People That Suck

There is a moment, usually around 12:17 p.m., when the office goes quiet in the wrong way. Conversations stop. Someone looks up from a salad. Someone else sniffs, immediately regrets it, and you all understand at the same time: somebody has microwaved fish in the break room.

You bought a pair of scissors. This should be the end of the story. Instead, it is the beginning of a hostage negotiation, because your new scissors are sealed inside a clear plastic clamshell so thick and so smug that it appears to have been designed by people who have never needed to open anything, ever.

It starts innocently. A head appears over your monitor, or a chair rolls a little too close, and you hear the most dangerous sentence in any workplace: "Got a second? Just one quick question."

You do not have a second. You have a deadline, three tabs open, and a coffee that went cold while you were actually working. But you are polite, so you say sure. That is your first mistake. There is no quick question. There never was. The question was just the cover charge.

The left lane has a job. It is not complicated, it does not require a meeting, and it was never meant to be a long-term residence. You move over, you pass the car on your right, and then — and this is the part that seems to get lost — you move back. Somewhere along the way, a certain kind of driver decided the passing lane was actually a cozy front porch with a great view and no reason to ever leave.

You have circled the parking lot twice. Your ice cream is softening, your patience is gone, and then you see it: a perfect space, close to the door, in the shade. You turn in with hope in your heart, and that is when you meet the shopping cart. Not near the space. In the space. Dead center, like it got there first and is daring you to argue.

It starts innocently. Your phone buzzes once, and someone has added you to a group chat with a cheerful name like "Weekend Plans!!!" and eleven people you sort of know. You did not apply for this job. There was no interview, no consent form, and definitely no exit interview scheduled. Congratulations, you live here now.

It started innocently. You wanted to watch one show, edit one photo, or try one app that promised to organize your entire life in seven days. The button said free trial, in big friendly letters. The part about what happened after those seven days was written in a font so small it should have come with a magnifying glass and an apology.

It starts innocently. You are by the coffee machine, half awake, and you mention the idea out loud. Not a formal pitch. Just a thought. A fix for a dumb problem everyone complains about and nobody wants to own.

The credit stealer nods thoughtfully. That nod should worry you. It is not agreement. It is downloading.

Your computer knows. It has a calendar, a clock, and a sixth sense for human panic, and it waits until exactly two minutes before your deadline, your call, or your presentation to announce that it needs to update and restart. Not earlier, when you were scrolling aimlessly. Not later, when it would not matter. Right now, while everything depends on it.

There is a special kind of traffic jam that has nothing to do with cars. It happens on a sidewalk, in a grocery aisle, and right at the bottom of an escalator, and it is caused by one person who has stopped moving entirely because a phone has asked for their full attention.

Meet the phone zombie. Eyes down, thumbs busy, feet technically still attached to the ground but no longer participating in the journey. The rest of us are expected to navigate around them like they are a decorative pillar that somebody installed in the middle of the walkway.