It’s weird walking into a building that you know won’t be standing in a few days. The inside is in complete disarray. There are piles of garbage, bags filled with documents for shredding, tools and inventory strewn about the floor, and a few vending machines buzzing away in an otherwise silent space. I’m trying to document the experience through shoddily taken cellphone photographs. I’m also borrowing (for good) whatever I think will come in handy in the future. Today I took a box of 144 mini pencils emblazoned with the company name, since I never seem to have a pencil on me when I need to write a note or thought. Tomorrow I’m reformatting all the computers and packing them away for donation, destroying more data (after making backups), and hopefully receiving a new television. Everyone is in storytelling, “remember when…” mode. Searching through old binders filled with payroll data from the early-to-late ’90s, Mario and I tried to figure out who knew more former employees. I think I won, but I’m at a disadvantage because I’ve been going there and working there in some capacity since early childhood. When I was in middle school, I alphabetized the original membership card system by hand before they switched to computers. All the little notecards I organized are going to be shredded later this week. I’ll chart my daily progress each day this week. Next week bulldozers will level the structure.
This once-pastoral landscape will be the home of Target and Whole Foods
1/10th of the Mess:
