Corporate Drones

Volume 1: Departures

Hello. I’m Darren.

I work for a company called Blitz, probably you’ve heard of it. On paper I’m a Principal Technical Architect, which, I know, sounds quite important. Like I do some meaningful shit. Really, I spend most of my time half-listening on pointless meetings, creating diagrams that are immediately outdated, dealing with garbage politics and garbage people, writing long email threads about alignment or whatever, and doomscrolling instagram and reddit. Sadly this is the driving force of my identity.

I make good money, like really good money. I wear nice suits. I’m in airports a lot. I’m able to effortlessly turn on this crispy professional tone (that my wife detests). In fact, I think I might be losing the ability to turn it off. I absolutely cannot stand the people I work with, probably because it’s a constant reminder of what I’ve turned into. I also can’t stand myself, but I try not to think about that too much.

I’m a corporate drone.

I know this. And also I don’t. It sort of flickers. Some days I feel it like a heavy weight on my chest, other days I‘m able to mostly ignore the existential dread and meaninglessness of my existence. On the other days, I can pretend I feel good about myself and that I’m making some sort of positive impact in the world, at the very least on my family. I’m at the airport, headed home, hoping to make today one of those other days.

I slide my Blitz bag over my shoulder. I’ve (subconsciously) made sure I have the logo facing out, like a dog tag. I grab my Stanley mug that I just bought from the cupholder. It’s a matte black one. I didn’t strictly need it, I’ve got a million of them, but here we are.

I’ve gotta return the rental, a gray Nissan Altima. I wanted to rent a Mercedes, but my company is stingy about the strangest things. I resent that, but I don’t know why. Surely it’s not my ego…I meditate daily and I’ve had as many ego-deaths as the most well-behaved monk.

There’s a young guy at the Hertz counter apparently named Dominic. He’s tall, taller than me even. He’s got wispy brown hair and a patchy beard and some concerningly dark circles under his eyes. He looks positively miserable. His shirt is untucked and I judge him for it. My first thought is “if I was his manager I’d be so pissed”. When did I turn into THAT guy?

I gently drop the rental keys down and slide them towards him. He snatches them up, types something into his computer, and doesn’t even look up when he says “all set.” I chuckle to myself, thinking that he is logistically correct but emotionally incorrect. I also forgive myself a little for judging him, he seems like an asshole.

The automatic doors suck me in and exhale me into the terminal. The airport smells like coffee and chemicals and human resignation. I breathe deeply and realize that I get the sense of familiarity that I used to get from waking up on a Saturday to the smell of breakfast at home. Is this my home now? I push the thought away. Keep it moving, that’s our theme for today. I really would like to have one of those other days. Not off to a great start.

There’s no line for the kiosk. Tap-tap-tap. Yes, I’m Darren. Yes, Raleigh. Yes, I know I could have checked in from my phone. The machine prints a boarding pass for First Class. Congratulations to me, I’m important in a specific and temporary way. I feel a hardly noticeable tinge of dopamine. I walk up to drop my bag so Gladys, the lady at the Delta counter, can check me in.

“Afternoon,” she says, clearly without any interest in how my day is going.

“Afternoon,” I say back, matching her level of disinterest. “Busy day?”

She gives me half of a smile. “It’s an airport.”

I’ve become comfortable with the moderate rudeness of everyone around me. I’ve even started to like it a bit. It seems everyone is holding some strong negative emotion just beneath the surface of conversation. It feels comfy and familiar and dreadful.

She tags my bag. It tumbles away on the belt to go on its own little adventure. We will both end up back in North Carolina whether we like it or not.

TSA is muscle memory, my shoes are off and my laptop is out well before I get to the part where they give you the little containers. I always feel a little self-conscious with my shoes off in public. I wonder if my feet stink. I see a couple people who look like they definitely have stinky feet. I chuckle to myself and then I feel like a dick.

The TSA guy saves me from myself. “Belt,” he says gruffly.

“Yep, sorry,” I answer, taking off my belt and dropping it into the tray.

“Laptop?”

“Already in there.”

He grunts something that might be “thanks.”

I step into the scanner, put my arms up like a compliant little human, and stare at the cartoon person on the screen. The machine whirs and makes a happy beep, apparently I’m acceptable.

As I’m waiting to get my stuff off the security belt, I feel a sudden, rapid onset of despondency and my thoughts start looping. You chose this. You wanted to be successful. You said if you just get to $200k, you’ll relax. That it would be enough. You got there and nothing changed.

