I've been spending a lot of time at Kinko's. When FedEx bought Kinko's, they decided to cater to "road warriors" -- the salespeople and independent business- people who spend their day on the phone and on the road. If you bring your own computer, you can work for free forever. They have free ethernet, free dialup, free wireless, free bathrooms, access to paid printers, and 7 or 8 cubicles.
I, my friends, have become a road warrior. Until my phone gets turned back on (with paycheck #1), I'm a fixture.
"Hi, Chris, hi Shane" I said yesterday. Chris had her usual -- Franklin, plastic crate of file folders, three fat white 3-ring binders, cell phone, pink flowered box of tissues. Shane was huddled with his phone earpiece on, focussed on his screen. It was strangely companionable. When you look up, there's a bank of windows through which you can see across the lot to the trees.
Only one of the cubicles has dialup, which my laptop needs. It's also the only one where three-year-old children periodically appear, less than two feet away, faces pressed against the glass, and stare at you face-to-face for long minutes. It feels like when the big fish swim past, in the wall-high zoo aquariums.
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1 comment:
That reminds me of the many, many hours I spent in Kinko's in Amsterdam - surfing the internet on their computers.
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