My workplace is approximately a 25 foot cube. 5 of the 6 wall are concrete, and one is drywall. All are painted white. There are fluorescent lights on the ceiling that are always off in favor of the halogen lamps we bought on the theory that while they might be a fire hazard, at least they won’t kill our eyes (that’s what the computer monitors are for). The lights are hanging from the ceiling on really thin chains that always look like they might break, killing some poor newbie. Above the lights, and through the chains, run a variety of pipes of various sizes. I have no idea what runs through them, but when it rains, we can hear running water. This is highly unusual, since there is another room on every side of us, so there’s no reason why a drainage pipe would run through our room. There is also a radiator on the ceiling which emits hot air when it is warm in the room and cold air when it is chilly. There are two doors and no windows. On the walls are a clock, standard public school issue, a darth vader photo montage poster provided by me, a Star Wars: A New Hope poster provided by me, an Obey Giant poster provided by me, three file folders labeled “Disinformation,” “Mischief,” and “Arson,” A National Geographic map of the Balkans, a National Geographic map of Antarctica, a picture of Steve with the words “Big Brother is Watching You” under a webcam that is not plugged into anything, and a white board with witty quotes that I write up there. The room is carpeted with a dingy brown-gray carpet that never gets vacuumed because the janitor hates us (he’s convinced that one of us shit in the drinking fountain in the hallway a few months ago). There is one garbage can, one cardboard box filled with empty soda pop bottles, and one box filled with paper to be recycled, all three overflowing (because the janitor hates us). There are three cabinets filled with miscellaneous computer junk, and with boxes of more junk piled on top of them. There is a set of lockers where we keep our CDs full of pirated games and pornography. There is one set of shelves full of extra computers that are supposed to be in the labs, are supposed to be fixed, or are just too shitty to be plugged in. There is a pile of keyboards on one of the shelves. There is another cabinet full of software. There are 7 desks arranged around the room, holding 12 computers, of which any 3 are guaranteed to be working at any given moment. One of the machines will always be on, and playing MP3s through the one good set of speakers we have. The room has several toys scattered around, including a fake skull, a koosh ball, a foam rubber ball, several foam rubber cows, a Dr. Evil toy, and a few macintoshes.

At any given time of day, you will find two or three teks on shift. When the web cam worked, you could turn it on at various hours of the day and see different things, such as a tek sitting in front of the computer working, a tek sitting in front of a computer goofing off, a tek sitting in front of a computer playing a game, a tek sitting in front of a computer talking to another tek, a tek sitting in front of a computer looking confused, and sometimes a tek curled up in the corner of the room, on the floor, using a sheet of bubble paper for a blanket, sleeping. You might also see me, trying to look like I’m working on something important as I post to hatelife. I don’t get off shift for another two hours.