Ok yes, costs went up, the market traded sideways, college got more expensive, your standards quietly upgraded themselves, inflation, blah blah blah. You bought a nicer car, upgraded the house (for the kids!), better vacations, lots of $50 bottles of wine, clothes that have to be taken to the dry cleaner, private school. You made it into the club you thought you wanted to be in and found a level above it. And you know there’s a level above that, you can see the rich assholes up there looking down at you. And yet you keep reaching. You’re still reaching even though you know that living like this will never leave you satisfied. You’ve stopped pretending that you’re just after contentment and happiness and security. And so what it is that you’re even doing? What the fuck is financial freedom really? Do you even know anymore?

Shit. I snap back to reality, I hurriedly put my belt and shoes back on, reclaim my laptop, nod at the security guy, and walk away from the checkpoint, relieved to have escaped my own brain for now.

My gate is just beyond the typical stretch of capitalism. There’s a Burger King, a Sbarro, a Panda Express, three coffee chains with slightly different logos, and some health food place that looks new. Nearby there are some wildly overpriced clothes and jewelry stores. Oh and an Apple Store with a 2x markup, of course. I’ve been to probably 50 or 60 airport food courts at this point and they all share this smooth, shapeless texture. They reek of banality, which is to say they smell like nothing at all. Not even food. Weird.

I need some caffeine.

I can’t stand the burnt taste of Starbucks, so I get in line at one of the more “local” coffee shops. Maybe I’ll go look at the suits after I eat, I’ve got some time before my flight.

Behind me I notice a blonde woman in a navy blazer. She’s rolling a suitcase that probably costs as much as my first car. Her hair is efficient and her makeup is subtle. She’s pretty in a non-threatening way. She’s got AirPods in and she’s giving off a don’t-talk-to-me vibe.

She surprises me and takes one bud out as we inch forward. “Lines are always the longest when you’re already late,” she says, offering a token to the gods of small talk.

“Yeah,” I say, not sure what to say. “If I’m late, it’s like a convention. If I’m early, it’s empty”, even though I’m fully lying and this hasn’t been my experience at all. I’m rarely ever late and if I am, I’m not getting food. But I felt compelled to agree with her.

She gives me a forced laugh. “Work or vacation?”

“Work, but on my way back home,” I say. “You?”

“Annual retreat, so a little of both I guess. Dallas.”

“Fun.”

“Sure, you could call it that,” she says dully.

We go quiet again. It’s not awkward, really. It’s just… empty. Why did we even do that?

My brain, entirely uninvited, starts writing a different scene.

I encounter this same woman at a quiet airport bar, years ago. She’s got different makeup on, more edgy, big lashes. She’s wearing a black pencil skirt and a white blouse that shows just enough skin to tell me she knows exactly what she’s doing. Her smooth blonde hair is in an effortless bun and it bounces whenever she moves her head. We start talking about music and move onto weird books we love and the fact that nothing in this world feels real.

We flirt subtly. I keep coming up with funny shit to say. She likes how I gently deride her and compliment her at the same time. I can tell she’s going to make me chase her by the way she teases me. She’s difficult, and I love it. I can feel the tension between us, it’s pulsing. I can almost hear the blood pumping through the veins in my neck. I let my hand intentionally brush her leg, feeling her skin as smooth as silk. She bristles, she’s quite responsive to my touch. We both know where this is going to end up.

In my mini fantasy, I don’t have a ring on my finger. It’s not snugly wrapped around my finger. My kids don’t exist, my wife doesn’t exist, I don’t love them more than anything in the world. That’s the part that makes it so gross. It’s not even that I want her, specifically. I don’t even know her, I’ve been in a freaking coffee line with her for less than 2 minutes and we’ve said maybe 10 words to each other. I’m just so goddamn bored and tired with life that my brain is trying to climb the perimeter fence and force-feed me some entertainment.

She inches forward as the line moves. “Sorry,” she says, though she hasn’t bumped me.

“All good,” I say, feeling reality suck me back in, dissolving my little fantasy in an instant.

She orders something complicated when we get to the front. I order something boring. The barista asks for my name.

“Darren,” I say.

They write Darin on the cup. Close enough.

We stand there awkwardly until our coffees are ready, and then peel off in different directions like two particles that accidentally bumped in a simulation and promptly went back to their assigned paths.

I wander the terminal with my coffee like I’m waiting for someone to give me instructions. That’s basically my job. That’s everyone’s job now, right?

The gate areas are full of the same people in the same costumes doing the same rituals. They all have their laptops open like little altars. The more cringe of them have neck pillows clipped onto backpacks. They are wearing blazers and fleece vests and company backpacks with logos that look like they were designed by an accountant trying to be cool. Or generated by AI. Probably the latter, maybe with a little Adobe touchup by a “graphic designer”.

