Workaday World XXXIII

Fast Company has been located in the Scotch & Sirloin building since 1997 or so, originally located on the fourth floor and then moving down one flight to slowly take over all of the third floor. It's been where I've come into work for the last six years, and it's been an amazing place. Now most of the team is moving on -- either to New York or parts unknown -- and almost everything that made this place what it was besides the people who populated it is wrapped in plastic and packed in boxes. Moving trucks idle in the back alley. The movers just took a lunch break. And I can get a sense of how the place will feel once everything has been moved.











Empty. There will still be about 12 of us working out of the Boston office, but it's going to be a different place, indeed. I thought I felt sad when Bill and Alan moved on. I thought I felt sad as friends and colleagues moved on. But it's amazing how the emptying of a place can make you feel.

It's funny, but writing this entry, I had to start up Tom Waits' "The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me)." I guess it's how I feel today.

The piano has been drinking, my necktie is asleep
And the combo went back to New York, the jukebox has to take a leak
And the carpet needs a haircut, and the spotlight looks like a prison break
Cause the telephone’s out of cigarettes, and the balcony is on the make
And the piano has been drinking
The piano has been drinking, and the menus are all freezing
And the light man’s blind in one eye and he can’t see out of the other
And the piano tuner’s got a hearing aid, and he showed up with his mother
And the piano has been drinking
The piano has been drinking
As the bouncer is a sumo wrestler, cream-puff Casper Milktoast
And the owner is a mental midget with the IQ of a fence post
Cause the piano has been drinking
The piano has been drinking
And you can’t find your waitress with a Geiger counter
And she hates you and your friends and you just can’t get served without her
And the box-office is drooling, and the bar stools are on fire
And the newspapers were fooling, and the ashtrays have retired
Cause the piano has been drinking
The piano has been drinking
The piano has been drinking
not me
not me
not me
not me
not
me

It's weird, because it's not like I'm leaving the magazine -- or like the magazine is folding. But this has been a special place, a place that's very much been a part of what made the magazine special. The space will remain, but there'll be a lot more space in it, that's for sure. Cheers!