The building where I work is not tethered strongly to a specific place in space or time. It’s not usually a problem, you just want to make sure you leave at the right time, 2021 and in the right place, downtown Columbus, Ohio.
If you aren’t careful things could become difficult. We lost two accountants and a janitor to a shootout over water rights along the Colorado River around the turn of the century, in a small village in Arizona.
Nobody knows exactly how the building became unmoored from the normally accepted tenets of reality. It was built on a temporal fault line and the cornerstone was laid on a full moon when the Sun and Neptune were connected in Pisces so there was a lot of negative energy floating through the astrological atmosphere. In all fairness we had no idea about the Neptune, Sun and Pisces problem, we asked the architect and he was as ignorant as the contractor and the security people and the crowd of protestors who claimed we were building on an ancient burial ground.
Fortunately, we have developed a smartphone app that provides the time and place outside the door. It has driven up overtime costs, an agreement with the union requires us to pay time and a half for hours spent avoiding being shot/eaten/sold into slavery/marched off as cannon fodder to besiege a walled city. Personally, we think living is enough compensation for anybody, but we aren’t going to bicker over a few dollars when the health of our associates is concerned, particularly when our lawyers tell us to pay up and shut up.
It has become an important consideration to keep the doors locked. If a building suddenly appears in the middle of a migration of hunter-gatherers from the plains of Kenya and they end up walking in the loading dock and find a vending machine full of cookies and candy bars and a refrigerator full of soft drinks and employee lunches they think they hit the jackpot.
It doesn’t take long for them to build small huts, and start researching legal precedents for “adverse possession.” Eventually, we had to just put them on the payroll as shipping/receiving associates. They turned out to be exceptional workers, tireless and dedicated, plus, they have added an amazing rooftop garden.
It has presented some unusual business opportunities, though. Late last year we ended up in an ancient monastery with some monks who were brewing some of the best ale we have ever tried. We bought several barrels for a hundred florins or lire or something we had to print quickly on the color printer. Turned a nice (temporary) profit on that and lunch was so much better for a couple of days. We never considered it was long before anybody had heard about pasteurization so we were all sick for days and the lawsuits are still in court so we’re not allowed to say anymore.
We learned a lot along the way. Now we’re going to share it with you. You can thank us later.
—