A Long Trip

Today was a long day. I went to our company's site in New Jersey, an administrative building situated not far from Princeton. Many of my co-workers commute to NYC from there; this was my first time making the reverse commute.

I'd been warned by my co-worker that it is the land that time forgot. The architecture is vaguely 70s-era public school. The HR department has, essentially, upholstery for carpeting and the ambience of a funeral parlor. Large spaces are transformed by a strange material into rooms. Unlike my office, with proper cubicles, these are sad desks crammed into shanties with phone lines. The cafeteria is like Ikea without the meatballs.

This, I came to realize, is what passes for normal to many of my co-workers.

And now, I realize I have achieved my ambition: I am the cool kid, the NYC hipster looking down on those squares, with their suburban zoning and food courts and ribbons of highway cutting through bucolic scenery, and they don't care one way or the other. I have won a game no one else cares about winning anymore.