The Pyramid of Empty Suits
I'm a middle manager at a tech conglomerate, spending my days climbing a pyramid of empty suits and polished lies. They call it a career path; I call it being a zombie in designer clothing.
"Running the numbers again," Marcus says, sliding into my office. He's wearing that ridiculous fedora hat—his rebellion against corporate dress code, he claims. I think it's just a cry for help in a world that demands we all look the same.
I stopped running the real numbers three years ago. Now I just run from meetings to calls to more meetings, a hamster on a wheel made of quarterly projections and KPIs. My wife left me because I was always swimming in work but never present for her. She said I was drowning in shallow water.
The pyramid scheme isn't the product—it's the whole structure. We sell the dream of advancement while they strip mine our lives. Most of us don't notice until we're forty, hollowed out and wondering where the years went.
"What are you doing tonight?" Marcus asks.
"Swimming," I say automatically. It's a lie. I haven't been to the pool in months.
"Liar." He adjusts his hat, meets my eyes. "You're going home to stare at the ceiling and think about the promotion you don't want."
He sees through me. That's the problem with friends at work—they know too much.
"I'm thinking about leaving," I say finally. The words feel foreign, heavy.
Marcus laughs. "You've been saying that for five years. You're a zombie, man. We all are."
And there it is—the truth I've been running from. I stand up, walk to the window. The city below is a grid of lights, millions of people swimming through their own pyramids, running toward things they don't want.
"I'm done being a zombie," I say.
Marcus's grin fades. "You serious?"
I grab my coat and the old baseball cap I keep in my drawer—the hat I wore when I met Sarah, before I started climbing this pyramid.
"Yeah. I'm going swimming. For real this time."
The corporate ladder stands tall before me—a monument to ambition. Today, I'm choosing the water instead.