a different world

let me share with you what's happened at work today. i just have to. i work in the administrative offices of the sales division of a big, really fancy real estate company in manhattan. we've just moved offices, from the 3rd floor to the 15th floor, to an office with 180-degree views of the east river, and then north into harlem. it's ridiculous. if it were being rented, it'd be a 6 thousand dollar a month apartment. if it were being sold, it'd go for something like 2 million. instead, i sit here at a really fancy, gnarled-wood desk typing into blogger and answering the phone and scheduling viewings.

what's shocked me about corporate america, as opposed to medicine, is that nothing is too expensive: the orchid, the company's sort-of mascot, that we have in our office, for instance. it dies every 6 weeks, so every six weeks we get a new, $600 orchid. it's not like the size of a tree or a bear or a car. it's like, a foot and a half tall. we just got a pair of trees for the terrace--$1200 in all--and promptly left them behind.

so, when i was talking on the phone last night, they said, "what? they're making you move things!?" and i laughed. and then i told them, "of course not. when i say we're moving, i mean that i sit there and watch as a company comes in, puts everything into boxes, and then moves everything upstairs and then unpacks it." this is corporate america, after all. we don't move things ourselves, set up our own computers, or even hang our own pictures on the wall.

it's insanity and it's time i got back to research.