There’s a guy pacing while talking into his headset. He’s saying “circle back” and “low hanging fruit” a lot. It’s loud enough for strangers to hear. He’s definitely a sales guy. Nearby, a couple is having a fight with their quietest possible voices. They’re doing the thing where you’re not fighting about the thing, you’re fighting about seven years of built-up resentment, but the thing is the way one of you didn’t say thank you properly or something stupid like that. The man is nodding like he’s learning, like he’s willing to change. He is not learning. He is not willing to change.

I pass a family with two kids arguing over who gets the iPad. My thoughts are drawn to my own kids. I realize (not for the first time) that they have never wanted for anything. They each have their own iPad. We go on nice trips. Last year they complained about Hawaii. They said they were “tired of it.”

When I was younger, if somebody told me I’d have children bored of Hawaii, I would’ve assumed I’d become some calm, enlightened, nauseating adult who could laugh at that with warmth. Like, aw, look at them, little spoiled angels.

I do not laugh warmly, I fake it every time. I feel a bitter flash of self-hatred inside me like a match strike, and then I feel guilty. They are kids, they didn’t ask for comfort, they were born into it. And I’m the one who built the comfort, who relentlessly and tirelessly made sure they were always, always comfortable. I’m the one who traded my spirit for it, like a fucking coupon.

I text my wife: At airport. Love you. Tell the goblins I’ll FaceTime later.

She responds almost immediately: Love you. They’re already asking what you’re bringing back.

She sends me a picture of them at the kitchen table with their cereal bowls. They’ve got big eyes and wild hair, they just woke up. Their innocent little faces make me feel like shit for being even mildly unhappy.

Something in my chest tightens, a heavy pressure. I think my body is trying to remember that I’m a human with feelings, and not a machine with calendar invites. But my incessant need to create stability and feign happiness dissolves the pressure. Or pushes it down or something. I know it’s a forced relief but what is the alternative? Face the depth of my unhappiness?

I send back a dumb selfie with the coffee and a fake smile. She reacts with a heart and that little melting face emoji that somehow communicates both love and exhaustion. She knows it’s fake, we both know it’s fake, but neither of us will admit it. And just like that, with all the cynicism I can muster, I’m back in the stream, looking around at all the other people who probably feel the same way I do.

At some point I drift toward the bathroom because I’ve had too much coffee and because I need to sit down or I’m going to have a panic attack. As I’m peeing, I take note of how clean the urinal is. That’s positive. It makes me feel like the system is functioning as it’s supposed to. It reinforces the disillusionment and that’s comfortable for me now. A clean urinal is comfort, a picture of my kids makes me feel like a fraudulent asshole. How terrifying is this world we live in? I shake my head and chuckle at myself to try and battle the mounting apathy. I told myself this would be one of those other days. Let’s get back on track please.

I go to wash my hands and the lighting is violent. It’s the kind of lighting used for a product on a conveyor belt. The mirror shows every line in my face, every yellow stain on my teeth from coffee and nicotine (I switched to pouches recently). Every time I said I was fine when I wasn’t. I quickly turn away from my reflection and swallow the rising lump in my throat.

I don’t have to take a shit, but I pick a stall and lock it anyways. I sit down and now I’m starting to feel a rising anticipation. I told myself I wouldn’t do this anymore. But at the same time I’m excited.

I pull out my phone and stare at my home screen. There’s a picture of the four of us in Hawaii on there, from last summer. I open the browser so I don’t have to look at it. Their names start swimming up and I shove them back down. I know I’m going to do this. I’ve known since I walked in here, probably since the coffee line, probably longer than that. The knowing makes it worse and also makes it easier, somehow. I’m so tired of fighting myself.

I’ve stopped fighting, I know exactly what my brain wants me to do now. “Don’t be that guy,” I mutter, quietly, one last pathetic attempt to stop myself. Like the universe gives a shit and is going to divinely intervene in my fucked up perversion.

My thumb moves anyways. Browser. Incognito tab. Rapidly, before I can think twice about it. The URL bar blinks at me innocently.

I tap O. Then n. Then l. Then y. Then F.

The rest autocompletes. I’ll have to remember to fix that later.

I sit there for a second and I’m frozen in a slice of time. I’ve got an opportunity to change things, to be different for once. My heart is thumping. I’m not even horny, not exactly…I’m just restless. I’m trying to escape myself. My heart and my soul and my mind are all battling inside of me. I’m making myself aware that I have other options. It can be different, I can just stand up and walk out of this stall and get on the plane and go home and kiss my wife and kids.

