Hey, all. Sorry I’m late. I was trying to get work done at home, but, I’m telling you, I can’t work from home anymore—too many distractions, not enough space. But I can’t afford to rent an office. I need to find another place where I can do my work. Where do you go to work these days?
Oh, I work at a coffee shop where they’ll let me sit for twenty minutes if I buy a coffee. Where do you go to work?
I work sitting on the grass beneath a brutalist modern sculpture in a city park until my fingers get cold or the raccoons come. Where do you go to work?
I work sitting on a stone wall outside an office building where I used to temp and can still pick up the Wi-Fi. Where do you go to work?
I work at a sandwich shop that lets you sit as long as you like, but its furniture is wicker, so you have to develop a callus. It took me two weeks, but now I could sit on glass. Where do you go to work?
I work in the back alley of a landmarked Broadway theatre that hasn’t had a show inside it for six years. The Wi-Fi name is MOURNFULVAUDEVILLEGHOST. Where do you go to work?
I work in the garden of my friend’s house until I hear her car in the driveway. Where do you go to work?
I work in the dry-aging fridge of a popular steak house until they start their dinner seating. Where do you go to work?
I work in the parlor of a haunted Gothic manor in the woods. They let me take my mask off! Where do you go to work?
I work best at night. . . .
Ooh!
Yeah, so I walk up and down the street, pulling on car-door handles until I find an open one whose front seat I can sit in with my laptop till sunup. Where do you go to work?
I work in the engine room of an off-season water park. It’s just sixty-five minutes from my house! Where do you go to work?
I work in a crêpe shop with two tables, no chairs, and no employees. It’s a money-laundering front. Where do you go to work?
I work in the library of a public high school, wearing an off-the-shoulder Brandy Melville sweater, until someone says, “Ma’am?,” and I flee. Where do you go to work?
I find Wi-Fi distracting—
Oh, yeah!!!
So I work at the pick-up counter of a cash-only shoe-repair shop. Where do you go to work?
I work in the laundry room of a high-end hotel and tell people that I’m an undercover boss. Where do you go to work?
I work in a frozen-yogurt shop from the nineties that I access through a time portal I found behind the lockers in the women’s changing room at my gym. Where do you go to work?
I work at a WeWork.
Also through a time portal?
No. They’re still around, I guess. . . .
Hmm. I work in the drained swimming pool of a fifty-million-dollar house in Bel Air that’s been on the market for thirty-six months. Where do you go to work?
I work in the basement of a neon-and-lighting store that went out of business during the brief Light Pollution Panic of 2019. Where do you go to work?
I work at home.
You do?
My home is an open-plan office space that I’ve been squatting in since the financial crash of 2009. For more than a decade, my relationships have all ended abruptly, and I’ve always blamed that on my free spirit and skepticism of conventional monogamy, but, let’s be honest, it’s actually because I don’t want to bring lovers home to see that I live under a desk in the husk of Bear Stearns. It is quiet, though. I get a lot done. I’m writing a historical novel about a guy who rides a horse somewhere to do something—that’s all I have so far. It’s character-driven. Where do you go to work?
I work at home, with the news on. Anyway, thank you all for coming. Let’s get to work.
