Maybe this will be the post that gets me sent back to an occupational psych consultant. At least, it has overtones of perversion and skin-crawling creepy.

I work in a modern “green” building. It’s design with skylights and huge open windows and huge open spaces, it’s cubicle space meant to give you the feeling of space and privacy, it’s warm woods and recycled fiber carpeting say “come on in, we all be getting comfy here and living a simple, plant-lush life.”

To maximize light and minimize hierarchical, clandestine power grabs all office space is enclosed by glass. (Perhaps a tactile representation of an organization whose values are poised gracefully on transparency). Even doors are glass. Privacy is a theoretical construct.

I sit in essentially the point of a V, facing down the lines to the transparent-walled offices of two of the people with whom I most work. My field of view is they who toil above me. I cannot easily look away.

So I watch. It’s kind of fascinating in the same vague way watching an aquarium is interesting. It’s not so much that the fish are doing anything worthy of your rapt attention, but the movement, the wall of separation, the otherness and the silent, unrevealing constancy of action constantly catch your eye.

I occasionally draw conclusions based on the actions or create scenarios in my head that match the actions in front of me. Or I imagine a wacky sitcom where I, the viewer, am entertained by a split screen view of alternate realities. As with fish, I will always be an arm’s length of knowing what really motivates the actions behind glass.

Although, I could ask.