Trying to manage the tight space of this table with the keyboard, tablet, and the monster sammich I brought from Food Bazaar. These tables are, now that I make myself more at home (hah) kinda small. This is an uplifting space, though, with the skylight window ceiling and generally pleasing interior. There is another space I saw last week that I simply have not been able to rediscover. I even checked the map (which goes against my serendipidousness of things) and could find no likely candidate for the space I saw, which looked very large and very empty, even at lunch hour.
Three tables in a row here are occupied by what looks like a family Just ballparking their ages based on appearance I’m guessing it’s two mothers (they are sisters), their three daughters (whose is whose I obviously can’t tell), and 3 grandkids. The eldest woman is holding bag that says “ECUADOR”, and all these lovelies look like they could be of Ecuadorian descent.
Not obvious to me is if any of these folks work here at Sony or in the area, and why they chose this facility as their lunchtime destination. There appears to be no urgency about the gathering, no indication that anyone needs to return to their place of work. Looks like a Sunday afternoon type of atmosphere.
To my left are two Asian women who look like they might work here or in the area. I think I detect office gossip in their mutually gleeful repartee.
Man behind me is on the phone, briefly each, with a series of individuals. He is running his business from the Sony Public Space. Talking about his customers, saying “Yes” then falling silent for several moments as whoever is on the other end talks, talks, and talks.
An RIEUCAFE to my left, a Starbucks within a Sony showroom/store to my right, the lobby of the building in front of me. One of the little Ecuadoran kids just got up and started running around the tables. He could bring an element of obnoxisity to things here. I have already secured my coffee from his flailing arms, which reach farther and farther every time he passes, his gallop increasing in speed. His reflexes are good, though, since he managed to stop running just in time before he would have slammed into a businessman’s crotch. Now he stops running, clinging to his mother with a winsome, whiny expression on his face. One of the grandmother’s hands the child a plastic container with food therein. The daughters pass their phones around, showing photos and sharing laughs.
This businessman behind me talks about approvals and prices, how he hopes to have that information ready soon.
I interviewed for a job here once. It’s the only time I was in this building anywhere except the SonyStyle shop or this public space. I remember little of the interview except the look on the woman’s face when I told her what I was making at Time-Warner. My salary there was about average for the industry, even a little low. Her reaction was probably not shock but bemusement at her own situation. Sony just does not pay very well at its American offices, as a small amount of post-interview research revealed.
None of the Ecuadoran mothers seem to have noticed I shamelessly ogled one of their daughter’s asses as she just walked across the space, en route to and then from the nearby trash can whence she dumped all the paper cups and plastic materials used to temporarily house their midday feast before it moved into its next temporary residence of their innards. The daughters appear to be in their 30s, the ones with the children looking considerably older than the one I just ogled, and who (at this moment, at least) does not appear to be responsible for any of the three children.
A beautiful woman smiled at me earlier, on 56th Street near 3rd Avenue. I suspect her smile was either in mockery of my Charlie Brown/Snoopy t-shirt, or else because she liked and appreciated said article of clothing.
The Ecuadoran clan abruptly got up and left, the two Asian women next ot me did as well, and I intend to skedaddle as well, not out of peer pressure but out of the inert tendency humans have to behave as does the herd.
