Ode to the New Office

(or: A Rant in Nine Flights of Despair)

I climb these cursed stairs each day,
Three flights to start, hooray hooray—
A gym disguised as work, they said,
While I drag my bike half-dead.

The floorboards squeak like guilty mice,
Some call it trendy—I call it vice.
Each step a chorus, loud and shrill,
A soundtrack to my waning will.

I hunt for chairs like holy grails,
Each one broken, each one fails.
One rocks like a boat, one’s arms don’t move,
Ergonomics? Not their groove.

The coffee machine’s a needy pet,
Forever cleaning, dripping wet.
It sits not in the kitchen—why?
I trek with water, sigh by sigh.

My soap and clothes, my humble stash,
Have nowhere safe to make a splash.
No nook, no shelf, no private zone,
Just open space and moaning tone.

Open the window—ah, fresh air!
Buskers scream their lungs out there.
Drills, sirens, engines, life’s parade—
In this hip dystopia we’ve made.

The walls, all scraped, “industrial chic,”
But to my eyes? Just half-complete.
They call it “cool,” I call it “bare,”
Unfinished plaster everywhere.

No plug for phones, no charge in sight,
My battery dies—goodnight, goodnight.
The kitchen too could use a plug,
And milk that isn’t fit for slugs.

So here I sit, resigned and sore,
Dreaming of the old office floor.
At least back then, with one short climb,
I reached my desk—and felt sublime.