April 20

It is the first day of my new job. I am in an office where someone is explaining some basic information to me from an HR perspective. I am holding a baby in my arms and the employee doesn’t seem to notice or at least does not comment on it. After we are through, the person leads me to my new office. On the way I encounter several people, all of whom seem friendly and happy, although no one speaks to me. Everyone is dressed very casually although this is an office building, and the space seems to have been designed to have fun with ramps for skateboarding and large break rooms. On the way to the office I will occupy, none of the conversations I overhear are work-related. They are all about fun activities and plans. We get to my office and the person who accompanied me leaves. I have no idea what my exact responsibilities are or who I am answering to, so I do not know what to do. The room is cavernous. I realize that I can easily fit a playpen in for the baby that I am still holding. I sit for a while and then spot a beautiful multi-colored vulture perched in a tree directly across from my office window. I regret not having brought my camera. The bird flies off and I am soon bored. I decide to walk around the hallways to see if I can find anything to do. I come across two women mopping mounds of spaghetti off of the floor. I don’t know how it got there, but I figure I can help them clean it up so without saying a word I grab a mop and start mopping. They speak to me but I don’t catch the meaning and I realize that it’s probably a private joke between the two. I quickly realize that mopping one-handed since I am still holding the baby is ineffective, so I leave. Eventually I notice a throng of employees barreling down a staircase and as I wonder what their hurry is, I realize that they must be leaving for the day. As happy as they seemed to be in the building, they appear equally joyful to be on their way out of it. Although no one has told me so directly, I assume that I can leave as well. I start to do so and then I remember that I left something upstairs although I cannot remember ever actually having been on the second floor. Nonetheless, I instinctively know that I have left something up there. It’s very difficult to try to work my way up the stairs while everyone else is stampeding in the opposite direction so I decide to put the baby down for a minute. It takes only a few seconds to realize that this might not have been the best decision so I rush back down the stairs and cannot find the baby. As I frantically search, someone tells me that I came down the wrong staircase and that the baby would be near the other one. I find the baby and we leave.