The thing about habits (drugs) is that they don’t require your permission. And they are strong, so goddamn strong.

I don’t need to spell out the details of what I do next. It’s not cinematic and it’s not edgy. It’s pathetic in the most mundane, human way. It’s too fast. I don’t want it to end. The bottom is giving out even as the climax is happening. And suddenly I’m empty, both physically and spiritually. I’m bored and lonely and overstimulated and under-alive, and I (intentionally) just confused feeling something with being okay.

The Regret arrives immediately, heavy. It was waiting outside the stall with its arms crossed, chuckling at my feeble attempts to be a better man.

My stomach drops and my skin crawls. The alarm system in my brain starts flashing at me furiously. What the hell is wrong with you? You’re a grown man in an airport bathroom. You have a wife, you have KIDS, you have a whole life. And this is what you’re choosing to do?

I close the tab hard, stand up straight, catch the eye of some random man walking into the bathroom, duck my head down, and pull up my pants. I’m flustered and ashamed and phony and disgusted with myself. I’m physically trying to make the last couple minutes disappear. I’m also thinking about all the ways I could get caught.

I lock my phone. Unlock it. Check to make sure the private browser tab is closed. I lock it again. Unlock it again and start typing the letter O into google just to make sure nothing is preserved. Shit, I quickly clear my browser cache. My wife doesn’t even look at my phone, but I’m paranoid anyways. It all feels dirty, I feel dirty, I want to throw the phone away. I want to plunge my head into the toilet. I want to blame the phone, I want to blame the temptation, I want to blame society. But I know exactly who is really to blame.

I stand up and unlock the stall and step out into the reality of the airport.

I need to wash my hands again. I scrub so hard. The soap smells like a hotel that can’t commit to being a hotel. I look in the mirror again, and sadly it’s the same face looking back.

A young kid comes in with his dad, laughing about something. The dad is smiling and I can tell the world hasn’t eaten him alive quite yet. Or maybe it has and he’s just got his mask on for his kid. I step aside and give them space, suddenly very aware of my age, my choices, the gap between who I thought I’d be and who I am inside an airport bathroom at 9:12am.

I dry my hands and toss the paper towel. I glance at the stall (crime scene) longing to change the past but also longing for that feeling again, already. I’m sick.

I walk out into the terminal, having just added another brick to my wall of shame. So much for having one of those other days. My spirit feels empty, my body feels relaxed, and I’m comfortably sickened by the whole thing. Nobody will ever know what happened in that stall, and that makes me feel safe, it makes me feel alive, it makes me feel special, and it makes me want to jump off a tall building.

At the gate, the board says ON TIME aggressively. The anxious people are clustered near the boarding counter, weirdly concerned about seating groups or missing the flight or something that I’ve never understood. I always wait till the last possible moment to get in line. I’m sitting, watching them do the fake-casual stance, eyes flicking back and forth between their phone screen and the flight attendant at the podium.

Everyone is desperate to control something. Everyone is exhausted. Everyone is important. Everyone is replaceable. Everyone knows it. Nobody says it out loud because saying it out loud makes it real. And we can’t have that.

I glance across the terminal and see the woman from Panda Express in her navy blazer, on the phone, half laughing. It’s the laugh you use for coworkers, the one that says I am fine, you are fine, everything is fine, please do not ask me a real question.

My brain tries to spark that little fantasy again, not even about her specifically, just about any version of life where I feel something I chose to feel. I kill it before it gets going. I’m all out of self-loathing for the day and I’ve got a flight to catch and a deck that isn’t going to bullshit itself.

They call pre boarding, families, military and handicapped. I’m half listening when I hear the gate agent say “Group 1” with a tired, barely-holding-on tone of voice. Group 1 is a euphemism for first class, so that the people flying coach don’t feel inferior.

I stand up to get in line with all the other first class citizens. We avoid eye contact with each other. There’s an unspoken agreement that we are more important than everyone else on the plane, but we are also all slightly ashamed. We paid for it or we earned it or we have rich parents or whatever, regardless we are better. The American dream in real life.

The gate agent scans my pass. The machine beeps and flashes green. Looks like I have once again been approved by the system. It whispers to me: congratulations Darren, you are safe to continue. You are one of our preferred subjects.

The jet bridge is cold and smells metallic. My shoes squeak on the floor and I hate that sound, it feels childish.

At the plane door, the flight attendant smiles at me. It’s a practiced smile, it doesn’t reach her eyes, but it’s consistent. She’s probably been on her feet since 4am. She probably has an aching back. She probably has a manager who audits her facial expressions.

“Welcome aboard,” she says.

“Thanks,” I say.

