lynch that started at the end of our Junior year. He told me about it while we were sitting in Ms. Sugg’s classroom, the first two people to arrive for AP European History after lunch let out. He had just started, and he was unable to sit still with excitement. “I’m not doing very much right now, but it’s helpful just to see what they do. They said I could keep working for them through college. They’re a really good company, but after a few years I might look for a position with someone else instead.”

I nodded and smiled like I would with anyone speaking a foreign language.

“This is so cool,” he said. “I really want to be in this industry.”

More nods, more smiles. Then I finally said, “who’s Merrill Lynch?”

“You don’t know who Merrill Lynch is?”

“Nope, don’t think so.”

“They’re an investment brokerage.”

Blank stare.

“You’ve probably seen them before. You’d recognize them. They’re the one with the bull.” He reached into his bag to get his wallet. “Actually, yeah, this is it right here,” he said, handing me his spiffy new business card.

I looked at the bull design. I had probably seen it in ads, but I still didn’t know what Merrill Lynch was. “Why is their logo a bull?”

“You know,” he said. “Like bulls and bears on Wall Street.”

He and I had taken U.S. Government and Politics together the year before, and we did in fact learn about those stock market symbols, so I vaguely knew what he was referring to, but something more basic wasn’t clear to me.

“So, but, what’s an investment brokerage?”

I’m sure he explained it very well, not that I followed it at the time. Even if I had, though, what I didn’t get was even more basic.

“You want to work for them?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, I want to work in investments in general, and Merrill Lynch is one of the biggest companies in the industry.”

“But…” I was more lost than he seemed to understand. “Why do you want to work in investments?”

“What do you mean? Because you can make a lot of money, and because it’s really exciting!”

“Yeah, okay,” I said. “Yeah, great. That’s really cool.”

What I was thinking, though, was more like, “What a weirdo.” (I’m not particularly good at hiding my emotions, so I’m sure that what I looked like I was thinking, too.) Wall Street? That’s where evil people wearing red power ties rob the rest of us with their arcane arts. And making lots of money? Whatever. The good life would be seeing the country through the window of a bus, exploring unknown cities with friends, eating cheap food and seeing amazing musicians in tiny bars… you know… like Jack Kerouac.

If you haven’t guessed, that was the year I read On the Road.

More accurately, I thought the good life was reading, writing, and learning about the world. In general, I assumed that I would become a writer, and I would make money—somehow—but what was more important was being known. I wanted to be the voice in people’s heads. I wanted to see my author’s photo in bookstores. In my later years, I could tell stories about getting my first agent, or about battling with editors over plot lines.

This all might have made more sense if I had actually been writing.

At any rate, for the first five years of my adult life, I had no real understanding of the need to earn money, let alone any desire to earn it. Spend it, sure—I loved spending it. I spent as much as I could on Magic cards in the 90s, when my income was limited to gifts and my $12 weekly allowance for doing the dishes and cleaning out the kitty litter. In college, my mother gave me access to my parents’ checking account so that I could buy all the books I needed for class (which I felt no compunction about using to also buy all the books I wanted to fill out my knowledge of whatever I was interested in that month, including English poetry, Greek and Roman Classics, and continental philosophy. I also got plenty of pizza down at Mangia on Main Street and, by my sophomore year, cigarettes from 7/11.) Later, I took a year off and moved to Los Angeles. My parents not only paid my rent; they also paid my credit card bills. I wasn’t just buying housewares and food, either. CDs, time at the Internet café, Starbucks coffee, newspapers, restaurant nachos, movie tickets… it all went on that card.

I had jobs during most of this time—I’ll get to this in another post—but they couldn’t begin to pay for what I was spending. My parents brought up my spending with me sometimes, but it was my mother who saw the bills and the bank statements, and let’s just say that she isn’t the most confrontational person in the world. No, let’s also say that she is one of the most generous and loving people in the world.

My mother also paid off my college loans, even after I was otherwise finally providing for myself. It’s only recently that I’ve understood the extent of her help and her lenience. I started out my life with more of a financial cushion than most people without a trust fund.

I haven’t known until now why I remembered my confusion about my friend’s desire to work for Merrill Lynch. Our minds hold on to moments that we don’t understand at the time, so that we can return to them when we’re older and have learned more about that area of life. This happens especially when we’re children. In my case, maybe I remained a child longer than was healthy.

In my next installment, I learn that most people do indeed follow norms, or else they wouldn’t be norms.