Look at You

Chapter 2

2

I own one of the six cars in the parking lot of the TechNet office. I see a Tesla, an electric green Wrangler, and a Ford Taurus that has seen better days. I am early, but not outrageously so. I eye my old scarlet Discovery suddenly wishing I had not gotten out of the car at all.

The building looks like Dunder Mifflin, but three times the size and a bit more well-groomed out front. It has landscaped flower beds, and the greenest grass I have seen in months, despite the fact it is February in Ohio. The TechNet logo emerges from the ground, embossed on a concrete slab just outside of the front doors.

It is every doctor's office I've ever been to disguised as my new place of work. I laugh a little, pushing open the front door.

The lobby shocks me a bit, as it seems to have transported me six years in the future, or well, to a different planet. From the floor to the baseboards to every corner of the ceiling the place is coated in white marble. There's a grand wrought iron staircase that draws my eyes left, leading up to a small platform that holds a single door. The welcome desk is the same ivory of every other tile in the room, although the top of it waterfalls over the edge of the base, like we're in extreme home makeover and I told Ty Pennington my favorite color is white but I love the ocean.

I stop walking, blinking at the recess lighting that sits, not on the ceiling, but just above the desk. It's this grand piece of art really. It's a misshaped circle with other misshapen concentric circles inside of it. It makes the entire room gleam.

Not only am I left blinded by the aura of this room, but I am also completely alone. No one sits at the desk in front of me. There isn't even any elevator music playing. I am beginning to think I am on the reboot of Punk'd.

And suddenly a woman with an impressively slicked back bun emerges from a door behind the desk I hadn't even realized was a door. I thought of it more as a mirror, really, because that is actually what it is.

"Hello!" Her voice is quick and it chirps. "Simon, I take it?"

She is wearing all black, down to the varnish on her nails. She contrasts so deeply with the white I have to blink her into existence for a second longer. "Uh, yes. Engineering? It's my first day."

"Welcome to TechNet! If you would just follow me up the stairs here..." I follow her as she floats up the stairs and pushes the door open for me at the top of the landing.

We enter a room full of elevators. It's the same as the lobby, with the white marble tile. You can't even tell where the floor ends and the ceiling begins. I watch her press the up button and I catch a flash of a wristwatch that has popped out from underneath her blazer. Black leather, of course.

"Engineering will be on the eighth floor, our top floor here at the Baker office. The eighth floor will house our product and engineering team, as well as our in-house marketing squadron."

Marketing squadron?

The elevator chimes softly and I follow her in. "Up on the eighth floor you'll find a layout similar to that of floors two through eight. You will see a semi-open floor plan, meaning you will be seated at a desk alongside your team, but one cubicle wall will separate you from whomever is directly next door."

I wonder how long she has been rehearsing this speech. I nod, out of politeness. I have absolutely no idea what a semi-open floor plan could be, despite her enthralling description. Sounds like something my mom has pinned to her Dream Home Pinterest board.

The elevator dings and opens so soundlessly you would think we hadn't been propelling through space and time for the past minute.

I am very much expecting more of the same gaudy white marble and iron accents, so when I step onto gray-green carpet littered with stains and pulled threads, I half-gasp before I can manage to cover it with a horrible attempt at a cough.