Being a Non-Target is Paradise

"I forgot the lender phone call..."

I spring from my bed in an uncoordinated jolt, barely conscious and clinging to muster the energy to stand.  As my vision returns, I notice the time: 6:34 AM.  Half an hour behind schedule.  My alarm is still blaring and I angrily deactivate the device with a disproportionate amount of force.  Finally, my brain kicks into action, and I immediately rush to complete my routine as the dread from yesterday's outstanding tasks slowly builds.

I catch the morning bus and lower my heavy attaché case and I begin to plan out my day.  I was lucky to still have time to press my suit and ensure a confident look.  My outfit today consists of a black double-breasted jacket with crisply ironed matching trousers from Paul Smith, a white and blue pinstriped shirt with french cuffs from Brooks Brothers, a red patterned necktie, also from Brooks Brothers, and a beige cotton trench coat from Hart Schaffner & Marx.  My ensemble is complimented by an era-appropriate slicked back haircut that I got from a local strip-mall two weeks ago.  I delicately place my modern blue-tooth headphones from JLabs upon my head, which are designed to closely resemble the classic Sony Walkman's.  I must make sure that my hair shape remains intact.  Push It To The Limit from the Scarface soundtrack blasts through my skull to make me stand straighter, and look more confident.  At the same time, my mind cannot escape the fact that I have to forge a plausible explanation for missing a scheduled phone call with one of the firm's potential lenders.  My supervisors will not be pleased.

The piercing sounds of bad music, TikTok videos, and incoherent screaming throughout the hallways painfully remind me of the fact that I am still in High School.  This fact enrages me.  "Fucking high school," I mutter to no one.  Here there are no lectures to attend or prestigious student funds to join.  No Bulge-Bracket alumni groups or free Bloomberg Terminals.  No recruiters to network with and nothing in the slightest to help me make it to Wall Street, which at this point is the only goal I still care about.  I attempt to take solace in the fact that I will very soon be rid of this place.  This, however, fails utterly when I remember that I am going to a non-target school, far away from New York.  

I have another phone call scheduled at noon.  This is ideal because it means I can impress someone if they overhear the fact that I, a high schooler, am negotiating financing for an acquisition.  They don't have to know that the "firm" I have an internship with consists of a single office outside of a strip mall, and only demands six hours a week.  Or that the acquisition in question is probably smaller than the annual income of some of my neighbors.  Not that I care that much anyway, for I no longer believe there to be a single genuinely interesting person in this god-forsaken building worth impressing.  The phone call itself also fails to impress me, for the lender on the other line is totally unenthusiastic and doesn't even bother to name a remotely competitive starting rate.  I will probably write him off and not bother sending him deliverables because of this.

I arrive at the office before all of the other interns and immediately begin to raid the coffee station.  They're not paying me for my time here anyway, therefore it is perfectly justified for me to singlehandedly double their monthly coffee expense.  I make a few more phone calls and notice that the lender I missed yesterday replied to my apology email with superficial sympathy, I too have probably been written-off.  The other interns sit near me, completely unproductive except for one, who writes marketing material; and is wearing a dull polyester hoodie from Adidas.  The other interns, as if it were a uniform, are all similarly dressed in dull variations of ripped jeans, polyester sweatpants from Adidas, polyester T-shirts from other sports brands, and obviously worn Nike sneakers.  All of them have been accepted into significantly better colleges, and have more friends.  I finished the day by making a three-statement model for another potential acquisition, for which I relied completely on YouTube tutorials.  My supervisors will likely tear this to shreds tomorrow.  On my walk home, I am suddenly perturbed upon remembering that I neglected to study for a calculus test tomorrow, or finish a presentation that's also due tomorrow.  This, however, quickly subsides to apathy.  "This is pointless," I mutter to no one.  "I'll save the real effort for college." 

Almost a year has passed, and I find myself looking down upon my first-semester college transcript; adorned with various pieces of non-target iconography.  The letter reads, GPA: 3.02

Being a non-target is paradise.

(Not a memoir btw lmao, first person just sounds better)