from Tati’s “Playtime”
Having returned from my vacation on the West Coast the night before, I went back to work the next morning. I was confused, the building contemporary and not heritage as it was when I left it. Went up to the sixth floor and just about everything was different, nothing was the same. Open area, and I didn’t recognize most of the people or how they reorganized into the cube farm before. I looked for my desk. I looked for my boss. No luck, so I headed off to the boss’s boss who would still be in a corner with or without a door, my indignation rising and ready to rant I strode (yes strode), caneless, and ready to share a piece of mind, toward the corner ignoring the quizzical looks of whoever the strangers that had taken over. Just before I got to my destination, I had an epiphany. Glory be! I no longer worked here, or there, as a salary-man! I peeled off like a Snowbird jet breaking formation.
While everything else had changed, the elevator took the same 8 minutes to arrive, me staring at my sparkling New Balance shoes.