A few months after moving, I took a new job that is located in a pretty non-descript office building. You know the kind, every movie has them. Lots of very new age looking glass, beautiful shiny tile floors, high traffic well thought out carpeting, chrome everywhere, sterile and conducive to good business. There is a beautiful lobby with touch screens to look up what companies call this building home, complete with a small sitting area adjacent to the elevators. There is no true smell in the building, all traces of individuality have been meticulously scrubbed by a dedicated group of cleaning people. That is, until a lady comes in with a love of her perfume. A floral trail will follow her through the maze of hallways and offices until both trail and trailblazer find their way back to the outdoors where chemical flowers are diffused by proper ones. Men and women scuttle around with files and very important documents that need to be scanned, printed, stapled, faxed and stamped "received" from 8:00 am to 5:00pm Monday through Friday. Employees use electronic key cards to beep their way into the sections of the hive that we are assigned to work in, keeping everyone separate and safe from the general public who may wander in for a meeting or consultation with any of the uniformed staff. The uniform of this particular building is the suit. Men in suits, women in suits, dressy suits, business casual suits. Except our little nook of course! We are the people who are lucky enough to come in wearing jeans, sweatshirts and Birkenstocks looking quite out of place in the world of corporate America. Our industry allows us the comfort of dressing slightly more comfortable than our starched counterparts in the office building. Yes, I work at another large company. This one however, is not the same type of worker sweatshop as the previous one, but I digress.
Business for me is a familiar cube surrounded by technology, getting things processed and churning billable numbers for the new set of "mgt". Part of my job means that at times, I must work late at the office. The receptionists leave, the lights are dimmed to an acceptable level of dim throughout the building with the exception of the cool and nonchalant lobby on the first floor. All the doors that are normally kept open during business hours are locked up tight and business is put on hold in all the little honey hive offices until the next day when the nasdaq and dow are pumping their piston fury rise and fall once again. But I am there late. And quite alone. The warm glow of my computer screen keeps me company as workers leave, tired and ready for the weekend where they will trade the suits for plaid shorts and bbq tongs. And then I am alone. Normally, its not too much of a problem, being alone. However, on these nights I listen to the quiet creaking of the building as it settles in for its own weekend, free of the tiny human cells that course through its hallway veins. I am alone and I get the distinct feeling the building would like to be alone as well.
I have quite an imagination. When I am alone and my own work day is coming to a slow post-sunset end, the inevitable downward spiral begins. I am alone. And alone after dark means boogie men of all shapes and sizes are waiting to chew on my flesh in all the shadowed corners from my desk to my car. That walk, down dimmed hallways, echo filled stairwells or the brash loud elevator (that during sunlit days is much more demure), is riddled with figments of my imagination waiting to pounce on me from behind and drag me off under the stairs to delight in every conceivable torture. Not one human ear in the building, who wants to be ALONE, can hear my mews pleading for help. The cold sweat begins. I am going to have to transport my very soft self, full of deliciousness that bad things would love to feast on, out to my car. No silver bullets, no golden shields, no intrinsic sense of post-apocopliptic survival, and a very ominous sense of plausibility for every monster movie that I have watched from behind my trembling hands.
So begins my quest to my car Friday night. This month, the media and pop culture has latched onto my least favorite undead character and of course, I was obsessing about how I would make it to the safety of my car through throngs of zombies. I so hate zombies. They are the creepiest movie monster that I could even begin to think of! They like scary dark places, they are already dead so only a well stocked militia could hope to rescue themselves, people such as myself often trip and are engulfed by the pulsing hoard as the fitter, armed movie characters bound to safety and ultimately "get the girl". Great. Not to mention the more recent zombie movie that I watched with Will Smith, had the cancer virus zombies hiding out in a .... large... dark... office building. Not too unlike the one I was exiting.
As I made my way past the break room, I was faced with the bane of my night time existance. The dark, 30 foot hallway, at the end of which is a door with no windows that will lead me to the elevator or the stairs. I steel myself to make it down that hall, because the other route out of the building is past too many empty and dark offices where the beasts of my imagination are rousing from their slumber, so the safest is the dark hall. I tread lightly, my chuck taylors helping me pad softly to the heavy door, so nothing from the underworld can hear me sneaking home, very eager to give them their peace and quiet. The pounding of my heart and the clammy jitters surge me forward as I stealthily grasp the handle of the door before I bolt my escape to the relative safety of the stairwell. As my blood rushed its white water siren through my eardrums, washing away all sound, more specifically the sound of another person beeping their entry by way of electronic key card, I throw the door open directly into the very sturdy body of a non-imagination. My senses come to a crescendo as I realize that I have encountered SOMETHING! Probably the worst *thing* that hell can drag up! I stagger backwards, a scream racing from my toes straight out of my mouth as a very tall, very solid, very bearded man stumbled around the door that was close to concussing him and offers his own baritone warble to my glass cracking screech. It is then, that we both come to the split second realization, that we are in the company of another living breathing human being and the ridiculousness of our panic is exposed by the office world crashing back down around us, replacing the cobwebs and tombs of our imagination with glass and chrome sterility.
He fumbles out an apology. I, having logic evicted from my brain, rush out the words "Oh my God! Sorry! I so hate zombies! I'm... well, I hate them! *insert mad hatter laughter here* Woah! I thought you were ... you know! *Mad hatter hysterics*" All the while, I am clutching my chest and have fallen back, my chest heaving with my lungs clawing and gasping air into them.