I look at my ticket one last time before I sit even though I know I’m in 3A.

I put my bag under the seat in front of me, sit down, and start arranging my items. I tuck my water in between my legs. I get out my headphones and my laptop, text my wife “On the plane, see you soon, love you”, put the dreaded phone away, and breathe a sigh of relief. Got some work to do. Great.

I open my laptop and the deck appears. It’s already there, hungrily waiting for me.

Blitz Strategic Integration Roadmap Q3. Slide 1. Title. Slide 2. Agenda. Slide 3. What’s Working.

Yeah, what is working?

I stare at that phrase and I feel my face do that professional neutral thing. The thing that helped me get promoted over and over again. It makes people call me “steady.” What’s working is that I’m very good at being steady while I rot inside.

I click into the bullet list and my fingers hover. I start typing the truth.

What’s Working
We are all pretending.
We have meetings instead of conversations.
We confuse movement with progress.
We are addicted to comfort and terrified of silence.

It looks so naked in Calibri, so obvious and right. Everyone feels this, I know they do.

Then I ctrl-A, delete. Gone. Clean.

I’m not brave or stupid and I’m certainly not trying to be a martyr. I have a mortgage and a life built on stability. I have a wife I love. I’m also filled to the brim with shame. Lots of it. Enough shame to keep me polite forever.

I type What’s Working again and build a slide that won’t raise any eyebrows. We continue to drive cross functional alignment and platform development. User adoption is growing YoY and customer retention is steady at 90%. I add a couple bar graphs.

Nobody will look too closely at anything in my presentation, but everyone will nod at it. It will be pasted into meeting notes and forwarded and screenshotted and sent to someone’s boss as proof of productivity and forgotten.

The guy in 3B sits down next to me. He smells like deodorant and airport air and something stale. He’s got the same face I have. Not the exact same face. The same expression. The expression that says I’m here and I will be fine and please do not ask me anything personal.

“How’s it going,” he says.

“Good,” I say.

He nods. “Yeah. Same. You heading out for long?”

“Two days,” I say.

He exhales through his nose. “In and out.”

“Yep,” I say.

We have now acknowledged each other’s existence and then agreed to never actually connect. Perfect. We both put on our headphones.

The safety demo starts. Seatbelt click. Oxygen masks. Exit rows. The little diagram of a person sliding down a cartoon slide into the ocean. The flight attendant points dramatically at exit doors we all know will not open unless everything has gone wrong.

I watch the safety video and think about that stall again. The tab. The autocomplete. The way my hand shook when I checked to make sure it was closed. The way I washed my hands twice. The way I stared at myself in the mirror and tried to decide if I’m a good man.

I am a good man. I think. I think I am. I am a man who sometimes does disgusting things when he’s lonely. Life is fun.

The plane pushes back as the engines start humming. The low vibration makes my body feel smaller. People are already sucked into their devices. No one can just sit, myself included.

I switch over to my inbox. Every email is polite and that’s the best part. Everything is so fucking polite. Even the panic is polite.

Hey Darren quick question..
Hey Darren can you take a look?
Hey Darren do you have five minutes?
Hey Darren just circling back..

I close it. I open it again. I close it again. I can’t stop touching the cage bars.

The plane taxis and I look out the window. The airport is a machine. Everything moves on schedule, gets tagged and processed and sent on its way. The clean urinal, the security checkpoint, the boarding group, the smiling attendant who is dead inside, and somewhere on this laptop a slide called What’s Working.

The engines roar as we accelerate and the ground starts to blur. For a moment there’s that float, the brief second where gravity hesitates and my stomach goes up and my brain goes quiet and I feel something close to peace. Almost.

Then we’re in the air and it’s over. We are committed.

I adjust my tie without thinking about it, which is probably the most honest thing I’ve done all day. I open the deck again and slide 3 is still there. What’s Working.

I add a new bullet point.

Improved execution velocity across key initiatives.

I save it.

I stare at the file name. It has Q3 in it. It will have Q4 in it soon. It will have Q1 next year. It will never end. It will continue until I retire or die or become one of those men who talks to strangers at the airport bar about how he used to have dreams.

I look out the window at the white and endless clouds. The world looks clean from up here. It’s not. I close my eyes and try to keep my face relaxed. I push the kids to the edge of my thoughts and push the stall further down, into the corner where I keep the things I don’t look at directly.

And then I wait for the system to tell me what to do next. It always does.

Hello. I’m Darren. I work for Blitz. I’m on my way to another meeting.

Author’s Note

Corporate Drones is an anthology. Working on volume 2 now. Stay tuned if you can stomach it.