The Best Desk on the Best Floor

We actually pulled it off. Off the street and into something resembling a plan. After a full day of location scouting and what I’d generously call an unauthorized walkthrough, the conclusion was obvious: Betahaus. Coworking space, in the modern parlance—which means I now spend my days seated among passionate freelancers, micro-agencies of ambiguous legitimacy, and at least one person who appears to be knitting professionally.

We claimed the best desk in the best room on the best floor, covered the surface immediately in magazines, pen holders, and cola bottles, and told ourselves this was the start of structure. This journal had always run a little chaotically. That was going to change. Sophisticated master plans. Digital achievements. More content, more quality, more everything. We grinned at each other about it, probably too much, and annoyed everyone around us in the process.

The shift has been stranger than I expected. Going to work instead of drinking beer in a park. Taking an actual lunch break instead of staying up until 2 a.m. with unemployed sculptors arguing about whether anything matters. Discussing the future with something approaching seriousness instead of just laughing it off and saying it’ll work out somehow. This is what professionalism feels like, apparently. Unsettling in a way I think I might be enjoying.

Funding for all of this comes mostly from our trolls—every moronic comment they post puts money in the account. They don’t need to understand the mechanics of how. If they figured it out they might stop, and that would be bad, because we still need a desk plant. An expensive one. So keep going, everyone. You’re doing necessary work.