His pale reply, peppered with halting laughter of his own, as his hand flutters around his heart, "A zombie!! *ha ha* I know! I hate them! If it makes you feel better *ha ha*, my office is right down there... you know... I'd protect you there in case of zombies!*Ha ha*!"
I'm sure the building was amused as we excused and 'sorry'd ourselves out of each others company, to rush red faced to our respective destinations. The stairwell and lobby smirking as I rushed out to my car. So silly. Zombies.
Office Zombie protector and I saw each other in the lunch room Monday afternoon and as he walked by he softly said "So they didn't get us, huh." Don't worry, I know where your office is in case of attack.
Business for me is a familiar cube surrounded by technology, getting things processed and churning billable numbers for the new set of "mgt". Part of my job means that at times, I must work late at the office. The receptionists leave, the lights are dimmed to an acceptable level of dim throughout the building with the exception of the cool and nonchalant lobby on the first floor. All the doors that are normally kept open during business hours are locked up tight and business is put on hold in all the little honey hive offices until the next day when the nasdaq and dow are pumping their piston fury rise and fall once again. But I am there late. And quite alone. The warm glow of my computer screen keeps me company as workers leave, tired and ready for the weekend where they will trade the suits for plaid shorts and bbq tongs. And then I am alone. Normally, its not too much of a problem, being alone. However, on these nights I listen to the quiet creaking of the building as it settles in for its own weekend, free of the tiny human cells that course through its hallway veins. I am alone and I get the distinct feeling the building would like to be alone as well.
I have quite an imagination. When I am alone and my own work day is coming to a slow post-sunset end, the inevitable downward spiral begins. I am alone. And alone after dark means boogie men of all shapes and sizes are waiting to chew on my flesh in all the shadowed corners from my desk to my car. That walk, down dimmed hallways, echo filled stairwells or the brash loud elevator (that during sunlit days is much more demure), is riddled with figments of my imagination waiting to pounce on me from behind and drag me off under the stairs to delight in every conceivable torture. Not one human ear in the building, who wants to be ALONE, can hear my mews pleading for help. The cold sweat begins. I am going to have to transport my very soft self, full of deliciousness that bad things would love to feast on, out to my car. No silver bullets, no golden shields, no intrinsic sense of post-apocopliptic survival, and a very ominous sense of plausibility for every monster movie that I have watched from behind my trembling hands.
 |
| Sleep? Who needs it. |
So begins my quest to my car Friday night. This month, the media and pop culture has latched onto my least favorite undead character and of course, I was obsessing about how I would make it to the safety of my car through throngs of zombies. I so hate zombies. They are the creepiest movie monster that I could even begin to think of! They like scary dark places, they are already dead so only a well stocked militia could hope to rescue themselves, people such as myself often trip and are engulfed by the pulsing hoard as the fitter, armed movie characters bound to safety and ultimately "get the girl". Great. Not to mention the more recent zombie movie that I watched with Will Smith, had the cancer virus zombies hiding out in a .... large... dark... office building. Not too unlike the one I was exiting.
 |
| 'Scuse me, you dropped someone. |
As I made my way past the break room, I was faced with the bane of my night time existance. The dark, 30 foot hallway, at the end of which is a door with no windows that will lead me to the elevator or the stairs. I steel myself to make it down that hall, because the other route out of the building is past too many empty and dark offices where the beasts of my imagination are rousing from their slumber, so the safest is the dark hall. I tread lightly, my chuck taylors helping me pad softly to the heavy door, so nothing from the underworld can hear me sneaking home, very eager to give them their peace and quiet. The pounding of my heart and the clammy jitters surge me forward as I stealthily grasp the handle of the door before I bolt my escape to the relative safety of the stairwell. As my blood rushed its white water siren through my eardrums, washing away all sound, more specifically the sound of another person beeping their entry by way of electronic key card, I throw the door open directly into the very sturdy body of a non-imagination. My senses come to a crescendo as I realize that I have encountered SOMETHING! Probably the worst *thing* that hell can drag up! I stagger backwards, a scream racing from my toes straight out of my mouth as a very tall, very solid, very bearded man stumbled around the door that was close to concussing him and offers his own baritone warble to my glass cracking screech. It is then, that we both come to the split second realization, that we are in the company of another living breathing human being and the ridiculousness of our panic is exposed by the office world crashing back down around us, replacing the cobwebs and tombs of our imagination with glass and chrome sterility.
 |
| Sorry about your heart attack, sir. |
He fumbles out an apology. I, having logic evicted from my brain, rush out the words "Oh my God! Sorry! I so hate zombies! I'm... well, I hate them! *insert mad hatter laughter here* Woah! I thought you were ... you know! *Mad hatter hysterics*" All the while, I am clutching my chest and have fallen back, my chest heaving with my lungs clawing and gasping air into them.
His pale reply, peppered with halting laughter of his own, as his hand flutters around his heart, "A zombie!! *ha ha* I know! I hate them! If it makes you feel better *ha ha*, my office is right down there... you know... I'd protect you there in case of zombies!*Ha ha*!"
I'm sure the building was amused as we excused and 'sorry'd ourselves out of each others company, to rush red faced to our respective destinations. The stairwell and lobby smirking as I rushed out to my car. So silly. Zombies.
Office Zombie protector and I saw each other in the lunch room Monday afternoon and as he walked by he softly said "So they didn't get us, huh." Don't worry, I know where your office is in case of attack.
awwies... poor you! hehe this is great blog!
ReplyDelete