Glancing around the office of the 25th floor, you notice most of your colleagues have begun to leave for the evening. You’ve been focused on your documentation, oblivious to the growing quiet. It’s quite chaotic at the best of times with constant interruptions, reports to be completed and proposals to be written. Even your desk mate has packed up and left, leaving you at the shared workspace alone. You lean back in your chair and stretch, glancing down at the clock in the lower-right of the laptop screen. 4:39 PM. You know it is time to go and begin shutting down for the night. The late afternoon sun glares through the western windows, slowly beginning to settle behind the tall buildings of the city.

With a few clicks of the mouse, you’re logged out and shutting down. The hard drive spins down and the lights stop glowing, falling silent. You snap the lid shut and secure it in your bag along with the cables. You pause for a second and dig around through the bag. Laptop, cables, mouse, notebook. All good. You do up the zippers and double check one more time that your workspace is clear. Hot-desking isn’t ideal, but it works. No wonder you work anywhere but here! It’s just too noisy to get much done otherwise.

You glance around the room as you stand up and push your chair in under the desk. Only a few studious workers remain, most of whom arrived long after you. You’re an early riser and appreciate getting things done without disruption. Silence and coffee are a great start to the day and sorely needed before the madness starts. You tug at your blue business shirt and quickly smooth out your black pants, so the cuffs fall over your shoes.

You pick up your bag and walk down the hallway past the blue lockers, nodding good night to a colleague as you pass and then quickly turn to the left and press the button on the elevator. Within a second, it dings, and the doors open. You step inside and turn to face to closing door, quickly glancing at the news updates scrolling across a screen located on the inside wall of the elevator. You always hope the 25-floor descent goes quickly instead of stopping at every floor and getting packed long before reaching the ground.

Arriving at the basement level, the door opens, and you step out into the parking garage. It’s cool but damp down there, but it’s just easier to get out to the street from here. To the left you glance at the company parking area where the reserved spaces are for the upper crust of the organisation. You smirk to yourself as you take note of the cars. A silver Mercedes AMG. A Blue BMW. Another BMW. A grey Audi. An SUV. You wonder if these people do anything other than work to pay off their cars.

You’re confident, assured that you don’t need a fancy car to make a statement. You think expensive cars are just penis extenders for deep inadequacies. You stride out of the building and down the street to the train station. The streets are busy, noisy with the commuters that brave the gridlock every day. Some people wait for the bus at a nearby station, but you know they too will have to deal with the traffic; they just won’t have to drive in it.